Free Children of Paradise: A Novel by Fred D'Aguiar Page B

coming from it. He opens the cart to show them that it is full of harmless clocks and watches. He tells the guards that by shooting at his cart, they try to kill time but succeed only in ruining his merchandise. The commune leader purchases a kitchen clock and a schoolroom clock from the watch repair specialist to compensate him for the damage and for the fright of being fired upon. The seller of timepieces trudges from the compound, dissatisfied. He grumbles.
    —Time wasted on you people.
    The man feels he knows time from the inside out.
    —Nobody can beat time. No matter how grand he think he is.
    On his way out of the compound, the time seller waves at Adam.
    —I feel sorry for you, forced to live here and watch them day and night.
    The time seller’s sweeping gesture takes in the rain forest, whose clock is the rain made in the trees and the mist grazing and a sun crawling in a blue sea fished by birds and sailed by cloud.
    Adam looks around at the industry of the commune that surrounds him. The people’s unceasing labor is a testament of their higher calling, and by their treatment of him, keeping him close to them and giving him a central place in their lives, he feels elevated from his humble position of a dumb beast to honorary citizen of the commune. The people want him here so that he can witness their toiling. All he has to do is look up at the giant monocot trees that fringe the compound to see how much labor it takes to clear this place and erect buildings and weed and pluck the wild greenery every day to keep it from encroaching and swallowing the compound. He, too, could pluck, chop, and carry if they would let him. He cannot see himself sitting around in a clearing or propped against a tree picking fleas from some other gorilla’s fur as another hand combs his fur for ticks to nibble. He knows nothing of that life. He was captured too young. Saved from his preordained station in the order of things, his fate tied to that of the compound and its inhabitants. His place in the world is narrated in the creation stories read aloud by the children seated in a semicircle in front of a teacher and sheltered from the flames of the sun under the inclusive canopy of a tree. But he will prove destiny wrong.

SIX
    T he entire community of more than one thousand souls is required to attend nightly sermons unless someone is bedridden in the infirmary. Everyone aims to finish chores early to find a chair. Latecomers end up seated on the floor. The singing of hymns begins right away and continues as the place fills up, and soon those who have missed finding a chair simply squat on the ground beside a row of seats and shelter under the tarpaulin from the cool night breeze, the mosquitoes, and the general feel of discomfort of sitting too close to the thick jungle dark. Citronella coils burn. Bulbs strung around the tented structure attract kamikaze moths. Guards stand around the edges of the congregation to keep children in their place and wave off with big sticks and much gesticulating of arms and whistling and curses any curious night life that will arrive, mostly in the form of snakes, wild boar, and the occasional hungry panther. The preacher remains in his house waiting for the right time to join the congregation and deliver his sermon. He paces the corridor behind his front door and warms up for the service. He clasps his leather-bound Bible to his right breast and utters verses aloud, gesturing wildly. He hears the singing and clapping and waits until he is satisfied that the congregation has reached an optimal volume. And if joy in a clearing means anything in the pitch black of the jungle, it surely amounts to the preacher’s flock of devoted followers in full swing, vocals at a maximum, hands red from vigorous clapping, feet hot from stamping on the ground, and wide smiles on sweating faces invigorated by chanting and movement and pooled enthusiasm.
    His appearance results in shouts and whistles and prolonged