The Day of the Scorpion (74 page)
Divine intervention; odd, alien custom. Which? How could Minnie know? All she could do was watch and wait. After a while the dressing was over. The mother hugged the child to her and then walked out into the bright sunshine of the rainfree afternoon, across the patch of grass towards the wall that hid the servants’ quarters. There, for many days, Mahmoud had lit bonfires to destroy the accumulation of unwanted years. And there Susan placed the child on the grass, took the ready-to-hand tin of kerosene and sprinkled a wide circle around it. For a time Minnie stared, fascinated, believing herself a hidden witness of a secret initiation. But when Susan Mem set fire to the kerosene and the flames leapt, arcing their way round in a geometrical perfection, Minne snatched a sheet from the dhobi’s bundle and ran, threw the sheet on to the flames, entered the circle and picked the child up and carried it to safety.
She stood some way off. Susan Mem had not moved. She knelt and watched the flames dying and did not appear to notice the trampled sheet or the fact that the child was no longer there. The grass was too wet for the flames to catch hold. Only the spirit burned, and left a scorched smouldering ring.
‘Pankot Rifles Depot
ki taraf jao
,’ Sarah told the tonga-wallah who snapped his whip and clicked his tongue. They bowled down the lane from St John’s, from the eminence towards the valley. As they went past the nursing home which was set far back from the road in wooded grounds Sarah leant her head against the canopy and imagined
herself Susan, leaning her head against the bars that separated her from the window pane. She closed her eyes as perhaps Susan was doing, even now, and after a while felt the quietness of her own happiness and grace welling up inside her; and smiled, ignoring the rain that seemed to be falling on her face.
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Epub ISBN: 9781409037675
Published by Arrow Books in 2005
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Copyright © Paul Scott 1968
The right of Paul Scott to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
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First published in the United Kingdom in 1968 by William Heinemann
This edition published in 1997 by Mandarin Paperbacks
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ISBN 9780099478829