Left on Paradise (20 page)

Both Karla and Heather sat down as Maria reclaimed the floor.

“Does anyone disagree,” Maria asked, “that this bill allows couples the freedom to make marriage in whatever fashion they choose? Good. However we may define love, at least we can agree upon the interpretation of this particular law of love. Are there other concerns?”

Now an older man from the audience spoke—who stood with two big-toothed, blond-haired teenagers at his side: one boy and one girl.

“Nothing in the law prohibits the marrying of cousins.”

A few groans were uttered and both teenagers blushed.

“Not like that,” the man explained with a look of utter disgust furrowed into his face. “These two are brother and sister and their cousins live across the ocean. It’s just that there aren’t any laws to prohibit incest—if that’s the right word to use for cousin marriages. And presumably we’ll be here a long time, with plenty of cousins within a generation.”

“Why should we stop cousins from marrying?” someone shouted—it was Alan who had objected.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit scandalous?” the father of the big-toothed teenagers said. “I mean, we’re not in Arkansas.”

A red-haired woman from the south stood to her feet. “As a point of fact,” she declared, “marriage to a first cousin is prohibited in Arkansas.”

“Well, then,” the father of the big-toothed teenagers said, “I meant to say Kentucky.”

“Prohibited there too.”

“Utah?”

“Criminal offense.”

“Where is it allowed?”

“California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island ...”

“That can’t be true.”

“I did the legal research,” the red-haired woman said, “for a civil liberties group. We were looking for wedge issues to dismantle Christian influence on public policy, but decided that suing redneck—I mean, red—states to allow first cousins to marry might look bad in the press.”

“Well,” the father of the teenagers said as the red-haired southern woman sat down, “wherever it’s allowed, I still think it’s scandalous.”

“Gays,” Alan now declared, “were once burned as scandalous.”

“It’s unnatural.”

“Natural law,” Alan objected, “is the handmaiden of social conservatism.”

“Do you mean to say,” the man stammered, his jaw clenched and face crimson, “my son should be free to marry his cousin or—heaven forbid I should even say this—I’m free to sleep with my daughter? Or my son?”

The big-toothed girl blushed and her brother turned away as he struggled to restrain a smirk.

The assembly quieted.

“I’m not saying it’s ideal,” Alan said, “but I don’t intend to burn anyone at the stake. Do you?”

“No,” the father said, “but we’ve got to uphold some kind of standard, whatever it might be.”

In an instant, a dozen people sprang to their feet to object to any hint of moral absolutism, pointing out that the creation of standards of sexual propriety would inevitably lead to monogamy: unbending and unbroken. Some even chided Alan for indicating that incest might not be ideal—protesting that his choice of words implied a standard of morally ideal behavior.

After some discussion, Dr. Scott Law settled the crowd.

“Dr. Morales,” the sociologist said, “as many of you are aware, currently is on an expedition. He’s been gone for a couple weeks and we’re not sure when he’s coming back—and it’s really too bad he’s away since this is a situation he could address. Still, if you don’t mind, I‘ll depart from my own area of expertise and speak from his scholarship since he’s written extensively upon sexual mores and I’ve studied his work.”

No one objected.

“To begin with,” Dr. Law declared, “even in Anthropology 101 we learn ethics are based on something more tangible than transcendent ideals and absolute precepts. It’s from the needs of social organization and the development of a cultural ethos that morality rises. The reason we don’t want to marry brothers and sisters is because of the development of progressive mores in a modern economy. That’s anchor enough to avoid any scandal. Surely no one believes we’ve all managed to escape marrying our aunts and uncles from obedience to the laws of Moses or the theology of St. Augustine? Who studies Thomas Aquinas’s defense of natural law? Or feels bound by the ethics of Paul or the precepts of Jesus? Who studies the decrees of Charlemagne and Justinian? To be honest, which of us ever read the legal codes of any of the fifty states against incestuous marriages?”

No one raised a hand.

