Exit Kingdom

to her and smiles up at him.
    I know you ain’t supposed to talk, Abraham says. So don’t worry about thankin me or anything.
    But the girl leans over and whispers in Abraham’s ear. Moses has crept close enough that he can hear the words himself.
    The girl says, I don’t always hush like I’msupposed to.
    Abraham laughs out loud, pats the girl on the head and stands up again.
    Atta girl, he says. Obeying too much’ll make you soft-headed.
    The girl scurries away, and Abraham turns to find his brother just behind him. He must notice something untrusting in Moses’ expression, because his own grows dark and spiteful.
    It ain’t blood in everything you see, Abraham says. Howabout trying to wipe your eyes clean?
    Moses says nothing, and he watches his brother walk off around to the front of the church.
    *
    And so, long after the sun sets and the residents of the Mission San Xavier del Bac have gone to sleep and the snakes have emerged from their nests to warm themselves on the
stones that still hold the heat of the day, then does Moses, who hastrouble sleeping, wander the compound and find the monk Ignatius kneeling in prayer at the altar of the church. He tries to
retreat quietly, but his unwieldy body crashes into a wooden pew and sends screeching disharmony to all corners of the cruciform structure.
    Sorry, friar, Moses says and continues to back away.
    Don’t apologize, says Ignatius, rising from his knees and standing withhis hands folded. At this hour it’s only you and me and God. Please don’t look so stricken. Stay if you
like. Sinner though I am, I look forward to the times when I can exchange words.
    The harlequin Albert Wilson Jacks – he too was a man of observance and faith. And so Moses finds himself again, for the second night in a row, engaged in late and lonely palaver with a man
of holy demeanour.He sits down gently on the wooden pew, and Ignatius sits near him, the two men facing forwards, gazing at the ornate golden interior of the apse.
    When you pray, Moses asks, you pray without words?
    I do. In prayer, speech is simply a byproduct.
    What were you praying? I mean when I came in.
    I was reciting a passage from Daniel. Would you like to hear it?
    I reckon I could listento it.
    And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron. For as much as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
    Break in pieces and bruise, Moses repeats barely audible.
    And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided. But there shall be init the strength of iron, for as much as thou sawest
the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken.
    It’s a good prayer, Moses says, nodding his head and stroking his black beard. A fine prayer.
    It’s apt, Ignatius agrees.
    We’re all of us partly strong, partly broken, ain’t we?

    I would say so. But Ignatius must see something in Moses’ flinching expression, because he goes on to ask: What happened to your brother?
    Abraham?
    For a moment, Moses is confused. What is it that the monk is asking? But Ignatius clarifies with a hand gesture circling his face. What he’s asking is how Abraham came to be so damaged of
physique.
    Oh, Moses says, that. He got intoa tussle a few days back. The other man got him pretty good. It was out in the desert. He walked away – the other guy, I mean. I didn’t kill him or
nothin.
    Ignatius nods but says nothing. Moses supposes he’s waiting because he hasn’t heard the real answer to what he was asking.
    The big man shifts in the pew, and the wood creaks uncomfortably beneath his weight.
    There was a town,Moses goes on. Abraham, he got – he got too close to one of the girls. I mean, it was agreed upon. Consensual, I mean. But still and all – there was something about
him she didn’t cotton to. He must of done something – I don’t know what—
    I think I understand, Ignatius says.
    Moses looks at him, wondering if the man truly does understand. A man of God after all – but also one of prettyphrases and toy silences.
    He was born wrong, Moses says.
    But you watch out for him.
    Watch out for him, Moses repeats as though the phrase has two meanings, which it does, and he is juggling between them in his mind. I got a brother’s duty, he says at last.
    And what does that duty