Exit Kingdom

appetites of live men like she is to those of the dead?
    I don’t know what she thinks. Let’s just take her whereshe’s gotta go and get our leave of her. That’s all.
    *
    They continue north, and the road climbs into the evergreen mountains where the slug population is sparse. Where there were very few living, there are very few dead. They come
to a small bridge and see a stream running underneath. Moses pulls the car over, and they clamber down the verge, Moses helping his brother, to wherethe water runs cold and clear.
    Thank God, says the Vestal. I’m crusty all over.
    She strips off the impractical outfit she got in the last town – a leather skirt and a corset-type top – and wades into the river naked, splashing the water on her skin.
    It’s bracing! she cries. You boys have a nose for the good life. Maybe I’ll think twice before running off again. Hey, what’s the matterwith Abraham?
    Moses looks at his brother. There is an expression on his face of outraged desire – as though he is furious at the girl for making him want so much. Moses has seen that expression before,
and it does not bode well.
    Moses says, I reckon you best try to keep yourself covered up around us, Vestal. A desperate man’s a sore creature to deal with.
    The redhead laughs and splasheswater at them.
    Silly boys, she says. The world’s gone dead everywhere you look, we’re livin on the opposite side of grand apocalypse, and they’re still Adam-and-Eve-ing it through the
corridors of their own shame. They’re just bodies is all. I bet you seen countless dead pussies, but a living one gives you quivers all over. Puzzle that one through for me.
    She stands there in the river,the water up to her thighs, her arms akimbo, hands on her hips as though she were some kind of perverse schoolteacher. Her language has by now lost all of its
polish and elegance. The Todd brothers say nothing in response. They have been scolded by a naked earth mother in a flowing river. Nature is a curious thing indeed.
    All right, she relents finally. I don’t like to cause a fuss. I’llgo secret myself behind that bush to conclude my ablutions.
    She moves down the riverbank a little way until she is just out of sight. But they can still hear her singing happily while she washes herself.
    Oh, Mademoiselle from Armentare, parlay voo.
    Oh, Mademoiselle from Armentare, parlay voo.
    She got the Palm and the Craw de Gare,
    Forwashing soldiers’ underwear.
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    You didn’t have to know her long, parlay voo.
    You didn’t have to know her long, parlay voo.
    You didn’t have to know her long,
    To know the reason men go wrong.
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    She’s the hardest working girl in town, parlay voo.
    She’s the hardest-workinggirl in town, parlay voo.
    She’s the hardest-working girl in town,
    But she makes her living upside down.
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    She’ll do it for wine, she’ll do it for rum, parlay voo.
    She’ll do it for wine, she’ll do it for rum, parlay voo.
    She’ll do it for wine, she’ll do it for rum,
    And sometimes for chocolate or chewinggum.
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    The cooties rambled through her hair, parlay voo.
    The cooties rambled through her hair, parlay voo.
    The cooties rambled through her hair –
    She whispered sweetly, ‘Say la gare.’
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    She never could hold the love of man, parlay voo.
    She never could hold the love ofman, parlay voo.
    She never could hold the love of man,
    Cause she took her baths in a talcum can.
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    My froggy girl was true to me, parley voo.
    My froggy girl was true to me, parley voo.
    She was true to me, she was true to you,
    She was true to the whole damn army too.
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    You might forget the gas and shells, parlay voo.
    You might forget the gas and shells, parlay voo.
    You might forget the groans and yells,
    But you’ll never forget the mademoiselles.
    Hinky, dinky, parlay voo.
    They can hear a big splash at the conclusion of the last verse, and a high cheerful laugh following – as though the girlwere having the gayest time of her life bathing there in the river
in the middle of a deserted mountain range in the middle of a vast corpsedom.
    Abraham looks as though his muscles, beneath his skin, are all knotted taut around each other. He picks up a stone from the grassy verge and hurls it into the river, where it makes only the most
pathetic little splash.
    I swear to God,