“Now,” Dr. Law continued, “it’s evident that cultural mores govern conduct and are reflected in religion and philosophy and codes of law. That is, it’s the social situation that makes ethical ideals, not vice versa. We don’t need to delve into the structural forces leading to the establishment of cultural mores: primarily class organization and power relationships. That’d require Morales himself to lecture. What matters today is that we recognize the establishment of new laws as superfluous. Not only do they portend a return to puritanical legalism, but they’re redundant and unnecessary. It’s because this man’s household has been organized as an exogamous social unit in a neo-capitalist society requiring sustained economic and social interaction between consumptive household units that his son feels shamed to sleep with a cousin, no matter how attractive she might be. And it’s because the wider society is socially and economically exogamous that many of us are uncomfortable with the thought of him doing so. What could be a deeper drive than the social mores which we imbibe from infancy? Than our entire way of organizing culture? And I won’t even touch on those who root the incest taboo in biological imperative, except to say that their arguments render it even less likely that individuals will sleep with parents, children, brothers and sisters.”

The speaker paused one moment as he surveyed his audience—which remained hushed and attentive.

“In fact,” Dr. Law concluded, “I believe we will prove ourselves most liberal and most progressive if we leave such laws unpassed—to show the rest of the world that their prisons and prejudices and whips are far less effective than they imagine. Let our cousins—when we have them—play together without strictures and threats and we’ll prove to the whole world the presuppositions of Paradise.”

The professor’s speech carried the day as the assembly erupted into spontaneous applause and Maria waited several minutes for their enthusiasm to subside before she continued the session.

“Well spoken,” Maria said as clapping finally faded. “Well spoken. By voice vote, who sides with the speaker?”

The assembly thundered its approval.

“Then I suggest,” Maria continued, “we vote on the marriage laws. We’ve already opened them for discussion and found two points of controversy. The first was the issue of making marriage, which has been resolved by permitting freedom to couples to make their own nuptials. The second regarded the regulation of marital partners and we’ve decided the law permits all consenting adults to marry as they see fit. Ethnic and gender distinctions don’t matter. Nor does age, except that marriage is permitted only to adults. We shouldn’t pass laws explicitly forbidding incest, but mostly because it’s understood such taboos are based in drives stronger than legislation; they’re rooted in the very laws of human nature and social interaction.”

“Any final comments?” Maria asked as she took a step backwards.

“This law is so pro-family,” the gray-haired delegate who had helped compose the draft at Executive Council now stood to speak, “it almost could’ve been written by the Family Research Council. But as much as I wish we could live without any regulations or laws, we need some kind of public policy to protect ourselves. For those of you who think like me, it’s important to remember this law maximizes freedom and choice and experimentation. In fact, it codifies alternative lifestyles and provides them a legal underpinning they lack right now. I can well imagine this code being used more often to extend our rights than to restrict them. My fellow delegates to Small Council know I was uncomfortable with this discussion in the beginning, but now I’d like to go on record in favor of the law. It’s modern and individualistic.”

As the woman sat to mild applause, Maria raised her hand to get the assembly’s attention. “Are we ready to vote?”

The four men behind her signaled their readiness.

“Let’s vote,” Maria said, “then we can party.”

The crowd cheered.

“By hands,” Maria announced, “cast your votes. Those in favor of the proposal raise your right hand.”

A sea of hands stretched toward the canvas ceiling as Maria and the other leaders counted seventy-seven votes for the legislation.

“Those opposed?”

Not a single hand was raised, though a handful of islanders shrugged shoulders or shook heads.

“The motion is carried seventy-seven to nothing.”

Now one of the male moderators stepped forward and took Maria’s place.

“Remember,” the man said, “those of you already married—whether heterosexual, homosexual, or otherwise—you have fourteen days to renew your vows or present marriages will be dissolved and you’ll become eligible bachelors, straight and gay alike. Understood?”

The crowd demonstrated its understanding with shouts and cheers.

“After the final reading of the charter,” the moderator continued, “the beach will be opened for a party. The east camp has brought a mountain of food to celebrate this historic day and New Plymouth has fueled the generator to power a stereo for some dancing.”

The islanders cheered one final time before the charter was read and the oath of allegiance retaken. After the meeting concluded, the crowd dispersed where it willed.

An hour later, islanders gathered at the beach. Several swam and most ate. Nearly everyone drank. The party centered on a table of smoked fish, boiled lobster, and baked breadfruit that also was garnished with a spread of sauces and snacks. As islanders ate, Tiffany pushed through the crowd of partiers, dragging Brent by the hand and calling for witnesses. At first she merely talked over the din of conversation, but when that didn’t get everyone’s attention, she shouted so loud that the entire assembly quieted.

