aloof, an image of picturesque innocence as she held Fanny in her arms. Only Sara seemed connected to the scene, with her purse ajar and her face flushed with guilt, showing she’d been responsible for the entire debacle. By now the crowd had turned resentful and some even shouted angry words in the direction of Cynthia, who held her dog closer to her chest.
The stranger clapped his hands and everyone stopped at once. He’d heard enough and his patience was at an end. He snapped his fingers and a servant hurried to his side. In a second the boatman was paid his due, and hurried away.
Sara felt she must say something, even if the others wouldn’t. “I’m sure Lady Palmer would be happy to reimburse you the money if you would leave your name and address.”
“She knows who I am …” the man gave her a slow and almost unpleasant smile “… and where I live.” He then bowed in an almost military fashion, before turning away from her with a final blank stare.
Something in his manner drove her to make him notice her. Perhaps it was a desire not to be included with Lady Palmer and Cynthia in his obvious dislike, so she summoned all her powers to confront him.
“Well, I do not, sir.” She smiled, hoping to charm him a little. “May I have the pleasure of knowing who I am indebted to?”
He glared back at her, fixing her with his strange hypnotic eyes, and she wondered if perhaps he was a prince and she’d broken protocol by even speaking to him at all.
“My name is Sabran. Monsieur Ravi Sabran.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t a prince after all.
“And mademoiselle … will you allow me to know your name?” This time his voice was soft, almost a purr, but Sara had the distinct feeling he was being polite against his will.
“Not mademoiselle … I am …”
Before she could finish speaking, an old man rushed to his side and spoke excitedly in Tamil while pointing to the crowd.
“Excuse me, mademoiselle …” He raised a hand to stop her, and she glared; he was clearly not listening to her at all.
“This matter is not yet at an end. There is another act to this tragedy.”
As though on cue, a woman pushed her way through the remaining onlookers and stood before them, her chin raised in wild defiance, her hard eyes darting from left to right, appraising the scene before her. Her skin was almost black, with wild uncombed hair flaring around her sharp fox-like face. Though, unlike the other Indian women, she wore her faded and torn sari blouse with a flared embroidered skirt worn low enough on the hip to show a beautiful and sensuous midriff, causing a few of the men to stare at her with lustful looks, despite her fierce and forbidding appearance. Sara recalled the tales from her childhood with vague fear. The woman was a Tribal; like gypsies, they were rumoured to be child stealers. She balanced on her bare hip a tiny girl, no more than a year old and naked except for a cheap gilt bracelet around her wrist, showing someone had thought her worthy of adornment, even though the woman held the child carelessly and without love.
The child, though unaware of this last cruel blow of fate to her short life, seemed to know she was the cause of all the commotion, and sat, her body limp and hopeless, on the woman’s hip, looking around at an unfriendly world, her huge kohl-rimmed eyes too frightened for tears.
The old man began to shout once more and pointed at the baby with his stick, while Sabran listened, his hand held high to prevent interruption from anyone else.
Then, after the speech had ended, he thanked the old man with more coins and after a brief, almost disrespectful bow, turned to Cynthia, who, outraged that he’d dared to speak to her at all, clung to her mother’s arm for protection and stared back at him with her most haughty glare.
“This baby is the dead man’s granddaughter and has no other family. This woman was minding the child. He promised her a few rupees when he returned …” He added, with scorn he didn’t bother to hide, “And as there is no doubt he will not return, she thinks you should pay her for her lost earnings.”
Cynthia pouted, not looking at him but at the air above his head. “You must know what thieves these people are … It’s probably her own child and she’s hoping to profit by it,” Cynthia replied before turning away, the matter at an end.
Only a faint twitching around his nostrils betrayed Sabran’s anger at the insult. At first it seemed as though he might say something in return, but then he smiled to himself, a smile slow and somewhat sinister, as though he was imagining what kind of revenge he might inflict later and at his leisure. Sara caught his look and shivered. She felt the danger in offending him, even if Cynthia didn’t.
The woman was persistent. She came closer, holding the baby up for all to see, then made a sudden snatch at Cynthia’s gown. “Baksheesh!”
It was as though a spider had crawled on her dress, and Cynthia leaped back a step, appalled at the woman’s touch. “No! No baksheesh … You don’t deserve it, go away. Go away at once!”
Sabran spoke to one of his servants, who immediately threw a handful of coins at the woman’s feet.
In a flash, the child was dumped without ceremony on the ground, the coins snatched up with a savage snarl at anyone who might steal them from her and, with one final disdainful look at Cynthia, she dissolved into the crowd as if by magic.
Sabran laughed, though it was clear he was not amused. “It seems it wasn’t her child after all.”
The baby sat alone in the dust, looking around at the sea of strangers, her eyes wide and helpless, though managing to convey a real or imagined accusation in her stare. Her look failed to hit the mark with Cynthia, though drenched Sara with an overwhelming sense of responsibility.
“There must be someone? Surely she can’t be entirely alone.” Sara’s questioning looks were met by blank disinterest, though somehow it was implied that by speaking at all, the future of the child now rested with her.
In a curious way she felt it too, and at that moment she knew she couldn’t walk away. The girl child she’d seen floating on the sea had been an omen—a message, for her eyes only! The feeling was something she’d only ever read about: a lightning strike of realisation!
She crouched down to stroke the child’s velvet skin. “Poor little thing.” She hardly mouthed the words. Even so, the child let out a terrified howl.
The child sat forlorn and alone in the dust, crying as though she already knew her fate lay in the kindness of strangers, and Sara couldn’t bear it.
Then she remembered an Indian lullaby Malika must have sung to her as a child. Forgetting to be self-conscious, Sara began to sing, a lilting pretty tune in Hindi. “Nini baba nini … mera baba soja …”
The child stopped crying to stare at her, and for a few moments the chaos was stilled and everything was quiet. Even Ravi Sabran’s manner had softened a little under the calming effect of the lullaby. Now he looked at her with a genuine curiosity.
When she finished, Sara rose to her feet, brushing the yellow dust off her skirt. “Well, I’m not leaving till I find out who will take care of this child.”
At first no one came forward, then, after a few words spoken with ferocity and obvious impatience by Sabran, everyone, including Sara, jumped. A servant hurried forward and stood behind the child like a sentry, every now and then guiding her gingerly with his stick if she attempted to crawl away from the spot.
Lady Palmer had had enough. She called out, in her anger forgetting to be ladylike, “If only my husband were here … Why is no one here to meet us?”
There was an uncomfortable silence, then, as though answering Lady Palmer’s prayers, separating itself from the noise of the crowd, came a male voice, deep, familiar and reassuring.
“Move along will you? Out of the way.” His tone was calm at first, then as though through gritted teeth.