Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

dark until then,’ she pleaded, expecting him to ignore her; but he looked at her – that long, intent look – and took out the precious match, rubbed it on the wall, lit the candle stub. A thin light wavered over the dark room. Now he went to the inner door and pulled aside the stone that held it. They heard hissing. It was a lizard’s hiss. She was frantically trying to pull Dann towards the door into the square, but he said, ‘Wait. We must look.’ He pushed open the inner door and beckoned. There was another room, and along a wall a half-grown lizard was dying, and hissing at them, but only feebly. Stairs went up. Dann leaped up the stairs and nodded at her to come too. There was a big empty room up there. Beyond it another room. Dann opened that door and quickly stood back. She went to be with him, thinking this was the same as when he was small, when he would jump off a rock or into a pool hardly looking to see if there was danger. There was a great hole in the roof here, and the sky showed a couple of still pale stars. This room was full of spiders: not the yellow and black ones but enormous, brown spiders that were everywhere on the walls and the floor. What did they eat? – she was wondering, and at once knew the answer: they were eating each other, for as she looked a great brown spider, the size of a big dog, leaped on a smaller one and began crunching it up, while the victim squeaked and squirmed, and others came scrambling to join in the feast.

      Mara said, ‘I’m not staying in this house.’

      She had never said no to him, had let him take the lead. And he stood still, those intent eyes of his on her face: What am I seeing now, what does it mean? How strange it was, the way he searched faces, wanting to know what people were feeling. As if he didn’t feel himself – but that wasn’t true. And why was he not afraid now? The spiders knew they were there and would surely attack them? And suddenly Mara understood. Dann was afraid of people, only of people … But she was already off down the stairs, while he came leaping after her. She had picked up her sack and was out into the dark, and stopped, because of the scorpions. But they were not there, had gone off into their holes and hiding places because they did not like the cold. And the people had gone off too. Dann stood looking this way and that way and then he ran across to the trestles, and jumped up on the biggest of them. She followed. He was right: better to be well off the ground. But where was that big dragon? The light had gone, and the stars were coming out, dusty, but friendly to Mara. The two sat back to back, their sacks and water cans near them, she with the long carrying pole close to her hand, he with his knife pulled half out of its pocket. They ate one of the food fruits that were like bread, but this one was not soft and rich, as it ought to be, but was dryish and tasteless from lack of water. They drank a little of their water, not much. ‘Who knows when we are going to get some more?’ Dann whispered. And Mara thought, Those people up in that house, they would give us water.

      And now the moon came up, as heavy and solid as a food fruit, but it was not a complete round. Its bright yellow had an edge that looked as if it had been gnawed. They could see everything. Both looked for the great dragon: where was it? And the yellow and black spiders in their thick webs: did they know the two were there, so close? Soon, it was sharply cold. She felt the heat from Dann’s back in her back, and wished that she had, like him, long black hair that she could pull close around her shivering neck. Instead she wrapped her naked head in the cloth that had held the slave’s dress that Dann had found at the top of the wall. Neither slept. They were in a half-sleep, or dream, watching how the black shadows of the houses moved towards them across the dust. And they saw something else: a movement in the shadow near the door of the house they had left. Then someone, crouching, ran back towards houses that had flickering lights in them. Here they burned candles all night, for protection: how did they dare to sleep at all, the people of this horrible town? The very moment the sky greyed, Dann was stretching, peering about, on guard. Again they hastily ate a little, one of the yellow roots, and drank a mouthful or two. They were waiting for the sun to show itself, and soon there it was, a hot red burn over the hill they had been on yesterday. The scorpions came running around the edges of the houses and took up their positions. The stallholder from yesterday came into the market, but stopped when he saw them. He seemed surprised. He went to the door of the house they had been in, opened it, and out waddled the dragon. The man had led the beast into the house when it was dark and had expected it to attack them. He had not seen them there on the trestles. The dragon came fast across to the trestles, its mouth open, hissing. The man took out a piece of meat from a jar and threw it to the dragon. His angry, hating smile at the two said clearly: I thought the dragon would not need feeding this morning. The dragon lay down where it was yesterday, in the sun. It was a guard for the stallholder, perhaps even a pet.

      The two went quickly away out of the market and again up the path to the house on the rise. On the way Mara went aside to pee. It ran clear and light yellow into the soil, which hissed gently, from dryness. She was not sick any longer. She thought, I’m well; soon I’ll be as strong as I ever was. And she looked at her thin, stick-like legs, lifting her robe to see them, and thought they were already more like legs. She put her hands on her buttocks to feel them: but they were still just bones, no flesh there yet.

      Just inside the door of the front room, they stood side by side, each holding an end of the carrying pole and a sack in their hands. The man from yesterday came in, and Mara saw his smooth, shining skin and his clean, shining hair, and thought how she and Dann must seem to him, with their dirty robes, and their dust. They had brought dust in with them: dusty footprints on the polished floor, and dust fell from them as they stood.

      The man held out his hand. Dann took the yellow coin from the pocket that held the knife, and put it into the hand.

      The man stood looking closely at them, Dann, Mara, Dann again, and asked, ‘Did you come from Rustam?’

      Dann said, ‘I don’t know.’

      The man looked enquiringly at Mara. She almost said, Yes, but was afraid. He said, ‘You look very much like …’ and stopped. Then, ‘Do you know how to ride in a skimmer?’ Surprising her, Dann said, ‘Yes.’ To Mara the man said, ‘You must keep very still. If the skimmer has to come down, get out, wait until it begins to lift, and jump in. They have very little power now.’

      ‘I had a job working skimmers, on a hill shuttle,’ said Dann. Was that actually a smile? Was he trusting this Mahondi after all?

      ‘Good. Then if you are both ready, we’ll go …’ And at that moment another man came in, a Mahondi, and Dann’s mouth was open; he stared, and was trembling. The two men were alike. But, thought Mara, frantic, already knowing what was going to happen, Mahondis are alike. These two men just look like Mahondis – that’s all.

      Dann was letting out gasping, feeble sounds, and the two men, frowning, astonished, turned towards him, presenting their faces to him, close, leaning forward. Dann gave a shout, said to Mara, ‘Come on,’ and ran, the two cans on the carrying pole over his shoulder, his sack in his hand. Her first thought was, And now I shall have no water.

      The two men were looking at her now: Why? She could not speak, for her throat was thick with the need to cry. She knew why, but how could she explain it to them? ‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked the man who had just come in.

      Mara felt herself sway, and was able to reach a chair where she sat, eyes closed. When she opened them, the two were staring at her.

      ‘Your big brother is rather strange, isn’t he?’ said the first man.

      And now she had to smile: little Dann, her big brother. But they were still staring: were they seeing something they hadn’t before? She thought, In a moment they’ll whisk up my robe to have a look. And what they will see first is the rope of coins knotted around my waist. She stood up. They were looking at her chest. She thrust it out so they could see its flatness.

      ‘How old are you?’ asked the second man.

      ‘Eighteen.’

      The two looked at each other. She did not know what that look said. A long pause. Then the first man said, ‘We’ll take you, if you like.’

      First she thought, Oh yes, yes, anywhere away from here. Then she thought, But Dann, I can’t leave him; and she said aloud, ‘I can’t leave my brother.’ She had nearly said, My little brother.