Left on Paradise (7 page)

“Dollars?”

“Da,” the sailor said as he raised ten grease-stained fingers. “Doe-lars.”

Charles pulled a handful of change from his front pocket and handed the sailor ten quarter-sized coins imprinted with the bust of middle-aged matron—the woman’s hair fixed in a dour bun.

The man shook his head again. “Nyet. Doe-lars.”

“They are dollars,” Charles said as he pointed to an inscription stamped on the back of one of the clad coins.

The Russian pushed his hand away again.

“Giorgi,” the sailor said. “Toylko Giorgi.”

Charles shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t speak Russian. I read Lenin in German translation.”

“Giorgi,” the sailor repeated, this time more slowly. “Gi-or-gi Vosh-een-ton.”

“You mean George Washington?”

“Da,” the Russian said with an exasperated nod. “Giorgi Vosheenton.”

Now the American reached into his billfold and pulled out seven Giorgi Washingtons, two Abraham Lincolns, and two Andrew Jacksons before holding out six fingers for the Russian to see. The sailor slipped into a nearby cabin and quickly returned with six bottles of clear liquor: cheap Russian vodka. The smile on his face was broad as the exchange was made and grew even wider when Charles unscrewed the cap from one of the bottles.

“A toast, comrade,” Charles said as he took a sip, “to a great society in a new world.”

After drinking, Charles handed the bottle to the Russian—who grabbed it and took a long swig.

“T-t-to,” the sailor stuttered, “t-to Amerika. Kh mnoga Giorgi Vasheenton.”

Charles shook his head in dismay as the Russian took another gulp, but still reached into his wallet to give the Russian all of his remaining bills—as well as a pocketful of coins. There would be very little need for the trappings of commerce in the new world.

Tears welled in the Russian’s eyes as he stuffed the money into a pocket, embraced his socialist comrade, and God blessed America while racing down the hallway praising the profits of capitalism in a Russian dialect.

Charles took a long drink from the open bottle.

The next few days brought one mild storm (that caused dozens of emigrants to suffer severe seasickness until Doctor Graves prescribed anti-emetics) and boredom after the bad weather cleared. Because it proved difficult to navigate the narrow corridors of the ship without encountering some ill-tempered and quick-moving sailor who cursed settlers in brusque Russian for impeding his movement, many settlers endured the monotony from their rooms while the long days passed—though some sat on deck chairs and watched for the first glimpse of the new world.

On the tenth day of the voyage, one such lookout spotted land. “Land ho! To the west. The new world.”

It was a young brunette who jumped up and down on the ship’s bow and shouted for others to come quick—which they did. Within minutes, passengers knocked at cabin doors and called down passageways. Ten days of slow sailing had proved tedious since most planning had been completed in the first days. Now, there was something to see and within a half hour, nearly every emigrant stood on deck—straining for a good glimpse of the promised land. Still, even as the crowd bustled with energy and desire, no one was pressed too hard and every citizen took a turn looking from the forward positions.

Nothing more promising could have been imagined. By the time the pilgrims gathered, the ship neared its destination: an atoll of small islets and submerged reefs ringing a central island, the largest of the surrounding motu no more than a suburban block and the smallest little more than a few palm trees, a bit of broken coral, and a coating of bird droppings. The islets rose from a barrier reef that protected the island, punctured only by a leeward current that opened several gaps. The main island sat in the center of the atoll, its lush hills and dark shores framing a pristine lagoon whose turquoise waters were protected between a barrier reef and the beach. The island’s largest hill rose over three hundred yards at the peak, its steep slopes streaming to the sea where stretches of white sand ringed the shoreline like the glimmer of glass. Colonists with binoculars saw coconuts hanging ripe for harvest and sea turtles lumbering ever so slow across the beach. Even those who looked with the naked eye saw flocks of gulls fly overhead, some circling the ship and others diving into the lagoon for fish. A smooth-skinned and saw-toothed whale twice broke the surface near the ship before it slipped into the sanctuary of the sea and disappeared.

Now the ship was nearly stopped, its wake churning all the more for being slowed and the crew scampering across the deck as they relayed orders, shifted gear, and weighed anchor. The captain instructed passengers to prepare cabins for departure and Ryan told them to finish breakfast. Cooked meals, he announced, wouldn’t be available for several days. Settlers were told to fill canteens and draw military rations from the commissar. Every inhabitant was allotted four MREs—more than enough to cover three expected days of encampment. Water purification tablets were distributed by the handful as settlers gathered into their respective neighborhoods and sent delegations to collect tents, medicine boxes, cooking utensils, farming tools, food supplies, and water jugs. The process was completed before noon.