“Brent has something to say. Don’t you, honey?”

Brent laughed. “Tiffany wants ...”

Tiffany elbowed her husband.

“I want,” Brent corrected himself, “to affirm Tiffany and I’d like to marry.”

Tiffany elbowed him a second time and Brent rubbed his ribs.

“Right now, I mean,” Brent said.

Those who watched laughed.

“Is this a marriage freely made?” someone shouted.

“With all the freedom of an already married man,” another voice cried out.

Brent sucked in his stomach, pulled back his shoulders, and covered his ribs with an arm.

“Yes,” Brent announced. “She’s the mother of my children and the love of my life and I want to marry her again. I give my consent. Now.”

Joan stepped forward.

“Then,” Joan declared, “I now pronounce you man and wife—again. Your wedding banquet awaits on the beaches of Paradise.”

“And I’ll take the kids for your honeymoon,” Kit offered.

Tiffany wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck as he leaned to kiss her and several women threw broken bits of coconut and unripened grains of wild rice at the newlyweds—though one girl lamented that she was unable to toss real birdseed in accord with modern custom.

The party was boisterous as husbands and wives teased about remarriage—many pretending to negotiate for better terms. Husbands called themselves freedmen and so did their wives; single girls danced close to married men and unmarried men flirted with women who wore diamond rings. Bowls smoking with marijuana and bottles filled with California wine, Jamaican rum, or Scotch whiskey circulated as dancing continued past midnight. When the night finally burned itself out, easterners and southerners staggered home while westerners and northerners bedded down at the beach—using blankets and bedrolls pulled from storage.

Most rose late and started the hike home before breakfast. A few who tried to eat breakfast threw up, still feeling the effects of the night before.

Morning was slow to warm.

17

Nothing New Under the Sun

Kit woke at dawn. When she saw the empty bedroll beside her, she remembered that she’d walked home with Heather since Ryan was too drunk to stumble through the dark. She picked out a fresh set of clothes and emerged from her tent into a nearly empty camp where John and Heather talked over coffee.

“Anyone making breakfast?” Kit asked.

“I will,” John said.

“Thanks. It’s Jason’s turn, but ...”

Heather cleared her throat. “Most of the neighborhood,” she interrupted, “is still at base camp.”

“How about Ryan?” Kit asked.

“Sean came back a few minutes ago and said everyone else was still there.”

“Maria?”

Heather forced a nervous smile as Kit shook her head and sighed.

“We can start work after lunch,” Kit said after a time. “Does that work for you?”

“Easy,” Heather replied. “I’d like to clean up this morning.”

“I’m planting crops after breakfast,” John said.

“I’ll help,” Kit said.

John said there was no need and then asked whether Linh might help with child-care duties since Small Council wasn’t meeting for several days. Kit hadn’t yet answered when both she and John stopped talking and looked toward the tents—where Ursula now emerged. The pregnant woman’s hair hadn’t been combed in a week, her face was drawn pale, and her step uncertain—but she was out of bed and now inched toward a stool near the campfire.

“I feel like shit.”

Kit put a finger to her lips.

“Not,” Kit whispered, “in front of the children.”

“Sorry,” Ursula said as she looked around. “I didn’t see them.”

“I mean yours.”

“Most likely,” Ursula said as she smiled a little, “she’ll have a potty mouth like her mother.”

John called from the mess tent, asking Ursula what she wanted for breakfast. After the pregnant woman requested crackers and fruit, he served a plate of sliced fruit and hard bread before returning to the fire to stir oatmeal and warm coffee. As the three women talked, a breeze swept the aroma of cooking food toward the tents and it wasn’t long before all four children lined up to beg food—with their parents soon in line behind them. The food tasted good and even Ursula decided to chance a second helping, this time trying a bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with sugar and diced pineapple.

Following breakfast, John gathered an armload of tools and bags of seeds and went to the fields—where Viet joined him while Heather and Kit washed dishes and Linh walked the children to Turtle Beach. After dishes were done, Heather and Kit collected their toiletries and escorted Ursula to the waterfall. By midmorning, not a living soul remained in the camp except Sean—who remained in bed with a hangover.

Ursula gathered strength as the sun rose. Color returned to her cheeks as the morning warmed and her step grew steadier as she followed Kit and Heather to bathe. She spoke louder and even joked about her misery. All three women removed their clothes after arriving at the waterfall.

