Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

empty houses. Citizens were quietly leaving to go up North, fearing the spread of the drought. Water was not rationed, but the authorities punished those wasting it; there was food, but not as much as there had been. Both food and water supplies were in the hands of the Hadrons.

      Moving about the streets on her cleaning duties, Mara recognised a good deal of what she saw. The trees, first. They were limp, some had dying branches, white stick-like limbs among the green, and there were many dead trees. The city had fountains, but there was no water in them, only rubbish, which Mara, with fellow slaves, was kept cleaning out.

      The slaves were not all Mahondis, but all were fugitives from the famine and the drought. Some had already been here for years. Mara had believed that the Mahondis of Rustam had been all there were, but other Mahondi people had come from all over southern Ifrik, and some spoke of past comforts and pleasures – even high positions and riches.

      Mara was tense, anxious, fearful, which climaxed every day when the tubs of water were brought in from where water was kept under guard and, when enough had been set aside for drinking, the slaves were expected to stand in groups around the tubs and wash themselves. Most stood naked, shedding the ubiquitous slaves’ robes to wash, but not all stripped, and Mara washed her legs and body up to her hips, bunching up the robe, and then sliding it down a little, but never showing her chest. Her worry was the cord of coins, but her breasts were already a bit bigger. The Hadrons who guarded them were looking at her and wondering. Something told them she was not male, though she thought she still looked like a boy. Then what she dreaded happened. While she was washing, manipulating the folds of robe to keep herself covered, a guard lifted them with his stick and kept his stick there, so she was exposed to everyone – fellow slaves who first were surprised, but laughed, and the other guards, who laughed, and came to have a good look.

      Within an hour she had been told to fetch her sack, and without being able to warn Dann, who was out portering a chair for some bigwig, she was led across the town to a large house, where she was taken in at once to see its mistress. She had expected to see a Hadron, but the guards had told her no, she was a Mahondi in charge of the female slaves. At first Mara thought, How can she be a Mahondi? We are tall, slim people, while this woman is fat, and sits in her chair with her little, plump feet on a stool. It occurred to Mara for the first time that she had believed her people to be thin by nature, because she had never known a time when food was not short, even when she was little. So Mahondis could be as fleshy and as large as Hadrons. Mara was not sure she liked this.