It was a stampede of every color in the sky's diaphanous blue, and it seized the attention of all those present as if a dancing ghost had manifested. Antonio shut his mouth. Chewed two flies. Focused. And called for the bishop to be brought forth on the palanquin he's ordered upholstered in lustrous black cloth, embroidered with gold-threaded crosses by the most skillful of Indian women. In parade dress, with martial gait, eight soldiers advanced, bearing His Holiness's heft. The music commenced, harps strumming "Ave Maria." Although it sounded more like the music of the rivers around here. The Indian child singers harmonized their voices. All attendees felt as if they were hearing the Child singing in Bethlehem. A gray smudge in the sky approached apace, looming imminent. It drew in the air, the greenest gleams of the entire jungle suffused with yellow beneath the leaden sky, and loosed a crack of lightning. The thunder silenced all other noise. Releasing a tremendous weight, the rain began. Assembled in the atrium, the ten little priests stopped singing, huddled together. They hushed the choir and hastened down. Five hid in the confessionals. The other five fell to their knees. Thunder, as everyone knows, is the voice of God, and each of the ten feared ending up like the poor bishop, with one foot in hell. They took turns, springing into action and absolved themselves of everything. Even the Jesuit who'd sinned with his own mother--against nature!--was forgiven with no penitence beyond two Lord's Prayers. Absolved, they returned to the altar. The Indian children sang. Antonia also sang. He stood. Knelt. Stood again. Kissed the soul beside him. He moved without thinking, knew it all by heart, like everyone else. Repetition is, or can be, solace. But he didn't need it. Or maybe he did: he was grieved by the flowers that had wilted in the time it takes for thunder to rumble after lightning. He believed they'd wilted partly from the sorrow of finding themselved bereft of bees, hummingbirds, and frogs. And even more from disgust. Six soldiers had even fainted. And the captain general looked pale. The bishop stank, and all anyone could do was pray for the ten priests not to deliver ten sermons. The pit was dug. Now to wait for the marble, a slab engraved by Indians to mark the illustrious grave. With its tender angels and cross thick with flowers. Its birds and its fleshy ferns. Antonio was eager for mass to end. The copious supper. The sweet songs he'd sing to the captain. The silky narcotic dreams that would make him drowsy. The provisions he'd gathered for the road. The orange grove. And the little girl, whose thirst needed quenching.
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