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

emptiness of the gulf before him had been sea that came up almost to where he stood now, with boats on it, and there had been cities all around its edge. He knew that cities had been built all over the bottom of the sea, when it was dry, which were now under water, and on islands, still inhabited, but many of those had emptied, were emptying because everyone knew how fast the waters were rising, and could engulf them. Everyone knew? No, he had met people coming to the Centre who knew nothing of all this. He knew, though. He knew because of what the Mahondis knew, fragments of knowledge from distant pasts. ‘It is known,’ one would say, giving the information to another, who did not have it, because they came from a different part of Ifrik. ‘It is known that …’

      It was known that long ago when the Ice first came creeping and then piling into mountains all over Yerrup, the mass and pack of ice had pushed all those wonderful cities along the edge of that shore that stood opposite to him now, though he could not see it, over the sides and into the great gulf which was already half full of detritus and debris, before the people of that time – and who were they? – had taken up the stones and blocks of cement that had built the old cities and used them for the cities on the land which was now behind him, but then things changed, the Ice began to melt and the cities sank down. That was when the tundra turned into water. Cold, cold, a terrible cold that destroyed all Yerrup but how was it this sea, the Middle Sea, had been a sea but then was empty? ‘It was known’ that at some time a dryness, just as frightful as the all-destroying Ice, had sucked all the water out of the Middle Sea and left it a dry chasm where cities were built. But it did not fit – these bits of fact did not fit. His mind was a map of bits of knowledge that did not connect. But that was what he did know, as he looked into the moving dark clouds, and heard the seabirds calling as they dropped their way down to the lower sea. And, at his back, the marshes, and beyond them, for they had an end, scrub and sand and dust, Ifrik drying into dust. He and Mara had walked through all that, walked from deserts into marshland, and both were on their way to their opposites, through slow changes you could hardly see, you had to know.

      What do you know, Dann? – I know that what I see is not all there is to know. Isn’t that of more use than the childish What did you see?

      He returned to the track and saw stumbling towards him a man ill with exhaustion. His eyes stared, his lips cracked with his panting breath, but although he was at his limits he still moved a hand to the hilt of a knife in his belt, so that Dann could see he had a knife. Just as Dann’s instinct was; his hand was actually moving towards his knife when he let it fall. Why should he attack this man, who had nothing he needed? But the man might attack him: he was well-fed.

      ‘Food?’ grunted the stranger. ‘Food?’ He spoke in Tundra.

      ‘Walk on,’ said Dann. ‘You’ll find a place where they’ll feed you.’

      The man went on, not in the easy stride Dann was wanting to find, but on the strength of his will. If he didn’t fall into a marsh pool, he would reach the Centre and Griot would feed him.

      What with? That was Griot’s problem.

      Dann went on, slowly, thinking that it was easier to walk fast on dust and sand than on this greasy mud that had already been trodden and squashed by a thousand feet. Plenty of people had been this way. More were coming. Dann stood at the side of this track and watched them. They had walked a long distance. Men, then some women, even a child, who had dull eyes and bad breathing. He would die, this child, before he got to the Centre. In Dann’s sack was food, which would save the child, but Dann stood there and watched. How would he ever get into his stride, his own beautiful rhythm, when these refugees came past, came past …

      He had not made much progress that day, and he was already tired. The sun was sinking over there in the west, behind him. Where was he going to sleep? There wasn’t a dry bit of earth anywhere, all was wet and mud. He peered over the edge of the chasm to see if he could find a good rock to stretch out on but they all sloped: he would roll off. Well, why not? He didn’t care if he did. He went on, looking down at steep and slippery rocks that had been smoothed by thousands of years of the rub of water – but his mind gave up: it was hurting, to think like this. At last he saw a tree growing aslant, a few paces down. He slid to it on glassy rocks and landed with his legs on either side of the trunk. This was an old tree. And it was not the first that had grown on this site. Remnants and fragments of older trees lay about. Dann pulled out some bread from his sack, hung the sack on a low branch and lay back. It was already dark. The night sounds were beginning, birds and beasts he did not know. Overhead was the moon, for the clouds had gone, and he stared at it, thinking how often its brightness had been a threat to him and Mara when they had been trying to escape notice … but he didn’t have to hide now. Dann slept and woke to see a large animal, covered with heavy shags of white hair, standing near him on its hind legs, trying to pull down his bag with the food in it. He sat up, found a stone and flung it, hitting the side of the animal who snarled and escaped, sliding and slipping on scree, before reaching some rocks.

      It was halfway through the night, and chilly, but worse than that, damp, always so damp. Dann wrapped himself well and thought that if he put the bag with the food under him, the hungry animal might attack him to get it. So he left the bag where it was on the branch and dozed and woke through the rest of the night, waiting for the animal to return. But nothing happened. The sun rose away to the east where – he knew – the shores of the Middle Sea ended, and beyond them unknown lands and peoples. For the first time a doubt appeared in his mind. He had been thinking – for such a long time now – that he would walk to the end of this sea and then … but how far was it? He had no idea. He did not know. He ate some bread, drank water from a little stream running down from the marshes and climbed back to the path. He was stiff. He must find his pace again, which could carry him all day and – if necessary – all night.

      On his right the marshes were opening into larger pools, and places where you could stand and look down through water on to the roofs of towns. And what roofs – what towns. He remembered the boatman who had brought him and Mara north: he had said he didn’t enjoy looking down to see buildings so much better than anything anyone knew how to build now. It made him miserable, he said. Yes, thought Dann, exactly, it did make one miserable. Perhaps this weight of sorrow on him was simply that: he was ashamed, surrounded always by a past so much more clever and wonderful and rich than anything they had now. Always now you came up against long ago … long, long ago … once there was … once there were, people, cities and, above all, knowledge that had gone.

      So, what did he know? When you came down to it? Over there the ice mountains were melting over Yerrup and their water poured all along those coasts he could not see, down into the Middle Sea. Water poured from the Western Sea down over the Rocky Gates into the Middle Sea. The marshes had been frozen solid as rock where cities had been built to last for ever but now they stood down there deep under water. And southwards, beyond the marshes, Ifrik and its rivers were drying into dust. Why? He did not know. He knew nothing.

      Dann’s thoughts were stumbling as wearily as his feet, he was burdened with the weight of his ignorance. And of his shame. Once, long ago, people knew, they knew it all, but now …

      A man came towards him, tired out, like them all, and Dann called out in Tundra – but saw from the face it was not understood. He tried Mahondi, he tried Agre, and then the odd phrases of the half-dozen languages he knew enough of to say, ‘Where are you from?’ At last one man did stop. The two were alone on the track. Dann pulled out some bread and watched the starving man eat. Then he said, ‘Where are you from?’

      Dann heard syllables he recognised.

      ‘Is that far?’

      ‘I have been walking forty days.’

      ‘Is your country near the end of the Middle Sea?’

      And now a blank face.

      ‘This is the Middle Sea. We are standing on the edge of it.’

      ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

      ‘What do you call this, then?’ – Dann indicating the great emptiness just by them.

      ‘We call