The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog. Doris Lessing

here on what had been once near the bottom. And would be again. When? So much water pouring in, salt water and fresh ice, and yet behind him the cliffy sides stretched up – and up.

      Dann took off his clothes and slid into the water, ready to fish, but with nothing but his ten fingers. There were a lot of fish of all sizes. He swam among them and they crowded around, jostling and nudging, not afraid at all. He embraced a big scarlet fish, stuck his fingers into its gills and wrestled it up and out of the water on to a flat rock where it panted its way to death. He had his knife in his belt. He cut the fish into strips and stuck them on a bush to be cured by the sun. He had nothing like a bag or a satchel with him, and it was a big fish. He stayed for some time, until the sun had gone down behind the great cliff of falling water, and he was in danger of having to climb up that dangerous rocky edge in the dark. He made his way up in the cracks between the rocks. It took a long time and it was dark when he reached the top. He made his way to the Centre, and to his room, avoiding the old woman and the servitors, accepting the heavy damp of the air into his lungs with difficulty.

      And next day early he went down the side of the Middle Sea, but this time with a sack to put the strips of fish in. But the fish had gone. Someone, something, had taken it. Alert, looking around, trying to be small and invisible, Dann squatted behind a rock and waited. He could see nothing, nobody. He decided not to swim and try for another fish in case this invisible thief should stop him getting out. The sun was straight above him, and it was hot. He did try a quick dip close to the shore and from the water he saw on a bush strands of coarse white hair. The hair was high on the bush. A largish animal, then. He climbed back up the sides of the chasm to his spit of rock and thought how different it was, believing yourself alone, and then knowing you are not, perhaps being observed.

      When he had arrived at the Centre from the Farm – it seemed to him now a pretty long time ago, at least half a sun’s cycle – he had found that the man, who called himself Prince Felix, was dead and the old woman, Felissa, mad enough to believe that he had returned as a conqueror with the intention of setting her on a throne. She had an old piece of metal, a shield, from who knew how long ago, with a picture on it of a woman on a high chair, while people knelt around her. Dann wanted to find out from her what the metal was, what time it had come from, from which room in the museums she had taken it, but she only wailed and complained that he was of the royal blood and must assume his rightful place – at her side. He had left her to it.

      Then, from the Farm had come after him a youth who had turned up there, looking for work. His name was Griot and Dann remembered those greenish eyes always following him, from as far back as Agre. He had been a soldier, under Dann, who had been General Dann of Agre. The fact was, he had followed Dann from Agre to the Farm, and from there to the Centre. Griot had said to Dann, ‘When you didn’t come back to the Farm, I thought you might have something for me here.’ Here meaning the Centre, but his use of the word suggested larger purposes. The two young men had stood together, observing each other, one with need, and Dann wanting to get away. Not that he disliked Griot: he had never much noticed him. A thickset young man, with a strong face, and greenish eyes that had to be noticed because eyes that colour were not often seen. Dann told him the Centre had plenty of space in it. Already all kinds of people sheltered there. It was much bigger than he and Mara had believed when they were here. That it was very large had to be obvious from a glance, but it was only when you knew it that the extent and the intricacy of the place became evident. Rooms led from rooms, rooms above rooms were reached by tiny wriggling stairs, half-ruinous areas that had been abandoned but now had inhabitants who did not want to be noticed, who kept out of sight. Beyond the encircling great stone wall on the side of the Middle Sea were buildings, made long after the main Centre was established, but they were sinking into the marshes. That was why it was easy to see the Centre as smaller than it was. It had been built on the highest place for a long way around, but as the tundra melted, the marshes encroached and the waters crept up. In some places the edges of the Centre were half under water. How long had they been like this? What use asking, when the locals might say of a city whose roofs you could see shining as the boats passed over it, ‘My grandfather said that his grandfather remembered this city when the roofs were above water.’

      Only such a short time ago he and Mara had been here together, and he could swear that he remembered dry where now there was wet. Perhaps things were speeding up? Once it had taken generations for a city to sink down into the mud, but now, much less?

      He had said to Griot that he, Dann, was not looking for company. It was hard to say this into that face full of expectation. Griot had said that he knew a lot of crafts, had many skills; Dann would not find him a liability. Dann asked Griot where he had learned so much, and heard a history not unlike his own: Griot had spent his life on the run, from wars and invasions, as much as from the drought. Dann said there was something valuable Griot could do. Every day more refugees came to the Centre from the wars that were going on in the east, in countries Dann had scarcely heard of. He had had to acknowledge that there was more to the world than Ifrik. On the goatskin where he had sketched his map of the world was Ifrik, in the centre place, and above it the Middle Sea and above that Yerrup, with its ice masses. And, to the west, the Western Sea. That was about it. In his mind now were shadowy eastward extensions of this central Ifrik, filled with images of war. Griot could teach these people his skills, keep them out of mischief and stop them pilfering from the museums. Griot was pleased. He smiled: Dann had not seen this serious youth smile.

      Then he watched Griot on a level, comparatively dry area with about a hundred people, not all youths, or men, for there were women among the refugees. He was teaching them to drill, march, run. They were using weapons. From the museums?

      Dann said to Griot, ‘People trained to be soldiers will want to fight, have you thought of that?’

      And there on that stubborn face was an acknowledgement that Dann had said more than he thought he had. Griot nodded, and stared straight into Dann’s eyes. What a look that was, asking for so much.

      ‘You were a general in Agre,’ said Griot softly.

      ‘Yes, I was, and I remember you, but I am not looking for more fighting.’

      And now Dann found himself being examined, most thoroughly, by those unsettling eyes. Griot did not have to say I don’t believe you.

      ‘It’s true, Griot.’

      It certainly was odd, the way people again and again expected him to step into some space in their imaginations, fit into their dreams.

      He said, ‘Griot, when Mara and I came here we found two lunatic old people who wanted us to start a new dynasty of Mahondis. They called us prince and princess. They saw us as a breeding pair. They saw me as someone who would create an army.’

      Griot’s eyes did not leave Dann’s face: he was searching for what Dann was not saying.

      ‘I mean it,’ said Dann. ‘Yes, I was a general, and yes, I was, I believe, good at it. But I’ve seen too much of killing and people being made captives.’

      ‘Why did the old people want you to have an army? What for?’

      ‘Oh, they were batty. To conquer everything. To subdue all of Tundra – I don’t know.’

      Griot said, ‘There is always killing, and people running from wars. And new wars.’

      Dann said nothing and Griot asked – and clearly this was the moment of definition for him, ‘And so what do you want to do – sir?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Dann. ‘No, I really don’t.’

      Griot said nothing. He had taken in all that Dann had said, but his conclusions were not what Dann would have approved of.

      At last Griot said, ‘Very well. I’ll do what I can with the refugees. Some of them are not bad. They can teach me a thing or two sometimes. And I’m arranging the food supplies. There is plenty of good fish down in the Bottom Sea – not the muddy marsh rubbish around here. And I shall get some seed grain that I saw growing in water. And there’s a marsh pig we can breed.’

      Dann saw that Griot was taking on the tasks that he had expected Dann to do.