Exit Kingdom

putting on a formal voice. But we’re justtravellin through. We ain’t in the business of needless harm.
    Ignatius smiles gently, and all the suspicion leaves his glance.
    I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, he says. We’ve had unfortunate encounters in the past with brigands. However, what I’ve found is that most respond truthfully to a
questioning of motives. It is indeed a time of honesty. I suppose lying has become, comparatively,so minor a sin that most don’t see the percentage in it.
    My brother and I, Moses says, we’re hard to offend, friar. You likely couldn’t stumble by accident upon the offence to us – you’d have to give it your full effort and
strategy. So don’t fret yourself on that account. We’re happy to get whatever you feel like offerin. And we’re happy to offer services in exchange.
    Very kind of you,Ignatius says.
    Kind ain’t exactly hittin the nail on the head, Moses says, glancing at his brother. But we’ll try to be of little bother to you.
    There are not many of us here. Fifteen, and three children. The vow of silence is hardest on them, the children. But the quiet seems an appropriate devotion when the world itself has lost its
tongue. And there is a practical purpose as well– it keeps from attracting the dead.
    It’s as true an act as any, Moses says. We’re all of us become our actions – and any act done in sincerity is as good as we can hope for.
    Well spoken, Ignatius says and nods his head in approval.
    So the brothers are given permission to visit freely the compound, and they do, giving friendly nods to the residents. Moses keeps close to his brotherto watch him. There are girls here, young
and younger, and Moses does not like to think about what kind of temptation they give to Abraham.
    *
    Just before the sun sets, everyone gathers at two long wooden picnic tables behind the church itself. Food is served – a stew of vegetables and beans, brick-ovenbaked
bread, water sweetened with cactus nectar. During the meal Moses noticestwo things, one that distracts him from the other. First, he notices a young woman who is escorted to the table by two other
women and seated at the end as though with great honour. Moses has not seen her around the compound before this moment, and she wears a white gown that looks like the one worn by the Virgin Mary
statue in the epistle alcove of the church. Treated like a queen, Mosesexpects the girl will behave in a queenly fashion. Instead, though, she eats her stew with a spoon gripped in her fist like a
child would grip it – and her eyes are darting and sly rather than peaceful like the eyes of the other parishioners present. And when she sees newcomers Moses and Abraham at the table, she
stares hard at them for a few minutes – a look with more gut than glory, moregravel than grace.
    Moses would like to watch this young woman and read the meaning of her presence at the table, but he sees his brother Abraham’s attention caught by the little blonde-headed girl who
greeted them from the balcony when they first arrived. The girl wears a pair of sunflower shorts and a white tank top, and she slurps loudly at her stew. It is impossible to interpret
Abraham’sgaze on the girl, but Moses fears it. His brother, he knows, is abominable – and where but in a place of God is abomination more apt to quench its awful appetites?
    What will Moses do if his brother looses his demons in this place? You suffer your loyalties as you suffer any burden.
    So Moses watches his brother, a searing ember growing in the pit of his stomach. After the meal is over andthe gentlefolk once again scatter to their routine business, he sees Abraham, his eyes
still on the little blonde girl, rise from the table and go to his satchel. Moses rises as well and feels the action warming in his hands. Something is happening.
    But when Abraham moves towards the girl, it is because he has a gift in his hands – the set of watercolour paints he salvaged from the brokenfuselage at the airport. Abraham kneels down
in front of the girl, puts the plastic palette in her hands and uses the brush that comes with it to show her what to do.
    Look, he says to her. They’re paints.
    He takes the brush, draws it across his tongue to moisten it, dips it into the red oval of dried colour and then paints a red streak across the back of his hand.
    But you don’t gottause spit, he says to the girl. They’ll refresh with a little water.
    The girl clutches the paint