In the meantime, the ship’s crew secured anchor and lowered the landing craft using cables and a crane. The flat-bottomed LCVP then moved entire neighborhoods in a single trip—taking less than two hours to load, thread its way through a reef channel, and disembark its cargo. Each neighborhood moved with tents, camping gear, medicine boxes, cooking utensils, water rations, and personal effects while the ship’s crew both helped settlers climb down netting into the vintage landing craft and unloaded heavier cargo with a light crane. The first trip commenced at noon and the final landing was concluded at dusk. Russian sailors worked fast, though they took little care with their more urbane passengers—carelessly casting man and material alike on the sand so they could finish the day’s work as fast as possible. In their haste, they even dropped one crate of supplies into the sea (where it sank) and damaged two others. Disembarkation timetables and incentive bonuses required citizens to be ashore by day’s end.

After reaching shore, colonists moved materials to an open field previously designated a recreational area and base camp. Maps were checked for campsite markings and cargo was moved beyond the reach of the tide. As time permitted, tents were pitched and sleeping bags unrolled—and when each group completed its assigned tasks, members returned to the beach to assist new arrivals. Willing hands raised tent poles, built campfires, and warmed dinner packets. Groups of men equipped with axes cut firewood from fallen trees while older children scoured forests for kindling.

It was nearly dark when the last boat was unloaded and the final tent was pitched. The new land had been peopled and only a few settlers remained on the freighter to tend heavy cargo, feed hungry livestock, and water those plants which hadn’t been hauled ashore. For those settlers already ashore, there was both gratitude and relief for having escaped the inconveniences of life at sea—though not a single person, man or woman alike, was observed kneeling on the soft sands of a tropical beach to give God glory for delivering them from the perils and rigors of their ten-day journey.

6

The Sands of New Plymouth

“We came for them.”

A dark-skinned man who looked to be in his early thirties and sat before a dying fire spoke out loud. Only a few flames flickered in the cool night air, dimly lighting the shadows of his dark flesh. The fire had burned down long ago and now was little more than white-hot coals covered with gray ash. Only after the man threw another log into the coals did it flare into flames as the green wood quickly dried—steam pouring from the pores of the bark and sap sizzling from every crack. Within minutes, the log blazed bright as it began to burn to soot and coals.

Watching both the fire and the man, an ebony-skinned woman, dressed in a sleeveless shirt and cutoff shorts—and who looked to be the same age as her mate—smiled.

“Remember,” the woman said, “how I didn’t want kids.”

“Only because of society,” the man replied, “and I never really blamed you.”

“Maybe we were right. But all the same, I’m glad we had them.”

“I guess accidents aren’t always bad.”

The woman smiled.

“I wonder,” the man continued, “how our parents are doing? They weren’t prepared to lose both grandchildren so young.”

“It’s only been four years since they were born.”

“It seems longer. The work’s been awful—twins for our first pregnancy—but it also seems that we’ve ... I mean, you’ve only just had them.”

The woman took a drink from her canteen and ate a bit of coconut. “We had to come, Brent,” she said. “We didn’t have a choice.”             

“For them, Tiff.”

“Imagine,” the man said, “no racism, no pollution, no war.”

The woman nodded her agreement.

“And,” the man added, “no Republicans.”

“Do you suppose they’re as bad as racism and war?”

“Is there a difference?”

Both laughed.

“Seriously,” the man said, “think of all the temptations in the world: capitalism, commercialism, racism, sexism, militarism, classism. That’s what scared me about life back there. And our parents would’ve entangled our children in the world’s snares as surely as we’re sitting in sand. We had to come. Not for our sake, but theirs.”

“I agree,” Tiffany said. “Your father already gave the boys plastic soldiers and toy guns and mindless computer games. And both our moms would’ve forever drilled stereotypes into our boys.”

“Mine,” Brent said, “already did. Remember when she yelled at Theodore for crying like a girl. What a Texas sexist!”

“I wanted to slap her. If she weren’t your mother, I would’ve too.”

“Well, we won’t need to now. Not among these people. We’ve got a great neighborhood.”

The woman nodded and the man stood. Brent threw a little trash into the fire and secured a few rocks around its perimeter while Tiffany placed a bucket of water near their tent’s entrance twenty feet away before taking her husband’s hand and pointing to the beach.

