Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

her special friend, and she knew it well, for at home she liked to wake early before anyone else and stand by the window and wait for the sweet coolness on her face and then look out, watching how the world became light and the sky filled with sunlight.

      Dann was asleep on the shoulder of the man carrying him, who was almost staggering with the weight. Yet Dann was not heavy, she often carried him. Now it was full daylight. All around was this enormous, flat country covered with grass, a yellow, drying grass that she could easily see over. No trees. Here and there were little rocky hills, but not one tree. The child could see that the woman, whose hand she was clutching, dozed off as she walked; and when that happened the big, dry hand went limp, and the child had to grab it and hold on. She felt she would soon start crying, she had to cry, she was so miserable and frightened, but she had no tears.

      They were going down off a ridge and, look, there were trees, a line of them, and a smell Mara knew, the smell of water. She cried out, and then all four of them were running forward, towards that smell…They were on the edge of a big hole, one of a string of big holes, and at the bottom of this was some muddy water. Things flapped about down there. Fish were dying in that water, which was hardly enough to cover them, and there was a strong smell coming up, of dead things. The four jumped off the jagged edge of the hole into the dried mud around the water; but it was not water at all: it was thick mud and they could not drink it. They stood there, looking down at the dark mud where fishes and a tortoise struggled, and there was a new thing, a new sound, a roar, a rumble, a rushing, and the smell of water was strong…And then the woman snatched her up and the man picked up Dann, and the four were at the top of the edge of the big hole, and then running and stumbling as fast as they could, and Mara was saying, ‘Why, why, why?’ gasping dry breaths; and they reached one of the little hills of rocks, and climbed a short way and turned to see…What the little girl thought she saw was the earth moving along towards where the waterholes were, a brown fast moving, a brown rush, and there was a smell of water, and the woman said, ‘It’s all right, it’s a flash flood.’ And the man said, ‘There must have been a cloudburst up north.’ Mara, no longer tired, her whole being vibrating with fear because of the nearness of the flood, could see only blue sky, not a cloud anywhere, so how could a cloud have burst? The brown water had reached level with them, jumping and tumbling past, but a wash of water was spreading out and had reached the little hill. Dann began struggling and roaring in the man’s arms to get down into the water, and in a moment all four were standing in the water, splashing it all over them, drinking it, while Dann was like a dog, rolling in it, and laughing and lapping, and shouting, ‘Water, water’; and then Mara sat down in it, feeling that her whole body was drinking in the water; and she saw the two grown-up people were squatting to drink and splash themselves but the water was only part-way to their knees. It was up to her shoulders, and rising. Then the two grown-ups were standing and looking towards where the flood had come from and saying quick, frightened things to each other, using words Mara did not know. That water was short and everyone must be careful all the time, she knew, and could not remember now when things had been different. But she had not heard of floods, and dams and clouds bursting, and inundations. And then she felt herself scooped up again and saw how the man lifted Dann up out of the water; and they were halfway up the hill when there was another roar and a second brown flood came racing down. But now it was not just roaring: there were bangs and crashes and rumbles, and bellows and bleats too, for in this second flood were all kinds of animals, and some of them she had never seen before except in the pictures painted on the walls at home. Some were being tossed by the waves of the flood to one side of the main rush of water and, finding that they had ground under them, were climbing out and making for the higher ground. The big animals were doing well, but smaller ones were being swept past, calling and crying; and Mara saw one of them, like her little pet, Shera, at home, who slept in her bed and was her friend, riding past on a tree that had all sorts of little animals stuck all over the branches. Now Mara was crying because of the poor animals; but meanwhile others were running down from the higher ground towards the water, and straight into the flood to stand in it and drink and drink and roll in it, just as the four of them had done, for they were so thirsty. Mara saw the cart bird come staggering out of the grass, its feet going down wide because it was so weak, and when it reached the edge of the water it simply sank down and drank, sitting, while the water rose so that soon its neck was poking up out of the brown flood, like a stick or a snake. The water was now rising fast around the hill they were on. Where just a moment before they had splashed and rolled, it was so deep that a big horse, like the ones her parents rode, was up to the top of its legs; and then another wave came spilling out from the main flood and the horse stepped out and began swimming. Then the cart bird stood up, and now that it was wet all over, and its puffs of white and black feathers flat and thin, you could see it was all bones. Mara knew that animals were dying everywhere because of the dryness, and when she saw the cart bird, so thin and weak, she understood. She had a big book, with pictures of animals pasted in, and some she had never seen; but here they were, all along the edge of the water, drinking. Now she was watching a big tree rolling and tossing as it swept past, with animals on it; and as she watched she saw it rear up and turn over…and when it rolled back the animals had gone. Mara was crying, feeling on her palms the soft fur of her pet, and she wondered if someone was looking after Shera. And it was the first time she had thought that they, the People, had gone fast away from the houses, run away; but what had happened to their house animals, the dog and Shera? Meanwhile above her head the man and woman were talking in low, frightened voices. They were disagreeing. The man got his way, and in a moment she and Dann were lifted up again and the two grown-ups were in the water, which was nearly up to their shoulders now, so that the children were in it to their waists, and they were wading as fast as they could to another hill, much higher, less rocky, not far away. But it seemed very far, as the water was rising around them; and the tussocks of grass they could not see tripped them up, and the man once even fell, and Dann tumbled out of his arms and disappeared into the water, while Mara cried out. But the man got up from the water, picked Dann out of it, and when a roar from behind said there was another big wave on the way, he tried to run, and did run, making great, splashing bounds, easier as the water grew shallower; and they all reached this other hill just as the new wave banged into them, and their heads went under, and then they were up on the side of the hill, together with all kinds of animals, who were dragging themselves up, streaming water, half drowned, their open mouths full of water.

      The children were carried nearly to the top of this hill, which was much higher than the one they had left. When they looked back they could see the water was already halfway up, past where they had been standing, and the animals there were so thickly clustered their horns and trunks were like the little, dead forest near home with its branches sticking up. Now the water covered everywhere: there was nothing to be seen but water, brown, tossing and flooding water, and all the hills were crowded with animals. Just near where the four people stood, the two children clutching tight to the legs of their rescuers, was a big, flat rock covered in snakes. Mara had never seen them alive, though she knew there were still some left. They were lying stretched out or coiled up, hardly moving, as if they were dead, but they were tired. And snakes were swimming towards the hill, through the waves, and when they reached the dry ground they slithered out and just lay, still.

      ‘Some cloudburst,’ said the woman, and above them was a blue sky without one cloud in it, and the sun shone down on the flood. ‘I saw a river come down once, like this, but it was thirty years ago,’ said the man. ‘I was about the age of these children. It was up north. The big dam burst in the hills – no maintenance.’ ‘This is no dam,’ said the woman. ‘No dam could hold this amount of water.’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’d say the plain above the Old Gorge flooded, and the water got funnelled through the gorge down to here.’ ‘A pity we can’t stop all this water flooding to waste.’

      Meanwhile Dann had found a hollow place in a flat rock where the water was trickling in, and he was sitting in the water. But he was not alone: lizards and snakes were there with him.

      ‘Dann,’ shouted Mara. The child took no notice. He was stroking a big, fat, grey snake that lay beside him in the water, and making sounds of pleasure. ‘Stop it, that’s dangerous,’ said Mara, looking up at the woman so she could stop Dann; but she did not hear. She was staring off in the direction Mara knew was north, and yet another wall of water was coming