The little girl entered my tent with a timid eagerness. The little boy she led by the hand started when he saw my black face, but he came on very bravely for his three years, his eyes wide with doubt.
He looked quickly at his sister, seeking in her face the fear that sobered his, but she was watching me with a strange reverence, awed by the magnificence of my silk robe.
Her expression reassured him and he stood beside her, confronting me with a quick-beating heart and a face intensely serious.
Outside I could hear the spruiker shouting, ‘Shabaka, the great Egyptian Soothsayer. Tells your fortune for threepence. Help the hospitals by spending here. All for charity.’
‘Will you both sit down?’ I said, addressing the little girl and pointing to the rug spread on the ground before my crossed legs.
The little girl regarded the request as one of great importance and a necessary part of the ritual for she turned quickly to the little boy and, with hurried commands of, ‘Sit down, Dan. Sit down,’ she placed her hands on his shoulders and sought to press him into a sitting position as one would a sprung Jack-in-the-box.
But the little boy was gazing at me in a hypnotised way and her pressure only succeeded in bending him at the hips like a half-closed pocket knife.
So the little girl became most urgent in her entreaty and increased the weight upon his shoulders so that he crumpled at her feet, still gazing at my face with solemn contemplation.
The little girl dropped quickly beside him, hurriedly arranged her thin and wiry legs and froze into stillness, her eyes steady on mine.
They sat before me as before a deity, scarcely breathing. I began to speak.
‘You are a very kind and thoughtful little girl and some day you will grow up to be a beautiful woman,’ I said.
She moved a little closer to me, her lips slightly apart, and noting her movement, the little boy did likewise.
‘You go to school and you are very good at your lessons . . .’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘You have a little friend with whom you always play. She is in the same class as you and you like her very much and she likes you. And when you both become older and leave school, you will be working together.’
‘Her name is Mary,’ said the little girl excitedly.
‘And Mary is good at her lessons, too,’ I continued.
The little girl reached out a hand and touched my robe and said, her voice shaking with eagerness, ‘Can I tell?’
‘Tell?’ I repeated, puzzled.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I don’t quite understand.’
‘When you have a wish and tell it doesn’t come out,’ she said. ‘Can I tell Mary about this without it not coming true?’
‘You can tell her anything I say,’ I told her.
‘Thank you very much,’ she said gratefully.
‘You have a beautiful mother,’ I went on, ‘who loves you and looks after you.’
The little girl’s eyes shone and she said softly, ‘I have, and she is a lovely mother and she is Dan’s mother too.’
And she looked at the little boy with pride at their relationship. But the little boy was lost in the splendour of my presence and remained oblivious of her regard.
‘You have a little brother,’ I said.
‘It is Dan,’ she said.
‘And when he grows up he is going to be very good to his mother and his sister and you will be very proud of him.’
The little girl reached over and took the little boy’s hand in hers thus proclaiming her faith in my prophecy and according Dan a place in her fortune.
‘He will be a big man and will be a good football player,’ I said.
The little girl brushed a hanging lock of hair from off Dan’s forehead, her sudden knowledge of his destiny making her critical.
‘And you,’ I said, ‘will one day work in an office. But not for very long,’ I added, noting a look of distress upon her face. ‘You are going to be something that you and your mother have often talked about and something that you want to be very much.’
‘I’m so glad,’ she whispered.
‘Would you like to ask any questions?’ I concluded.
She looked at the ground, thinking deeply. She raised her head and said eagerly, ‘Yes.’
‘What would you like to know?’
‘Will Mary and I win the Siamese race?’ she asked.
‘If you both run very hard and don’t fall over you will,’ I said. ‘Any more?’
She again became lost in thought. After a moment she said shyly, as if repeating the suggestion of a parent, ‘When I grow up will I be outstanding?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You are outstanding now. You will always be outstanding.’
She smiled happily, then looked at the little boy, seeking inspiration for another question.
‘Perhaps Dan would like to ask a question,’ I suggested.
‘I don’t think Dan knows what a question is,’ she said.
She lowered her head till it became on a level with the little boy’s round face.
‘Do you want to ask the nice man anything, Dan?’ she said. ‘You know. Like you ask for a piece.’
But the little boy turned his gaze on me again, lost in the wonder of my black face and red gown.
‘It is no use,’ said the little girl. ‘He is too shy.’
She remained silent a while. ‘I suppose I will have to go,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of any more questions.’
She rose and, placing her legs wide apart, bent forward and thrust her hands beneath the little boy’s armpits. She lifted him with a struggle, bade me good-bye, and led him to the tent door, his head still turned, gazing at me until the loose canvas closed behind them.
Outside, I heard the little girl’s voice raised in excited revelation.
‘Mary! Do you know what?’