“It’s taken millions of years,” Tiffany said, “to prepare this island—the eruptions of volcanoes, the cooling of land, the seeding of soil, and the erosion of surf. Millions of years to make this garden for us. It almost makes one believe in God.”

The man moved his arm around the woman’s waist and pulled her near.

“It’s our Eden now,” Brent said, “and our children’s.”

Tiffany zipped open the tent’s flap and slipped in as her husband followed. Just inside the tent, she stretched her hand to stop him.

“Look at them,” Tiffany whispered. “They’re so sweet.”

“Your best work, Tiff.”

The woman leaned against her husband and whispered something. He smiled and reached past two little boys sleeping back-to-back as he collected two sleeping rolls. After quietly zipping the tent flap, husband and wife together spread their sleeping bags across grassless sand. When the fires of nearby encampments flickered out, the couple embraced and afterwards enjoyed a long swim while their children slept.

On the second day, a malfunctioning crane slowed the unloading process and it wasn’t until dusk that the beach showed its full complement of two hundred crates and boxes, each marked for a specific neighborhood or general storage. Supplies were moved beyond the reach of the tide and draped with plastic in the event of rain. Particular care was taken to roll twenty casks of wine away from the shore to the protective shade of thick-leafed trees. With the day’s work completed, half of the pilgrims slept in tents and half beneath the stars. Only one of them—a young woman who’d never visited a beach—woke to find her feet soaked by the rising tide before she could drag her blankets to the safety of higher ground.

On the third day, the landing craft delivered its last five loads. The first two cargoes included potted vegetables and fruits, most of them mere shoots. The next two loads included treated timber, bags of cement, steel piping, iron grating, and even a pallet of red bricks. The final batch transported domesticated livestock—fifteen goats brought for their milk, cheese, and wool—as well as a brood of speckled chickens and several roosters. Each goat was fitted with a collared bell so strays could be tracked. Chickens, in a like manner, had their wings clipped and were restricted to cages until real coops could be built. No domesticated animals were to be allowed to roam free or feed from island vegetation. By lunch, bags of animal feed were stacked in the sand and a herd of leashed goats shaded beneath the palms. Several children, including the daughters of Linh and Viet, fetched buckets of water to quench the thirst of bird and beast. The children also gave names to the animals.

Each inhabitant worked as he or she pleased during disembarkation. Some unloaded crates while others tended camp. A dozen people helped the professional staff prepare ground for a permanent base a hundred yards inland—just beyond the crest of a shallow rise thought to provide sufficient protection against the most vigorous swells of the sea. The site encompassed a sloped meadow half the size of a youth soccer field and was comprised of three nearly equal sections: personal tents in loose lines along the northern edge of the meadow, public meeting tents in a circular encampment on the eastern side of the field, and supply tents (to include three large military tents and three smaller pup tents) set in rows to the west. A small library was constructed from a self-assembly shed (made of hard plastic able to endure the worst weather) and quickly filled with an assortment of books suitable for life and leisure on a remote island. Finally, a ready-made animal pen holding the goats was built within a grove of coconut palms opposite the human quarters.

The base camp was designed to serve both as a permanent settlement for the professional staff and a public shelter during emergencies. Therefore, its supply tents also housed a large emergency generator and a crated desalination system—as well as radios and batteries, spare tools, extra utensils, bags of flour and rice, tins of meat, cans of condensed milk, tubs of freeze-dried vegetables, assorted tents, medicines, blankets, hardware, and various provisions. Outside of the tents were stacks of bricks, treated wood, rolled wire, iron grills, and a dozen bags of concrete mix. A bermed storage area with a collapsible shelter enclosed the site’s supply of fuel: three hundred gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel stored in double-walled plastic drums (stacked in tarp-lined pits for additional protection). Indeed, the base camp resembled a construction site, though most settlers maintained stringent standards of environmental concern and kept their supplies in neat stacks. Drainage ditches were dug and reinforced revetments built around toxic materials.

