Left on Paradise (42 page)

Once sentences were ratified, the assembly broke into quiet murmuring and scattered applause. Then the charter was recited as prescribed and Heidi spent several minutes reminding everyone to gather at the north camp early in the morning, as well as to bring provisions and tools sufficient for the task. As soon as the meeting ended, Jason was taken to New Plymouth for detention and Father Donovan was ferried across the lagoon in a motorized launch. Jason was provided an empty tent and a wool blanket while Donovan was allowed a sleeping bag, a pup tent, a hand ax, and a tin of matches—as well as appropriate supplies of food and water. Neither man required a guard and the detail sent to deliver Donovan to the motu returned home shortly after dusk.

32

An Indian Summer of Love

Most islanders arrived at the north village by midmorning, soon after the LCVP landed with a quarter-ton of construction materials and food supplies—though the first westerners arrived before breakfast, only to find northerners still sleeping off a late night party. Sean woke the slow-rising northerners while Jose prepared something to eat. In the meantime, Ryan directed west villagers to organize a construction site in a meadow close to shore. The westerners worked fast under his command, locating and cataloguing every tool and common supply they could find in the district—from saws found rusting in fruit orchards to vegetable seeds discovered rotting in damp packets. Tools were cleaned and blades sharpened—despite gibes from westerners that northerners might more seriously hurt themselves (or others) with sharpened axes and knives.

When the staff from New Plymouth arrived in the landing craft, the professional staff took charge of the day’s work and reassigned Ryan to manual labor. Throughout the morning, construction materials were hauled from the landing craft and carried to the meadow. Postholes were dug and the ground between them smoothed while fast-drying concrete was mixed and poured around fifteen-foot poles positioned in deep holes. Meanwhile, while some islanders raised the barn’s frame, others cut a trail toward a distant fruit grove and dug a drainage ditch in the vicinity of a bog. When the day drew to a close, the islanders divided into small groups for dinner and later found places to sleep under the stars. Only a few returned home.

The second day, even more progress was made. The barn’s frame was finished early—and walls subsequently nailed to the timber poles. By noon, thatched grass cut the previous day was hung from the roof and banana leaves picked that very morning were lined in freshly dug food cellars. After lunch, workers filled the barn with crates of dried foods brought by LCVP and sacks of fresh fruit picked from district orchards. Mangos, limes, kiwi, papayas, pineapple, and sugar cane were brought in burlap bags and set on shelves while bags of coconuts and breadfruit were dumped into food bins. Several watermelons were rolled to a corner and strips of salted shark (donated by the professional staff) were hung from the ceiling. Even the stock of seeds was replenished. A month’s supply of firewood was stacked neatly in the barn and a temporary latrine was dug near the swamp.

As the barn filled, several workers were reassigned to decontaminate a maggot-infested cesspool only a few feet from the camp’s sole freshwater stream. The pit was covered with heaps of clean dirt and marked as a toxic waste site (slated for future cleanup) and a narrow canal was dug to divert the stream further from the toxic cesspool—to prevent underground seepage and pollution. Other detoxification efforts included: the pulling down of two filthy shacks, the burning of a mold-filled shed, and the scrubbing of the longhouse with salt-water and sand until it no longer stank. By late afternoon, work was finished and dinner drawn from individual rations while Kit and a southern woman mixed vats of tea sweetened with lemon squeezings and sugar cane.

Shortly before dusk, a dedication was offered for the new barn, with the vast majority of the islanders participating in the formalities. Ryan himself sloshed a little champagne over the barn before passing the bottle for drinking. After taking a sip, Heidi climbed atop a stump to deliver a speech.

“Once again,” Heidi said, “we’ve risen beyond adversity to accomplish a great thing. We’ve united north and south and rich and poor. Thank all of you so very much. Do we want to do this for the south neighborhood too?”

A few cheers rang out.

A southern woman raised her hand.

“Thanks just the same,” the southern woman said, “but we have our food and we need only a building to house our children. Adults can make do in our temporary quarters for a few days.”

