Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

a jeer, or a sneer – and yet what she felt was, the smile was for the songs, and not for her, who had sung them to him.

      ‘I looked after you,’ she said.

      He really was trying to remember, she could see. ‘We’ll tell each other things,’ he said, ‘but now we should go.’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Well, we can’t stay here.’

      She was thinking, But I’ve been here, and Daima too … She wanted to give him something good out of those long years and said, ‘Up in those hills there are the old cities. You never really saw them. I could show you, when the fire has died out.’

      ‘There are old ruins everywhere. You’ll see.’

      Mara and Dann stood on either side of the tall stack of rocks that was a table and looked at each other as strangers do who want to please each other, but thinking, I can’t read that face … that look … those eyes. And both sighed, at the same moment.

      Dann turned away from the strain of it. He began looking around the room, with sharp, clever eyes: he was planning, Mara could see. What was going into those plans she could not even guess at. For she had been here, all this time, knowing nothing but this village, while he …

      ‘Water, first,’ he said. He took two of the cans that had the wooden handles set across the tops, put loops of rope into the handles, tested the loops, slung the cans on a thick stick. Then he took them inside to the cistern. He did not have to tell her why: the mud in that water would have had time to settle.

      He brought the cans back. ‘A pity we can’t take all the cans.’

      ‘Don’t they have them – where we are going?’

      ‘Hardly any. Not of this metal. All these would keep us fed for a year. But never mind. Now, food.’ He put on the table a leather bag and showed her the flour in it. Enough for a few pieces of bread. Mara brought ten yellow roots from next door and a bag of the white flour traders had once brought.

      ‘Is that all we’ve got?’

      ‘That’s all.’

      ‘Get some of these things.’ He indicated Mara’s brown garment.

      She grimaced, but went into the storeroom and fetched back an armful.

      ‘We can get food for these,’ he said. He bundled them, three and three.

      She went back in, and fetched some of the delicate old garments from the chest full of them, and spread them out. He picked up one, frowning: his hands were unused to such fragile cloth.

      ‘Better leave these,’ he said. ‘If people see them they’ll think we’re … we’re…’

      ‘What? But we are. We wore these, at home. I don’t want to leave them.’

      ‘You can’t take them all.’

      ‘I’ll take these two.’ The soft folds, pale rose, and yellow, lay glowing on the dark rock.

      ‘Perhaps someone’ll pay for them. Or give us something.’

      Now they set two sacks side by side on the floor and began packing. First, into hers, went a roll of the torn-up material that she used for the blood flow. She was embarrassed and tried to hurry and hide what she was doing, but he saw and nodded. This comforted her, that he understood what a problem it was for her. She put in next the two delicate dresses, rolled up. Then the three brown ones. Then five yellow roots and her little bag of flour. Into his went, on top of an old cloth that had in it an axe, five roots, his bag of flour, three of the brown tunics. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

      ‘Wait.’ Mara went to Daima, stroked the old cheek, which was chilling fast, and stopped herself crying, because tears wasted water. She thought, Daima will lie here and go as dry as a stick, like Rabat, or the scorpions will push the thatch aside and come in. It doesn’t matter. But isn’t that strange? I’ve spent every minute of my time worrying about Daima – what can I give her to eat, to drink, is she ill, is she comfortable? – and now I say, Let the scorpions eat her.

      ‘Have we got candles?’

      She indicated the big floor candles. Among them was one half-burned. Forgetting what it concealed, Daima had set it alight one evening, and it was only when an acrid smell of burning leather reminded them that they put out the flame. Now Mara took up the stump, turned it upside down, dug out the plug at the bottom and pulled out the little bag. She spilled on to the old rough rock a shower of bright, clean, softly gleaming gold coins. Dann picked one up, turned it about, bit it gently.

      She could have cried, seeing those pretty, fresh, gold rounds, dropped in there from another world, like the coloured robes – nothing to do with this grim, dusty, rocky, cruel place.

      ‘I don’t think anyone would want these,’ said Dann. ‘I don’t think anyone uses them now.’ Then he thought and said, ‘But perhaps that’s because I’ve just been … I’ve been with the poor people, Mara. This is what I’ve been using.’

      He took from the inside pocket of his slave’s garment a dirty little bag and spilled out on to the rock surface beside the scatter of gold some coins made of a light, dull greyish metal. Mara picked up a handful. They were of no weight at all, and greasy.

      ‘This is the same metal as the old pots and the cans.’

      ‘Yes. They’re old. Hundreds of years.’ He showed her a mark on one of them. ‘That means five.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘Five. Who knows what five meant then? Now they’re worth just what we say.’

      ‘How many of them to one of the gold pieces?’

      And now he laughed, finding it really funny. ‘So much …’ He spread his arms. ‘No, enough to fill this whole room … Leave them. They’ll get us into trouble.’

      ‘No. Our parents … our family, the People, sent them to us. To Daima.’ She scooped them up, counting into the little bag, which was stiff with the candle wax, the pretty, bright little discs of gold, each the size of Dann’s big thumbnail, twice as thick and surprisingly heavy. Fifty of them.

      ‘Fifty,’ she said; and he said, ‘But keep them hidden.’

      And that was how they could have left behind the coins that would save their lives over and over again.

      Because of this little fluster and flurry over the gold, which really did seem to steal their minds away, they forgot important things. Matches – that was the worst. Salt. They could easily have chopped a piece off the bottom of a floor candle, but they didn’t think of that until too late. Mara did just remember to take up a digging stick, as they went out, which she had used for years and was as sharp as a big thorn.

      What they were both thinking as they left, slinging the carrying pole between them: We have the most important thing, water.

       4

      The two stood at the door and looked into the glare and the heat and the dust. Black flecks were floating about. Red flames could be seen beyond the hills. The wind was coming this way. As they thought this, a spurt of flame appeared at the top of the nearest hill and at once ran up a dead white tree and clung there, sending up flares of sparks.

      ‘If the wind doesn’t change the fire’ll be here in an hour,’ said Dann.

      ‘It can’t get inside the rock houses.’

      ‘The thatch will burn over Daima,’ said Dann.

      Well, thought Mara, haven’t I just decided it doesn’t matter what happens to dead people? She felt sad, nevertheless, and angry with herself. She thought, If you’re going to feel sad every time someone dies or goes away, then that is all you’ll ever do … But she was wiping the tears away. Dann saw and said nicely, sorry