Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

From there they stared straight up into a sky full of smoke and, turning their heads, saw columns and towers of smoke – probably the dead trees by the waterholes.

      The fire would kill the scorpions and the singing insects and the new frogs. It would make the water in the holes steam and sink quickly down into the mud, which would soon be dry and cracked. It would burn the smaller bones. And the earth insects, which had to have grass to live? When the fire had passed over the plains, burning up everything, even the earth in some places, would the grass grow again? If not, the insect cities would die, their towers would stand dead and empty, and then … there would be just dry earth everywhere, and the dust clouds would blow about and slowly the Rock Village would be filled with dust and sand.

      ‘Come on,’ Dann said, as he leaped out and pulled on his white garment. Oh no, she was thinking, I can’t go on; but he had not meant that: he was looking for a safe place for them to spend the night. She climbed out of the water, put on her tunic that was like a snakeskin, and helped him search among the rocks. He was looking for a place that was hidden, but high enough for them to look down and around from. And there it was: a flattish rock on the top of a little hill, with still unburnt bushes and grass around it. There was something that looked like a barricade or a wall of small stones: yes, this was a wall, joining bigger boulders, and it had been made for defence. People before them had thought this place a good one. When she looked she could see the little rough walls here and there, some of them tumbling down. Quite a long time ago then, not recently, this hilltop had been fought over by – well, who?

      The yellow glow in the sky that was the sun behind smoke and dust was lower now, but it was very hot, and the flat rock pumped out waves of heat. Mara took some of her white flour, mixed it with water and made cakes which she laid on the rock. Meanwhile Dann was moving away stones from where they could sit, their backs to a big boulder.

      He sat with his legs stretched out, and she by him, thinking, Now perhaps he’ll talk, he’ll tell me … And then she was asleep, and woke to see that the whole sky seemed on fire, the clouds and billows of smoke full of light, and rays shooting right up towards the sinking sun. Dann was looking at her. She thought, I’m so ugly. He must think I’m like a monkey – but he has never seen a monkey I expect. But where did I see them? Oh yes, it was home, there were monkeys in a big cage. I know what I look like, and my head … She was so hungry. The flour cakes she had put on the rock? – he had eaten some. She would have gone to get herself some but she felt she could not move. His gaze did not leave her face. He was examining her, as Daima had looked at her before she died, as if her face – Mara’s – held some truth or secret. Oh, she was so hungry. As she looked at the cakes, wanting them, Dann leaped up and fetched them, putting them carefully into her hand. And then he watched her eat them, slowly, a bit at a time, as she had learned to eat, food being so short, every crumb, every tiny bit held in the mouth to get all the goodness from it. Besides, her teeth hurt.

      She did not feel uncomfortable that he was watching her. She was happy he was there, but she did not understand him. Nothing he did was what she expected, nor much of what he said.

      She said to him, ‘If you hadn’t come then I would be dead.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I was dying and didn’t know it.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And when that fire started I think I would have decided to stay with Daima and let it burn me.’

      He said nothing, only gazed at her face, and her eyes.

      ‘There would have been no reason for me to leave. Nowhere to go. And I was too weak anyway.’

      He said, carefully – and it was because he didn’t want to offend her – ‘Didn’t you ever go anywhere else? Only the Rock Village?’

      ‘Only out to find the roots – and there were seeds, too.’

      He put his knuckles to the earth and leaped up, and stood staring away down the side of the hill. She knew it was because he did not want her to see his face. He was shocked because she had not made any effort to go anywhere else. But you didn’t know how it was, how difficult, she wanted to say to him. But she was ashamed. She had lived all that time, knowing nothing – nothing. While he …

      He was taking from his sack one of the yellow roots. He cut it and gave her half, sat by her, looked over to where the sun was going down, a red, burning place among the dark clouds.

      ‘When you went off with the two men did you come this way?’

      He shook his head. A long silence now. A real silence. Long ago, at this hour, the sun going, there had been all kinds of animal noises, bird sounds, and the singing insects were so loud they split the ears. Now, nothing.

      ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘North.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘It’s better there.’

      ‘How do you know?’

      ‘People say.’

      ‘Have they been there?’

      ‘The farther south, the worse. The farther north, the better. There’s water up there. It still rains there. There is a big desert, they say, and it is drying everything around its edges, but you can go around it.’

      ‘There is going to be a desert here.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘We use words like south and north and east and west, but why do we? Where do they come from?’

      He said with a laughing sneer, as if he had suddenly become another person, ‘The Rock People are just stupid. Stupid rock rabbits.’

      ‘All these words come from somewhere. I think from the Mahondis.’

      He jeered again, ‘The Mahondis! You don’t understand. They aren’t anything – we aren’t. There were people once – they knew everything. They knew about the stars. They knew … they could talk to each other through the air, miles away …’ His mood was changing: he seemed to be wanting to laugh, but properly, then giggle…‘From here to the Rock Village. From here to – up north. To the end of North.’

      And now she found herself giggling too.

      ‘You’re laughing,’ he said, laughing. ‘But it’s true. And they had machines that could carry a hundred people at a time …’

      ‘But we had sky skimmers.’

      ‘But these could go on flying without coming down for days …’

      And suddenly they were laughing aloud, for the ridiculousness.

      ‘And they had machines so big that – bigger than the Rock Village.’

      ‘Who told you all this?’

      ‘People who know what’s up North. There are places there where you can find out about the old people – the ones that lived long ago. And I’ve seen pictures.’

      ‘The pictures on the old walls?’

      ‘No, in books.’

      ‘When we were little there were books.’

      ‘Not just paintings on leather and leaves. They used to have books made of … It’s a very thin, fine stuff, white, and there can be a hundred pages in a book. I saw some pages from an old book … they were crumbling …’ His mood changed again. He said furiously, ‘Mara, if you only knew … We think the Rock People are just – rabbits. But those people, the ones that lived long ago – compared to them we are beetles.’

      Now the dark was coming up through the rocks. He said, ‘I’m going to sleep. But you must stay awake. Do you know how to? When you get sleepy, then wake me. Don’t wake me suddenly or I’ll hit you. I’ll think you’re an enemy – do you see? You slept a bit earlier.’ And there and then he lay down on the rock and was asleep.

      And now it was really dark. There