“Any objections?” Heidi said as she looked to the east villagers.

“Can we delay that new construction for a week or so?” Alan asked. “We’ve lost three days already and need to catch up at home.”

“You’ll let the children stay with you till the south’s new building is ready?”

Alan sighed loud.

“Fine,” Alan said, “we’ll raise one building as soon as possible—for the children. But then we need to be left alone to work our own projects. Does that work?”

The southern woman said it worked well and Heidi looked to the assembly for concurrence. Most heads nodded, so she approved the request and announced a return to normalcy as the islanders broke into spontaneous applause and Dr. Morales climbed atop the stump.

“I have another proposal,” the anthropologist said. “As you know, I’ve made some effort at establishing contact with our indigenous friends at Roanoke Island. Well, I’ve finally decoded some of their turtle shell carvings and discovered their harvest feast comes several days after the coming new moon—which is less than two weeks away as I reckon the calendar. The feast is devoted to their goddess of life and is celebrated by a great banquet. I’d like to send emissaries to observe the feast so we can learn their religion.”

“Learn what?” John shouted from the crowd. “To worship their gods?”

“When in Rome,” the anthropologist nodded, “is the anthropologist’s first commandment.”

“I’m not bowing to any damned idols,” John said a bit too loud as he looked at Deidra. Several people standing close to him inched away.

“Of course not,” Dr. Morales replied, “no one can be made to do anything. We’ll take only volunteers to the island. But I need to tell you up front that I’ve not only been required to venerate idols, but even to induce hallucinogens to enhance my cultural studies. I had a mentor who ate the ground bones of Yanomami tribesmen from the Amazon forests.”

“I’d like to volunteer,” Deidra shouted as she glared at her former husband.

“I’ll need to make plans,” Dr. Morales said, “before we can finalize arrangements. Tomorrow I sail for Roanoke Island to speak with the chief. Who knows ...”

“Eeeehhh.”

The anthropologist’s sentence was cut short by a commotion as a middle-aged woman—who stood near the open door of the longhouse—turned red-faced from embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” the middle-aged woman explained. “A couple of teenagers in there are ...”

Everyone laughed as word circulated through the assembly what had occurred. Every neck stretched to see who was involved and an awkward silence fell over the crowd as a blond-haired and blue-eyed boy of fifteen (with narrow shoulders and skinny arms) emerged from the building grinning—soon followed by a girl his age who also had blond hair and blue eyes. The girl’s face was flush and she held a torn shirt across her smooth chest and narrow shoulders. Both teenagers showed the same big-toothed smile.

“Oh lord,” a woman’s voice cried out, “it’s the Epstein twins.”

The crowd hushed and the girl blushed as the boy pulled her close with an arm held around her back—his fingers cradled beneath her breast.

“C’mon sis,” the youth said, “forget her. She’s a bigot.”

Another voice bellowed through the crowds, this one a deep and fierce one belonging to an older man. “Get your hands off your sister!”

“It’s a free country, pops,” the boy said. “We can do as we please.”

Now the youth leaned into the girl and kissed her lips as the older man pushed his way through the crowd until he reached the skinny-armed boy and pulled him away from the girl.

“You’re as free,” the man shouted, “as your father lets you be and I told you to keep your paws off your sister.”

The boy squirmed free. “She may be your daughter,” he declared, speaking with a loud, clear voice, “but she’s going to be my wife.”

“You can’t marry your own sister,” the father screamed, fury in his face and rage in his voice.

“It’s not against the rules,” the boy yelled back, now turning his face toward the assembly, “and we love each other. So in the presence of these witnesses, I declare my sister is my wife.”

“And I declare before these people,” the girl vowed, “my brother is my husband.”

“To hell with both of you,” their father stammered, “take her and be damned. You’re almost adults and I can’t stop you from doing what you please, but not under my roof. Never under my roof. Your mother and I have suffered enough from your shenanigans.”

Then the man turned to his fellow islanders.

