The Pool of Pink Lilies Read online

  `I didn't know Portuguese were poetic.' She said it indistinctly, for it was hard to talk pressed so close to him. 'I thought that was for Indians. Pale hands. Yellow roses. And then the poetry of Yaqub.'

  `And Yaqub's son?' he asked.

  `Vasco, we don't know that yet.'

  `I think we will. But before I try, my Greer, will you mind giving him to his grandparents?'

  `If they are,' she said.

  `But will you mind?'

  `No, he would belong there.'

  `And what of two small imps who belong nowhere, who were left because their parents had so many others, too many, so Chandra—'

  `Or was it Subhas?'

  `One or the other,' Vasco smiled, 'said. But what of

  them, Greer? Back to the mission again?'

  She was looking aghast at him, saying, 'Surely you are not asking me that.'

  `But I am. Two children before we even begin!'

  She loved that. She tasted it and loved it. She saw a little boy with Vasco's eyes, a little girl with Vasco's hair, a—

  `You have not answered,' he said.

  `It could make no difference. I love our two.' Then she remembered the little boy, sitting on a rock now and staring at the Pool of the Pink Lilies, and added, 'Our three, perhaps?'

  `Perhaps,' he smiled. 'With the six or seven we plan what is one, two or three more? But first let us see, Greer.'

  She watched him look to the child, she heard his voice call softly, `Ayub . . . Ayub!' for that had been the name that Yaqub and Lalil had given their son.

  At first nothing happened. Then the boy stirred. He turned. The smallest of frowns creased his little forehead as unconsciously he heard a mother's gentle beckoning, a father speaking to him. He listened a moment, then turned back again.

  `He is,' marvelled Greer, 'oh, Vasco, he is!'

  `Yes, indeed, he is. Are you sorry, pequena?'

  For myself, yes, for the Guptas glad.'

  `And for us?'

  `With six, you said? With seven?'

  They smiled at that . . . and Ayub, looking across at them, remembered in a kind of dream other smiling, and smiled, too.

  Part of the smile smiled back from the Pool of the Pink Lilies.