Chapter 85
try to protest but find I cannot, and we follow the Thames without another word. The great river laps against its banks with a rhythmic sloshing. It rises and falls and rises again, as if it, too, should like to be free for a night. I hear voices coming from below. “This way,” Kartik says, running toward them. The voices grow louder. The accents are hard and rough. The mud thickens as the fog lifts. In the water are perhaps a dozen people of all sorts—from old women to dirty-faced children. One of the old women sings a seafaring song, stopping only for the violent coughing fits that rack her body. Her dress is little more than rags. She is so caked in mud she folds into the murk like a shadow. As she sings, she dips a shallow pan into the Thames and brings it up. With quick fingers, she
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