Kit unfastened her bra and tossed it atop a small bush with a theatrical fling while the others laughed.

“It’s my last decent bra,” Kit said. “I made the mistake of swimming in the other and the salt water destroyed it. The elastic is ruined.”

“That’s what you get for filling it so full,” Heather said after a glance at Kit’s chest. “I’d offer you my spare but it wouldn’t snap shut. I’m not sure it’d cover one side.”

“Thanks,” Kit said with a smile, “for such generosity.”

“I just realized,” Ursula groaned, “my bras won’t fit if my chest grows.”

Heather raised her hand.

“Dibs,” the teenager called out, “on any you outgrow.”

“We can adjust them,” Kit said, “with needles and thread.”

“Do you realize,” Ursula asked, “my boobs will be stretched to my knees if I nurse out here? There’s not a good support bra within a thousand miles. I’ll look like some cannibal’s mother from
National Geographic
.”

“As a near-vegetarian,” Heather cried out, “I protest that allusion.”

All three women laughed.

One after another they showered in the cool water of the waterfall—though they paid scant attention to Heather’s petroglyphs, being far more interested in the bar of soap and bottle of shampoo that the teenager had brought with her. Indeed, the women talked little as they soaked, scrubbed, and rinsed for nearly half an hour.

“Now I feel human,” Ursula said as she dried herself.

“Cleaned with soap instead of sand,” Kit said. “My skin feels smooth.”

“You sound like a commercial,” Heather said as she bunched and tied her hair with a dark blue ribbon.

“Commercial capitalism returns,” Ursula said. “Charles and Joan wouldn’t be pleased.”

“Pleased or not,” Kit said, “I’d die for an hour in Macy’s lingerie department.”             

“I’d die for a banana split,” Ursula said, then looked at a nearby banana tree, “without the bananas. Never another damned banana.”

“Remember the baby,” Kit said as she winced.

“You’re right,” Ursula said. “I’d share the ice cream with my baby, but neither of us want any damned bananas.”

“You’re right about ice cream,” Kit said. “We’ll get dessert before we shop for lingerie.”

“I also want a potato with sour cream,” Ursula said, leading all three women to place orders for their favorite foods.

“Order me one too.”

“And chocolate cake.”

“Me too.”

“And real Chinese takeout.”

“Same here.”

“Don’t forget the pizza pie.”

“I want pizza and pie.”

“And finally,” Ursula said. “A steak. I’m dying for a slab of beef.”

“Your kingdom for a cow?” Kit asked.

Ursula pointed toward Heather, who wore only a cotton towel wrapped loose around her hips. “She looks good enough to grill.”

“She’s almost Midwest corn fed,” Kit said. “No mad cow disease from her.”

“Halfsies?”

Kit started to grab Heather’s arm, but missed when Heather jumped back and squared a fist, clasping her towel with the other.

“I’m a vegetarian,” she said, “not a pacifist.”

All three women laughed as they sat near the waterfall. Heather soon stretched her legs.

“I need a good shave,” Heather said.

The others saw the long wet hairs, nearly a half-inch long, lying flat across tanned legs.

“That’s nothing,” Ursula said, lifting an arm. “I’ve got more hair under my arms than Sean does. I could curl it.”

Both Heather and Kit grimaced.

“I haven’t shaved in a month,” Ursula continued. “I brought a jumbo pack of refills—and lost it the first week.”

“That’s lost treasure,” Kit said.

“Tell me.”

“I shave once a week,” Heather said.

“So do I,” Kit said, “but I’m still down to my last two blades.”

“I have three,” Heather laughed, “but my legs are a bit stubbly.”

“As a progressive,” Kit said with a shudder, “I’m against regress—especially to the fashions of yesteryear: like those of hair-covered cavewomen. I can hardly stand unshaved legs, at least on me. Too many years in the beauty parlors.”

“Lisa,” Ursula said, “is sporting a European style. She hasn’t shaved since we arrived.”

“I don’t judge her,” Kit said, “but I’d be wearing long pants if my legs were as fuzzy as hers. No matter how hot it might be.”

“Long pants are unlikely,” Ursula said. “She also told me she’s going native.”

Both Kit and Heather looked confused.

“Au natural,” Ursula explained, “says she’s tired of tearing her shirts.”

