Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

a big debt I don’t think a little milk could match it.’

      ‘A quarter of all the milk,’ said Rabat.

      ‘Very well,’ said Daima. Her voice sounded heavy, and angry. She did not look at Rabat, who was looking at her in a way that said she was ashamed. ‘They are such pretty children,’ Rabat said, trying to make up for insisting on the milk.

      Daima did not say anything.

      They had stopped outside the house next to Daima’s. Suddenly the two women embraced, and Mara could see they hadn’t meant to. Rabat was saying, ‘I have hardly any food left. Without the milk…’

      ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Daima. ‘We’ll all manage somehow.’

      Rabat went into her house, taking the water cans, and the others went on to Daima’s house.

      Mara stopped by the big rock cistern. ‘Is there water in here?’

      ‘There would be if it rained.’

      Dann was jumping up like a puppy, trying to get hold of the cistern’s edge so as to haul himself up. Daima took the cans of water into the house, rescuing Dann’s jar, which was in danger of being kicked over. She came back and lifted Dann up and sat him on the edge of the cistern.

      ‘There’s a scorpion,’ he said.

      ‘It must have fallen in, then.’

      Mara was trying to pull herself up: her hands could not get a proper grip on the edge, which she could only just reach. Daima lifted her up and she sat by Dann, pulling her legs up well away from the angry scorpion, which was trying to climb up the rocky sides, but falling back.

      ‘Poor thing,’ said Mara.

      ‘It’s like the water stinger,’ said Dann, ‘only much smaller.’

      Daima fetched a stick, pulled herself up, sat on the edge of the tank and said, ‘Mind,’ reaching down the stick. The scorpion gripped it with its pincers, Daima lifted – and the scorpion let go. ‘If you don’t hold on you’ll die there,’ said Daima, but this time the scorpion kept its grip on the stick, and Daima lifted it out carefully. The three watched the beast scuttle off into the mats of dead grass.

      ‘It’s hungry,’ said Daima, ‘just like everything else.’

      It was so hot on the edge of the rocky box Mara’s thighs were burning. She jumped down. So did Daima, and lifted down Dann before he could protest.

      ‘How long since there was water in that?’

      ‘We had a big storm about a year ago. The cistern filled up. I kept carrying water through to the tank you saw inside. And I’ve made that water last.’

      ‘Perhaps we will have another storm,’ said Mara.

      ‘Sometimes I think it will never rain properly again.’

      Inside the house Dann began yawning. He ate some sour milk, making faces; and then Mara took him next door, to the lavatory, and then to his bed. He was asleep at once.

      Mara thought, I want Dann to sleep, so as to sleep away the bad memories, but I want to remember everything. What is the What Did You See? game if it is not trying to remember everything? The light was going outside. Daima lit the big floor candle. This room was cool because of the rock walls, in spite of the warm air coming in at the window. Tomorrow the sun would jump up like an enemy and then soon it would be too hot to go out of doors.

      Mara sat at the rock table with Daima.

      ‘Is Rabat a spy?’ she asked. ‘Does she tell the others everything about us?’

      ‘She is a spy but she doesn’t tell everything.’ Daima saw from Mara’s face that she did not know what to ask. ‘Things are not simple,’ she said. ‘It’s true that I shouldn’t trust Rabat – isn’t that what you are thinking?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But she did look after me when I was ill. And I looked after her when she broke her leg. And when my children were small she helped me with them.’

      ‘Didn’t she have any children?’

      ‘She did, but they died. It was when we had the little drought, and they got the drought sickness.’

      ‘Will she tell the others about the soldiers asking for us?’

      ‘She might, but I don’t think so. But it wouldn’t matter. If the soldiers offered money for us, yes. But I think they were really running away as fast as they could. Rabat counts on me. She has very little food left. When the traders came last time I bought food for her because she had nothing to exchange. They give flour in exchange for the roots, but it is difficult finding the roots. Some people here grow a little poppy, but it has been too dry. The water in her tanks is finished, and I’ve been giving her some. And she does help me with the milk beast.’

      ‘Why doesn’t she have one?’

      ‘I said things were not simple. She had four milk beasts left. She and her husband gave me one for my children. It was her husband that was so kind: he was a really good man. And he died. One night some people on the run came through here and they stole her three milk beasts. So now she shares mine. It is only fair – I suppose.’

      ‘Do you always fetch water from the pool where we were today?’

      ‘That little river has been dry for a couple of years. The big river has been nearly dry. I’ve got enough water in my tank in there to last us, if we are careful. I’m going back to the pool tomorrow when everyone goes. And I want you to keep Dann here.’

      ‘You think Kulik meant to drown him?’

      ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he began by a joke and then…It would be very easy to keep him under a little too long.’

      ‘Why did he want to kill Dann? A little boy?’

      ‘Little boys grow up. And so do little girls, Mara. Be careful all the time. Not that you have to keep in the house. I’m going to teach you how to milk the animal, and how to let the milk go sour and make cheese. And how to find the roots too – and that is very important. You have to be out and about and do your share. I might die, Mara. I’m an old woman. You have to know everything I know. I’ll show you where the money is. But remember: it is easy to slip a scorpion into a fold of cloth or throw a stone from behind a wall so that it looks as if it has come off a roof, or put a child in a cistern and pull the rock lid over. A child did die like that once. One of theirs, though. No one could hear it cry out because the lid was a fit.’

      ‘That means someone meant to kill it.’

      ‘Yes, I think so.’

      ‘That means that they fight each other – the Rock People.’

      ‘Yes, they do. There are families who won’t speak to each other.’

      Suddenly Mara giggled, and Daima seemed surprised. Mara quickly said, ‘We haven’t enough water. We only have a little food. But they quarrel.’ And looked at Daima to see if she had understood.

      Daima said, very dry, but smiling, ‘I see you are growing up fast. But that is the point. The harder things are the more people fight. You’d think it was the other way about.’

      Next morning Daima said to Dann that he could go out and play just outside the doorway, where they could see him. He went out and stood poking a stick at the dust. He seemed half asleep. Mara thought that if their mother could see this dirty little child with his matted hair, she would not know him. Above all she would not know this listlessness. Soon there were footsteps, and voices, and two men came, and stopped a few paces away to stare openly through the doorway, where Daima and Mara could be seen sitting at the table. Dann was staring at them, and then began moving closer to them, step by step, his eyes going from one face to the other. The two men stood looking at him, surprised, then uneasy, then angry. They spoke to each other in low, angry voices. And still Dann moved