“Their mother and I,” the man declared with an exasperated tone, “have tried to keep them from each other since we came here, but we can’t do anything about this mess since the law on marriage was passed. They insist they have rights. I want you to transfer them to another neighborhood since I’m not about to watch my own children make out. Not without wringing their scrawny necks like chickens. How the hell did I become father-in-law to my own son and daughter?”

The crowd was stunned and no one spoke—though several young people giggled before being stared down by their elders. After a long pause, Heidi climbed back to the podium and assessed the situation.

“Uhhh ... we can arrange a transfer,” Heidi said as she looked around until her eyes fixed on those of Ryan. “Would the west neighborhood work?”

Before Ryan could answer, Linh and Tiffany jumped to their feet shouting—with Kit following their lead.

“Not with us,” Linh yelled.

“No way,” Tiffany said.

“It’s wicked,” Kit shouted.

When someone from the east village shouted that the western women were bigots, Kit turned toward the voice.

“Not one of you,” Kit declared, “can accuse me of being a bigot. Hollywood’s leading gays were among my friends and I never held it against a man the number of women he slept with. Consenting adults was my mantra even when my own personal choices seemed a bit more straight-laced. Nevertheless, there has to be a line drawn somewhere, even if it’s only in the sand. These children—and I mean children—are brother and sister. If we won’t stop them from marrying, then we won’t stop anyone or anything at anytime. No civilization has ever allowed incest. It’s the one universal taboo and we are in danger of scandalizing the entire world and becoming the absolute relativists the religious right accused us of being. We’ll disgrace our cause forever.”

“Actually,” Dr. Morales declared as he beckoned for the assembly to listen, “it’s not perfectly clear that incest is a universal taboo—only that nineteenth-century scholars thought it so. However, we now know that earlier thinkers were merely attempting to defend cultural relativism against charges it would invite moral anarchy stemming from the dismantlement of religious mores. For that reason, they posited that human society has its own internal logic which regulates relationships far more effectively than legal codes or natural law or transcendent ideals.”

“So,” Kit said with an angry frown, “we shouldn’t have rules against perversion?”

“Exactly,” Dr. Morales said, “we all know that Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ approach to drugs and sex is a waste of time.”

“Every culture forbids incest,” Kit said.

“In fact,” Dr. Morales continued, “the taboo against incest isn’t universal: Egyptian pharaohs married their sisters and were considered all the more godlike for doing so.”

“So,” Kit asked, with noticeable sarcasm to her voice, “we should practice incest as religious piety?”

“It is ironic.”

“And,” Kit continued, “this marriage represents some kind of great spiritual awakening?”

“I didn’t say I accept the legitimacy of pious incest. Only it occurs.”

“I don’t understand. Is incest acceptable or not?”

“Look at it this way,” the anthropologist replied. “Human animals have a biological imperative to mate. So do birds and bees and bats and bears. Now, dogs and cats sometimes mate with siblings or parents. Nature doesn’t stop them.”

A collective groan came from the islanders.

“That’s probably,” Kit said, “because they don’t know what a mother or a father is.”

“That’s not true. Even a kitten knows whose teat to suck.”

“Exactly,” Kit said, “it goes to its own mother. Not to a father or a sister or a brother. Nature understands right relationships.”

“A chimpanzee,” Dr. Morales explained, “mates with any fertile female in its troop—mother or sister or daughter.”

“So parents should mate with their children?”

“Not before sexual maturity.”

“What if a father really desired his teenaged daughter? What should he do? What should we do?”

“That’s not likely to happen.”

“But if it did? What then?”

“Well,” Dr. Morales said after a short pause, “I guess he’d need to deny those particular urges.”

“You mean he should just say no?”

The anthropologist blushed.

“On what grounds,” Kit said, “should a man—or woman, for that matter—just say no to incest?”

“On social grounds.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” Dr. Morales said, “anti-social behavior that is contrary to progressive mores.”

“It sounds like you want us just to keep from openly scandalous behavior?” Kit said.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“What if there was no scandal in incest?”