Tents to the east of the supply yard served as an office area for the professional staff and consisted of six military staff tents, one hospital tent (designed for refugee camps), two six-person medical tents, and an enormous company-sized military dining tent. The square-shaped staff shelters stood eight foot tall, possessed vented windows, and were assigned to the doctor, veterinarian, nurse practitioner, sociologist, psychologist, and anthropologist. Each professional possessed an office tent complete with necessary supplies, including: bookshelves, desks, laptop computers (whose batteries were charged on the generator), and office supplies. The hospital tent stood no higher than the staff tents, though it was twice as long, having been chosen to accommodate two rows of four beds each. Two smaller tents flanked the large hospital tent (one a sanitized surgical tent and the other a small dispensary) and a potable water purification facility and a large medicinal refrigerator were colocated in a shed erected behind the hospital tent—their equipment powered by six large batteries charged by a prudent combination of wind power and solar energy. A self-enclosed and sanitized portable toilet (like those used at state fairs and political rallies) sat outside the hospital tent as the only industrially produced toilet on the island. Finally, the enormous dining tent in the village consisted of a single room that rose fifteen feet in the center and eight feet at the sides, with room for the entire community to sit inside. One hundred folding chairs were stacked in ten rows of ten seats each—with additional chairs kept on either side of a small lectern that faced the entire assembly.

“God? He’s just another social conservative—the absolute absolutist.”

A middle-aged woman donning professorial spectacles and clenching a bound-leather edition of
Das Capital
spoke to a man nearly her age—who carried a single-bladed ax by the head, his thick fingers securing the steel on its dull side.

“Sorry ma’am,” the man said, a consternated look on his face, “but all I said was thank God we’ve arrived safely.”

“That statement,” the woman lectured, “implies the existence of a transcendent being, his providential government of the world, and the necessity of human obeisance—both individual and corporate. That simple sentence is a veritable theological lesson that blurs the separation of church and state and has no place in a progressive community.”

“I didn’t intend,” the man apologized, “to sacrifice virgins to the gods. I wasn’t thinking of religion at all.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I suppose I’m a little touchy about divinity. Because of the tight academic job market back in the States, I was forced to work at a Congregationalist seminary as the only confessing atheist on staff.”

“It’s Joan,” the woman said as she extended her hand, “if you remember.”

The man clasped her hand and shook lightly. “And I’m John Smith,” he responded. “We talked a little on the boat. Just chitchat. No theology.”

“Sorry, John. This wasn’t very neighborly of me.”

Now the man slid his free hand down the ax handle and let the head drop to the ground, though breaking its fall before the tool struck earth. Turning the ax blade away from his own booted foot and the sandal-clad foot of the middle-aged theologian, John Smith tried to make peace.

“I bet you have stories to tell.”

The woman let her shoulders fall a little and breathed deep. “The most interesting,” Joan said, “was when I was called—as the head of the theology department, mind you—to present the graduation invocation. Hundreds of families were present and many of them were influential donors. One wrong slip and I’d not only be out of the theological closet, but out the divinity door as well—straight to the veritable hell of looking for a religious studies position at a secular university. Given my beliefs, I mean my ideology, I walked on eggshells until I was tenured. It was only then that I was able to throw a coming-out-as-an-atheist party.”

The man leaned forward, his hands curled around the base of the ax handle—the head of which now rested secure on the ground.

“So,” John asked, “the dean was after you?”

“Heavens, no. The only thing he was after was coeds. He and I got along quite well. He was a pantheist himself, but he respected my atheism. No, the problem was the audience. They expected me to be a true believer. Some kind of religious fanatic simply because I taught church dogmatics.”

“So what happened?”

“I told the audience,” Joan said, “I’d be reciting one of the great prayers of the Western tradition. And so I did: a paean originally addressed to Jupiter by a Roman pagan. Late third century if I remember. A literal translation from the Latin. I didn’t change a word.”

“How’d they react?”

“The simpletons loved it. The dolts thought it Christian. Athanasius would have excommunicated the whole lot of them and they applauded me. The irony is simply delightful. Absolutely delightful.”

John wiped his hand across his shirt and extended it. “Peace?”

“Peace,” Joan said as she clasped his hand with her own, then pointed to a stacked cord of firewood. “How long have you been cutting?”

“A couple hours.”

“Let me give you a hand carrying this to camp.”

“That’s not necessary.”

A frown crossed Joan’s face before she collected her thoughts and forced a smile. “John Smith,” she declared, “religious fanaticism was bad enough. We don’t need to resort to gender stereotypes as well, do we?”

“I suppose not,” John said as he set down his ax and walked to the woodpile—where he grabbed a few logs and gave them to the woman.

“More. A man’s load.”

John picked up three more logs. He placed them atop the others, balanced the theologian’s copy of
Das Kapital
atop the wood, and returned to his own work.