Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

      She did not reply. She could not. Her throat was thick again, and she was thinking, If I cry the way I’d like to, they’ll know I am a girl. And meanwhile there was a new thought in her mind. She wanted to ask, Please may I have a bath? – but this was ridiculous, so dangerous … But she was remembering, because of the faces of these two, which were so familiar to her, so near – like her parents, like all the people she had known as a child – how one could stand in a big basin and water was splashed all over you, cool water; and then there was a soft, sweet-smelling soap, not like the fatty sand she had used to clean herself at the waterholes. She longed so much for this water that she was afraid of saying anything at all, because it was dangerous … Of course it was, for she would have to take her clothes off and then …

      The two men stood side by side and looked hard at Mara, trying to understand.

      ‘What’s your name?’ asked one suddenly.

      A name came pushing into her mind from long ago; yes, she thought, that’s my name, it is my real name, my name – and then she saw Lord Gorda’s face, tired, thin, kind, so close to hers. Remember, you are Mara, your name is Mara.

      She nearly said, Mara, but said, ‘Maro.’

      ‘What is your family name?’

      And now she could not remember. Everyone then had had the same name, and she never thought about it.

      ‘I don’t know,’ she said, and she was even thinking, Perhaps they’ll know and they’ll tell me. And she was still thinking, I’ll ask … they’re kind … and I can wash this robe and make it white instead of dusty brown and wash out the smell of that other person.

      ‘Then if you’re not coming, I’ll give you back the fifty,’ said the first man, holding it out.

      And now she was pleading, ‘Oh no, no, please, let me have it in small coins, please.’

      And now another long look between the men. Then the man she thought of as her friend said, ‘But Maro, the change for this would fill your sack. You couldn’t carry it. And besides, no one has that amount of money these days.’ And the other man asked, ‘Where have you come from, Maro?’ – meaning, How is it you don’t know this already?

      She said, ‘The Rock Village.’

      Again they looked at each other, really surprised.

      To avoid more questions she said, ‘I’ll go.’ And held out her hand for the gold. The coin was put into her hand. Then her friend went to a chest, pulled out a bag of the light, flimsy coins, poured some into a smaller bag about the size of her hand, and gave it to her.

      She said, ‘Thank you.’ And again, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ She longed to say, I’ve changed my mind, please take me in the skimmer away from here, but she could not.

      ‘Keep that money out of sight,’ her friend said.

      And the other, ‘Don’t go back into the town.’

       5

      She walked away from the house, and never in her life had she felt as she did then, as if her heart would break: she was going away from what she really was – that was how she felt.

      At the foot of the rise she turned: they were still in their doorway, watching her. She lifted her hand: Goodbye. And thought that in her other hand she still held the gold coin and the little bag of coins. She dropped both into her sack.

      She would rather have died than go back into the town. She felt sick with fear even thinking of it. There was a dusty track leading away from the town, going north, and she began walking along it, alone. She thought, I won’t last long without Dann. They’d kill me for this sack, or for this robe I have on.

      She kept glancing back along the track to make sure she was not followed. On either side was the landscape that by now she knew so well: dead and dying trees, like sticking-up bones, whitish drifts of dust, the sky yellow with dust and, dotted about among the drought-killed trees, the occasional strong, fresh, green trees, their roots going far down. She walked on, the sun burning her pate through the thin cloth she had draped there, and she was thinking of how, deep in the earth, streams of clean water ran, making pools and marshes and falls and freshets and floods, and into them reached the roots of these few surviving trees. And why should these few have fought to reach the deep water, and the others given up? It was midday. Ahead she saw a thin crowd of people. She was at once afraid. More afraid than she had been of the spiders or the dragon? Yes; and she understood Dann. She was walking faster than they were: soon she would catch up with them. What ought she to do? When she was closer she saw they were the mix of peoples that was usual now: every kind of shape and skin colour and hair colour and kind of hair; but everything was dusty: dust on them and on the clothes they wore, which mostly were trousers and tunics that she knew were worn farther south than the Rock Village. When she came up with the end of the straggle of walkers, she saw the two people Dann and she had robbed – and was it really only two nights ago? Both were on their last legs, almost staggering, their eyes glazed. These two took no notice of Mara, but others turned to look, but were not interested in her. She went on behind them, more slowly, because a lot of people walk slower than one or two, and because it was very hot. The front of the crowd could hardly be seen through blowing dust: the wind was getting up, and dust clouds were swirling about and through them. She tried to make out the faces nearest to her: some she thought were from the boat. It was important to recognise faces, friends or enemies. She was stumbling along, thinking that she longed for a mouthful of water, and she had none; that if Dann were not as he was, then they both would now be travelling north in the skimmer, would be far away from this dying land … Someone was walking up behind her… was level with her … had moved ahead; and it was Dann, who did not smile or greet her, but only adjusted the carrying pole so that it again rested on her shoulder and the two cans swung between them. She said, ‘I have got to have some water.’ He said, ‘Wait, or when they see you’re drinking they’ll grab it all.’

      They walked all through the hot day, while the pale dust clouds swirled about them, and when the red sun became a big reddish blur low down, the whole company began moving up into a low hill beside the road: they were all staying together, for safety. And while they were doing this, their attention distracted, Dann quickly rested the pole and handed Mara a can of water, standing close to her, shielding her from curious looks, and she drank … and would have gone on drinking, but he said, ‘Stop, stop, that’s got to last us.’

      The smell of the water seemed to have reached some stragglers, who turned to look, but Dann had the cans back on the pole, and his knife was in his hand. On the top of the low hill, they found a big rock to protect their backs, and crouched there, close, the cans between them, while she whispered that the two men he had been afraid of had given her the little bag of coins. He was at once suspicious. ‘Show me,’ he said, and she did, and he let the thin, light stuff run between his fingers on to a rock.

      ‘It looks all right,’ he said.

      She asked, knowing it was useless, ‘Dann, why did you run away? They were friendly. They wanted to help us.’ And she saw, astonished, how his eyes moved fast from side to side, heard his fast, frightened breathing, watched him hunch up, protecting his head – little Dann, in that long ago room on that long, hot night.

      ‘Bad,’ he said. ‘Bad men.’

      He put the bag of coins back in her sack and looked for something that would burn. He found bits of old bark in a crack in the rock, and pulled down a bough from a dead tree. He went to his sack, was about to take out his axe, saw that if he did it would be the only one here, and he wouldn’t keep it long. He broke up wood with his bare hands, built them a fire, lit it with a brand taken from the nearest fire. He didn’t ask, just took it. A dozen small fires burned on the big flat rock that topped this rise, and around each huddled a few people, guarding their food and their water containers. One group had a pan and were cooking the dried leaves: the smell of the leaves,