Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing

jumped down off the rocks and down the hill to the bottom, where his feet squelched as he took a few steps. ‘It is hard underneath,’ he said.

      He picked up Dann, who was sleepy and silent, and said to Mara, ‘Can you manage?’

      When Mara jumped down there was a thickness of mud under her feet, but a hardness under that. The moonlight was so strong it made big shadows from the rocks, and from the branches that were stuck in the mud, and sad shadows from the drowned animals lying about everywhere. The grasses dragged at their feet, but they went on, past the hill where they had been first, and where now there were no animals at all, and then they reached the edge of the river. The other side seemed a long way off. The man picked up one of the torn-off branches, held the leafy part, carefully stepped to the very edge of the water. He poked the branch in and it went right down. He went squelching along the edge and tried again, and it went down. He did it farther along and this time the wood only went in to about the height of the children’s knees. ‘Here,’ he said, and the woman lifted Mara up. The two big people stepped into the brown water, which was racing past, rippling and noisy, but not deep, not here. The man went ahead with Dann, poking the wood of the branch into the water at every step, and the woman, with Mara, was just behind. Mara thought, Suppose the flood comes down now? We’ll be drowned. And she was trembling with fear. They were right in the middle now, and everything glistened and shone because of the moon, which was making a gold edge on every ripple. The mud on the other side of the water was a stretch of yellowish light. They were going so slowly, a step and then a stop, while the man poked the water, and then another step and a stop. It seemed to go on and on, and then they were out of the water and on the mud. Close by were some trees. They had had water quite high up their trunks, though usually they were on the edge of a waterhole. They seemed quite fresh and green, and that was because they were here, not far from water, while the trees around Mara’s home were dying, or dead. There were dark blotches on the branches. Birds. They must have been sitting here safely all through the flood.

      Now they were well past the water. Mara felt herself being set down, while the woman’s whole body seemed to lift itself up because of the relief of not having Mara’s weight. And again Mara thought, She must be so tired, and weak too, because I’m not so heavy really.

      They were walking carefully through the dirty and wet tussocks of grass, away from the water. They reached the rise that was as far as they had been able to see from the top of the big hill they had been on and, when they were over it, ahead were trees, quite a lot. So this couldn’t be anywhere near their home – Mara had been thinking wildly, although she knew it couldn’t be true, that perhaps they were going back home. She was trying to remember if she had ever seen so many trees all together. These had their leaves, but as she passed under them she could smell their dryness. These thirsty trees must have been thinking of all that water rushing past, just over the ridge, but they couldn’t get to it.

      The man stumbled and fell because he had tripped over a big white thing. It was a bone. He was on his feet at once, telling Dann, who had taken another tumble and was wailing, ‘Don’t cry, hush, be quiet.’

      Ahead was another river, full of fast water, and the wet had reached all the way up here to the edge of the trees and had pushed away earth from under a bank, making a cave; and in the cave were a lot of white sticks: bones. The man poked his branch into the bones and they came clattering out.

      ‘Do you realise what we are seeing?’

      ‘Yes,’ said the woman, and although she was tired she was actually interested.

      ‘What is it, what is it?’ Mara demanded, tugging at the woman’s hand and then at the man’s.

      ‘This is where the old animals’ bones piled up, and the water has exposed them – look.’

      Mara saw tusks so long and thick they were like trees; she saw enormous white bones; she saw cages made of bones, but she knew they were ribs. She had never imagined anything could be this big.

      ‘These are the extinct animals,’ said the man. ‘They died out hundreds of years ago.’

      ‘Why did they?’

      ‘It was the last time there was a very bad drought. It lasted for so long all the animals died. The big ones. Twice as big as our animals.’

      ‘Will this drought be as long as that?’

      ‘Let’s hope not,’ he said, ‘or we’ll all be extinct too.’ The woman laughed. She actually laughed; but Mara thought it was not funny, it was dreadful. ‘Really we should cover all these bones up again and mark where they are, and when things get better we can come and examine them properly.’

      He believed that things were going to get better, Mara thought.

      ‘No time now,’ the woman said.

      The man was poking with his branch at the wet earth, and it was falling away and the bones kept tumbling out, clashing and clattering.

      ‘Why here?’ whispered Mara.

      ‘Probably another flood like this brought down dead animals and they piled up here. Or perhaps it was a graveyard.’

      ‘I didn’t know animals had graveyards.’

      ‘The big animals were very intelligent. Nearly as clever as people.’

      ‘This is no graveyard,’ said the woman. ‘All the different species together? No, it was a flood. We’ve seen today how it must have happened.’

      The man was pulling from the mass of bones a ribcage so big that when he stood inside it the ribs were like a house over him. The ends of the ribs rested on the wet earth and sank in because of the weight. The big central bone, the spine, was nearly as thick as the man’s body. If some of the ribs had not been broken away, leaving gaps, the man would not have been able to pull it: it would have been too heavy.

      ‘What on earth could that have been?’ said the woman, and he answered, ‘Probably the ancestor of our horse. They were three times as big.’ He went on standing there, with the broken ribs curving over him, the moon making another shadow cage with a blotch in it that was his shadow, lying near.

      ‘Don’t forget where this place is,’ said the woman to Mara. ‘We’ll do our best to come back, but with things as they are who knows…’ And she stopped herself from going on, thinking she would frighten Mara. Who was thinking, That means she doesn’t know how frightening all the other things she has said were. And how could Mara remember where the bones were when she didn’t know where she was going?

      ‘Come on,’ said the woman, ‘we must hurry.’

      But the man didn’t want to leave. He would have liked to go on poking about among those old bones. But he came out from the ribs of the ancient horse and lifted up Dann, and they walked on, Mara holding tight to the woman’s hand.

      Soon it was dry underfoot. They were back in the dryness that Mara knew. She could hear the singing beetles hard at it in the trees. She felt her tunic: dry. The mud on her legs and feet was dry. Soon they would all be thirsty again. Mara was already a bit thirsty. She thought of all that water they had left and longed for it. Her skin felt dry again. The moon was getting its late look, and was going down the sky.

      It was hot. Everything was rustling with dryness: grass, bushes, a little creeping wind. Then, ahead, was a Rock Village, and the man said to the little boy, ‘Don’t make a sound,’ and the woman said to Mara, very low, ‘Quiet, quiet,’ and they were running towards the village. It was not empty like the other one, for it had a feel of being lived in, and from a window in a house light came, just a little, dim light. And in a moment they had reached this house, and the man had slid the door along, and a tall woman came out at once. She put her hand on Mara’s shoulder; and when the little boy, half asleep, slid down out of the man’s arms, she put her other hand on his shoulder; and the three big people whispered over Mara’s head, fast and very low, so she could not hear; and then she heard, ‘Goodbye Mara, goodbye Dann,’ and then these two who had rescued them – and carried them and held them and fed them, brought them safely through all that