“I won’t be much different in a few weeks,” Kit said, “I only have two decent ones left. The rest are rags.”

“Save ‘em,” Ursula said, “for your period since we’re out of tampons.”

Heather and Kit nodded.

“I’m not about to run around this island topless,” Heather said. “Not with Jason so close.”

“Doesn’t he give you the creeps?” Ursula said.

“He needs a wife,” Heather said.

“That’s premarital wife abuse,” Ursula retorted. “I think it might be a mortal sin.”

The conversation died a few minutes later when Kit found a pole to knock down some coconuts; her strike was hard and two nuts soon fell to the ground.

Heather cut through one with a machete and bore into the nut with an auger—handing it to Ursula.

“For your baby.”

Ursula drank, then Kit and Heather finished what remained before they cracked the nut and used pocketknives to pry fruit from the shell. After they’d eaten, all three women lay in the shade. No one spoke until Kit tapped Ursula on the shoulder.

“Are you excited yet?” Kit asked.

“I’m getting there,” Ursula said. “I’ve had time to think and I know I really want to keep the baby. No adoptions or anything.”

“What about Sean?”

“He’s a jerk,” Ursula said, “but I suppose I’ll have to keep him too.”

“Will he help?”

“He says so.”

“How?” Kit asked.

Ursula shrugged.

“What do you want from him?”

“I guess I’d expect marriage,” Ursula said. “I’d rather not do single motherhood in Paradise.”

“You,” Kit said as she forced a smile, “have motherhood without marriage and I have marriage without motherhood.”

“I haven’t even got a boyfriend,” Heather declared.

“Jason’s available,” Ursula said.

“I’ll pass.”

“What about Jose?” Kit asked.

“As far as I can tell, he’s chasing Maria.”

“I wish he’d catch her,” Kit said as the women returned to the water’s edge to shave.

Only after they rinsed arms and legs did Heather ask when Kit planned to renew her vows.

“We haven’t had time to talk yet,” Kit answered. “Tiffany probably did it the right way—public and to the point.”

“Ask her to give me some advice about Sean,” Ursula said.

“She is good at it,” Kit said. “Not at all timid.”

Heather and Ursula agreed and a few minutes later, the women packed their toiletries and each returned to her work. Heather climbed for coconuts while Ursula and Kit collected bananas and breadfruit. Ursula’s strength soon was sapped by sun and sweat and she returned to camp with just two bunches of bananas slung over her shoulders while Heather and Kit returned much later with bags full of fruit.

After Ursula retired early, Sean ate dinner with Joan and Deidra, then bathed and washed dirty laundry. After hanging the clothes to dry, he returned to his tent and lay down next to Ursula—whose eyes followed his arrival, but whose lips didn’t move. When he scooted closer, she turned away, both hands beneath a pillow and sleeping bag drawn tight. Sean caressed the pregnant woman’s neck until Ursula shook herself free.

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“You haven’t felt like it for weeks.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Only a little.”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“This isn’t,” Sean sat up as he spoke, “about morning sickness or whatever it’s called this time of day, is it?”

Ursula said nothing.

“What’s it about?” Sean said, with evident irritation to his voice.

Ursula still didn’t speak, so Sean rolled her over.

“You’re a jerk,” the young woman said with a scowl.

“What’d I do?”

“Viet helped me cross Mount Zion last night. While you were partying it up at the beach.”

“I asked you whether I should go or could stay a little longer.”

“You shouldn’t have to ask.”

“I should read your mind?”

“You should be kind.”

“I thought you liked your independence.”

“I like compassion too.”

“You have to tell me what you need.”

“I don’t know what I need,” Ursula said. “I never carried a baby before.”

“And,” Sean said, “I’ve never done without sex for two whole weeks.”

“Welcome to fatherhood.”

“What a harpy.”

“I’ve laid in this bed,” Ursula growled, “for two weeks, wrenching my guts, and I’m a harpy because you can’t have a little fun?”

Sean said nothing.

“Do you,” Ursula continued, “really want me to vomit on you again?”

“You don’t look sick now.”

“Just sick of you.”

“And this,” Sean said, his voice trembling, “is why I don’t want kids. Everything changes. Women mutate into mothers.”

Ursula’s face drew tight, her eyes wide and breathing labored. “You don’t have any intention of marrying me, do you?”