The Sacred River by Wendy Wallace Page A

the boys, their feet bare on the mud, she decided to give it all to the child. Half a crown might mean her mother was able to seek treatment for her; it could even save her sight. As Yael shook the heavy coin out of the purse and onto her palm, a silver threepence slid past it into the dust. The clamor around her increased and several of the boys dived for the coin.
    There were fifteen or twenty of them gathered around her in a circle, eager and smiling, their teeth in various conditions of evolution, their heads cropped. All boys, aged seven, eight, nine—it was hard to tell; so many had hardened, wizened faces on slight and childish bodies. Every last one of them appeared half-starved. More were arriving, tumbling out from the narrow paths and stairways that led into the alley, racing and shouting.
    “This is for you,” Yael announced, extracting the silver half crown and stooping down to take hold of the girl’s hand, trying to fit her fingers around the unwieldy coin. “Stand back, boys. The baksheesh is for this little one.”
    At the word baksheesh , the older children surged forward. The coin dropped to the ground and a boy lunged for it, knocking the child off her feet. The little girl began to bawl.
    “No,” Yael called sharply, trying to put her foot on the silver disk. “It’s not for you.”
    Two larger boys jumped on top of the first one, elbowing and shoving at each other. Others hurled themselves into the scrum, one falling heavily against Yael. She staggered and righted herself.
    “I am sorry. I must insist—”
    Her voice was lost in the noise all around her. Boys pressed against her from all sides, stretching out their hands, shouting for baksheesh, drowning out the sound of the bell. Several fought like men for possession of the half crown.
    “You must stop this.”
    “Goodafternoon. Godblessyew. Damnfilthybeggar.”
    She was taller than any of them but imprisoned, as if she were Gulliver among the Lilliputians. The little girl was nowhere to be seen, and hands were plucking at her arms, her bag.
    “Excuse me,” she cried. “Let me through. I am going to church.”
    Yael looked up at the carved wooden jalousies protruding from first-floor windows all along the alley, then down, at the seated figures positioned inside dim doorways, fingering their tasseled amber beads, watching. Craning her neck for a police officer, she saw a woman, dressed in black from head to toe, her face shrouded, approaching down the dusty street.
    Yael freed an arm, waved at her, and called out, her voice high and strained, more fearful than she knew herself to be.
    “Please, ma’am, I need assistance.”
    The woman skirted around the youths and passed by, as if she had not seen Yael, as if not she but Yael were the invisible one. Just then, a voice shouted something from behind her. The noise died suddenly, as if the needle had been lifted from a wax pressing.
    Seated on an Arabian horse, his silver-tipped stick raised in the air, a man was bearing down on them.
    The boys fell away as quickly as they had gathered. In seconds, they were gone, vanishing into the dark doorways, racing away up twisting flights of steps. Yael stood alone on the churned ground, her bag gaping open.
    She felt in it for her handkerchief. Her peppermints. Her hymnal. Her purse. Nothing remained. Only the stem of flowers. She closed the bag, mopped her forehead on her cuff, and attempted to straighten her bonnet. Her legs felt weak and for a moment she believed she’d have no choice but to sit down in the dust, there where she stood. She thought of the dear Queen, beset by every kind of trouble and grief, and made herself remain on her feet.
    The man had dismounted. His neatly trimmed beard was stained orange and he wore a green turban wound innumerable times around his head, a long striped kaftan cut from what looked like silk, girdled at the waist, with a light, embroidered woolen robe worn open over the top. He was looking at her with