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

      Kira settled her billows of purple skirt into a chair and enquired, ‘And how is my dear Dann?’

      Griot was not going to tell Kira how Dann was, knowing she would take advantage of it if she could. Yet, with people coming this way from the Centre on their way down the coast, she must have heard, or would hear.

      ‘Dann has been on a long visit to the Bottom Sea,’ he said and, as she pressed for more, he kept fending her off, saying, ‘He went fishing with the fishing fleet.’ ‘He saw the ice mountains from up close,’ and then Shabis came and Griot stood, waiting for his greeting, knowing from that kindly face that Shabis was pleased to see him – and that he was muting his greeting because of Kira.

      Shabis nodded at Griot to sit, and sat himself. He looked older and his loss of Mara had sapped him of some vital substance, some buoyancy that had infused his whole being when Mara had been with him. He was a tall, too thin man, and greying. It had to be acknowledged that this soldier was very far from what he had been.

      Griot wanted to talk to Shabis alone, and now began an unpleasant little game, where Kira prevented Dann and Shabis from going aside to talk. When at last they went into the house to evade her she went with them and all that evening during the meal she kept up a chatter designed to prevent her being forgotten, even for a moment.

      And she had changed: Griot’s covert glances at that pretty face, with its many little tricks of lip and eye and look and smile, told him that whatever had been there to like, and admire, had gone: and her voice, too, had changed.

      Everything had changed since Griot had left. Mara had been some sort of centre for this family, but it was not one now. She had held it together. And she had kept Kira out of its centre, where she tried to be.

      The two little girls, both delightful and – well, like little girls, Griot supposed, who had had no contact with children since he had been one – were well behaved, but Griot noted that Tamar, Mara’s child, stayed close to her father, and when she looked at Kira she was apprehensive.

      Kira ordered not only her own child, Rhea, to do this and that, sit up, not fidget, not eat so fast and so on, but Tamar too, though the two Albs, Leta and Donna, were in charge of them. At last Shabis said, ‘That’s enough, Kira,’ a rebuke with an authority that went far beyond the present situation. Kira pouted, and sulked.

      When the time came for goodnights, Tamar was going past Kira, who said, ‘What’s this, no kiss for Kira?’

      The child blew Kira a kiss, but she was not going to be allowed to get away with that. Griot saw how they all, Shabis, Leta, Daulis and Donna, watched as the child ran up to Kira and lifted her face up for a kiss – Tamar was pretending to laugh but she was frightened. And Kira made a great ugly face – a joke, of course – and when she bent to the kiss, made the face even more threatening, so that the child broke away and ran to Leta.

      ‘What a little cry-baby,’ said Kira.

      The little girls were taken off by the two Albs – into separate rooms, as Griot saw – and Kira said, ‘Another of those long boring evenings. Do tell us something interesting, Griot.’

      Griot said, ‘I’m sorry, Kira. I have to leave in the morning early and I must talk to Shabis.’

      ‘Then talk away.’

      Griot looked for help to Shabis, who rose and said, ‘Come, we’ll go for a walk. It’s quite light still.’

      ‘I want to walk too,’ said Kira.

      ‘No,’ said Shabis. ‘Stay where you are.’

      ‘Oh, Shabis,’ cajoled Kira, but Shabis frowned. Griot saw that Kira had wanted to move into Mara’s place, still wanted to, but it had not happened, and that was the reason for her petulance and her complaints. The idea of Kira where Mara had been shocked Griot, and he stood looking at Kira with such dislike that she removed her attention from Shabis, gave it to Griot and said, ‘So, what’s the matter, Griot? You’ve got your way, haven’t you? It’s more than I ever do.’ And she actually seemed about to cry.

      This was such a new thing in Kira, this childishness, that Griot was again set back by it, and Shabis called to him, ‘Come on, Griot.’

      The two men went out into the dusk, with the dogs.

      They stood well away from the house. Kira was in the doorway trying to overhear. Griot told how Dann had been ill since the news of Mara’s death; he explained why Dann had heard so late. He told as much as he had gathered of Dann’s adventures at the Bottom Sea and at last made himself say that Dann was mad, and he didn’t know what to do.

      ‘Let us go further,’ said Shabis, with a glance back at the looming purple shape that was Kira. They walked down a stony path while the noise of the Western Sea loudened, and stopped close together where spray came hurtling over a cliff, but the noise was not too bad.

      ‘He was very ill once before,’ said Shabis and told Griot of the events in the Towers at Chelops.

      ‘Yes, when he is rambling he talks about it.’

      ‘Usually he never mentions it. Mara said he was afraid of thinking about it.’

      ‘And now he is afraid of poppy.’ Griot told Shabis of Dann’s orders never to give him poppy.

      ‘Then that’s the main thing,’ said Shabis. ‘And I’ll ask Leta, she has medicines for everything. But meanwhile tell me about the Centre. What’s all this about a new army?’

      Griot told Shabis his story, not boasting, but proud of what he had achieved, and he ended saying that Tundra’s cities should be invaded. Now was the right time.

      ‘You talk easily about invasions and killing, Griot.’

      ‘I think Tundra will soon start invading us. The Centre is a rich prize. And the old people are dead. They want Dann, for his reputation.’

      ‘Really, and what reputation is that?’ said Shabis, surprising Griot, who then saw the older man’s ironical smile. ‘But it seems to me there are two. One, General Dann – and he deserved that; when I promoted him so young I think I can say I knew what I was doing. But this other reputation, the wonder worker Prince Dann? That’s all just moonshine and talk.’

      ‘It’s not Prince Dann, or prince anything, people talk about. But he does seem to have some kind of – authority that it’s hard to explain. And my spies tell me that all over Tundra they are waiting for him.’

      ‘I see. I seem to have been here before. I spoke against the invasion of Shari. That is why I became the enemy of the other three generals. And I was right. Nothing was achieved except the usual tale of refugees and deaths. In my experience easy talk about wars and invasions means weakness, not strength.’

      ‘It’s a question of need. The refugees keep coming and coming – I am sure you must see them here – and they have to be fed and clothed and looked after. I remember how you used to give us lectures and lessons, and I try to do the same, Shabis. We are all so crowded, there’s no room. And Tundra is mostly empty.’

      ‘Everything is so unstable, can’t you see that? The wars along the road to the east – they show no signs of ending. On the contrary, new wars flare up … The great unknown quantity, Griot – it’s the masses of refugees. Are you going to control armies of displaced people with some talk about a wonder worker called General Dann? And down south, there is bad trouble in Charad, in my country. The three generals were killed in a coup and the army is wanting me back.’

      Griot could see that Shabis, standing there so close, was talking to himself, though loudly, because of the sea noise; he was rehearsing thoughts that he went over when he was alone.

      ‘And yes, Griot, you are too polite to say it, but you’re thinking I am too old for generalling and war. Yes, I am, but I’m not too old to be a figurehead. I am General Shabis, who was against the three bad generals, and they are dead. So I am wanted back to unify Agre and protect them against the Hennes. But how can I leave, Griot?