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

have a wife in Agre,’ said Shabis. ‘She’s a good woman but she would not welcome Mara’s child. Why should she? She longed for her own child but – we weren’t lucky. If I arrived there with Mara’s – no, I can’t even think of it. And so – you do see, Griot?’

      ‘You could come to the Centre, with the child,’ said Griot.

      ‘I feel I have responsibilities here, apart from Tamar. Daulis, I know, would go back to Bilma if there weren’t Leta to consider. And Leta knows it. If Leta returned to Bilma she would find herself back in the … did you know Leta was in the whorehouse there?’

      ‘Yes. When Dann rambles he tells a good deal. But you forget, I was living here before and Leta is not exactly shy about her life as a whore.’

      ‘You don’t understand. She’s so ashamed of it, and that’s why she has to talk.’

      ‘If you came to the Centre, you and Dann together could lead us invading Tundra.’ Griot’s voice trembled, telling how this seemed to him the apotheosis of the best he could hope for – General Shabis and General Dann … ‘You and Dann,’ he said again.

      ‘Have you thought that Dann might not be so pleased to see me? He lost his sister to me – that’s how he sees it. Rather, how he feels it. He was always generous to me – to us – to me and Mara. But when I think of how he feels – well, I try not to, Griot.’

      Griot was silent. The sea crashed and washed below them and stung them with spray.

      ‘So, you see, Griot, there’s a stop to any path I might want to take.’

      Griot, who had been a child left to fend for himself, was thinking that the little girl, Tamar, was surely too small, too unimportant – was that it? – to stand in the way of General Shabis and his duty to heal his country.

      ‘Back to the house, Griot. I’m glad you came. Don’t imagine I’m not thinking about all this – it’s what I think about all the time.’

      Kira met them on the veranda, and she was glittering with anger in the lamplight.

      ‘In a minute, Kira,’ said Shabis and the two men went past her. In the main room Leta and Daulis were playing dice. Donna was with the children.

      Shabis asked Leta to go with him. They left Kira with Griot.

      ‘So, what’s the big secret?’ said Kira. ‘Has Dann gone completely crazy at last?’

      This was most unpleasantly acute.

      ‘I’m sure you would be told if he were,’ said Griot.

      Leta returned with packets of herbs, which she spread out and began instructing Griot.

      ‘These are all sedative herbs,’ said Kira.

      ‘We have people who are ill,’ said Griot, refusing to surrender Dann to Kira.

      ‘Well, tell Dann it is time he saw his child,’ said Kira. ‘Tell him to come and see me.’

      ‘Yes, I will. And he would want to see his sister’s child too,’ said Griot.

      He was using a tone to Kira he never had when he was here before. He stood his ground while she sparked off anger, muttered something, turned and went out.

      ‘Never mind her,’ said Leta, her voice full of dislike.

      This must be a jolly company of people, Griot thought. He was glad he was not trapped here.

      He asked to sleep on the veranda, so he could slip off in the morning. He slept lightly. In the night he watched Kira come out and stand at the top of the steps, looking out. She only glanced at him, and then went out into the dark.

      Very early he woke and saw her a little way down a slope to where some sheds stood, talking to some people who he knew were newly arrived refugees. They must have come by the marsh roads, not seeing the Centre. The two dogs were with her; when they saw he was awake, they left her and came to wag their tails and lick his hands, and then went a little way with him.

      Before he turned a corner on to the road, he saw Leta on the veranda. Her hair glistened in the early light: it was like sunlight. Her skin was so white: he could never decide what he thought about Albs. They fascinated but they repelled him. That hair – how he wanted to touch it, to let the smooth slippery masses run through his fingers. But her skin … he thought it was like the white thick underbelly skin of a fish.

      Donna’s hair wasn’t fair, like Leta’s, but dark and fine, and where it was parted, or when a breeze blew, the skin showed dead white. Once, Griot knew, all of Yerrup had been filled with these Alb people, all with white fish skins. He didn’t like thinking about it. A lot of people said Albs were witches, the men too, but Griot did not take this seriously: he knew how easily people said others were witches, or had magical powers. And why should he complain? When his soldiers said Dann had magic in him, Griot merely smiled and let them think it.

      Before Griot had even reached the gates of the Centre he heard the commotion in Dann’s quarters: shouts, the snow dog’s barks, Dann’s voice. He ran, and burst into the room where Dann was standing on his bed, arms flailing, eyes and face wild. There was a sickly smell. Dann saw Griot and shouted, ‘Liar. You tricked me. You went to intrigue with Shabis against me.’ The two soldiers on guard, minding Dann, stood with their backs to a wall: they were exhausted and they were frightened. The snow dog sat near them, as if protecting them, and watched Dann, who jumped off the bed and began whirling around, so that his outflung hands just missed first one soldier’s face and then the other’s; he whirled so that his fingers flicked Griot’s cheek, then a foot went out as if to kick Ruff, but the animal sat there, unflinching. He let out a low growl of warning.

      ‘Sir,’ said Griot, ‘General … no, listen, Dann …’

      ‘Dann,’ sneered Dann, still flailing about, ‘so it’s Dann, is it? Inferior ranks address their superiors like that, is that it?’

      Now Griot had had time to see that on a low table was a greasy smeared dish and on that a lump of poppy which had been burning and was still smoking.

      Dann leaped back on the bed and stood, knees bent, hands on his thighs, glaring around. His dark pupils had white edges. He was shaking.

      ‘And there’s another thing,’ he shouted at Griot. ‘I’m going to burn down your precious Centre, full of rubbish, full of dead old rubbish, I’m going to make a fire big enough to scorch all of Tundra.’ He fell back on the bed, obviously to his own surprise, and lay staring up, breathing in fast sharp gasps.

      One of the soldiers said, in a low voice, which was dulled by fear, ‘Griot, sir, the General set fire to the Centre, but we stopped him.’

      ‘Yes, I did,’ came the loud voice from the bed. ‘And I will again. What do we want with all this old rubbish? We should burn it and be finished.’

      ‘General, sir,’ said Griot, ‘may I remind you that you asked me not to let you have poppy. It was an order, sir. And now I’m going to take it away.’

      At this up leaped Dann and he jumped off the bed towards the poppy, and then changed his mind, to attack Griot, who stood there as if hypnotised. And he was: he was thinking that in the fearful strength of his seizure Dann could overmaster him easily and in a moment.

      The snow dog walked in a calm considered way to where the two men faced each other and took Dann’s right arm, lifted to strike, in his big jaws and held it. Dann whirled about. A knife had appeared in his other hand, but it was not clear if Dann meant it for Ruff or for Griot. The snow dog let himself move with Dann’s movement but did not let go.

      Griot said, ‘Sir, you ordered me to keep the poppy from you.’

      ‘Yes, but that wasn’t me, it was The Other One.’

      And now, hearing what he had said he stood transfixed, staring – listening? He was hearing … what?

      ‘The Other One,’ muttered Dann.