The Cleft. Doris Lessing

does, who had soon to learn to lie down, the babes beside them. And what did the does gain from this? We may speculate. It is my belief that animals are more intelligent than we ever give them credit for. After all, it was a she wolf who suckled our forefathers, Romulus and Remus. Her statue and the two babes are much loved by us. Probably the beginning of this bond was the terrible need of the babes, who were dying for lack of what the deer – and the she wolf – had in plenty. Need calls forth its response.

      And why did the eagles take to saving the babes and bringing them over the mountain to the lads, instead of devouring them? For one thing, the boys caught fish for the eagles, and laid them on the grass, and the great birds, having delivered their burden of screaming babies, would stand over the fish, enormous fish, and feed there, and often they came between deliveries of babes, for their meals. Or they would take a fish or part of one – there were very large fish in the river – up into the mountain for their nestlings.

      And the second wave of Monsters, or Squirts, were not mother-deprived, but were licked and nuzzled and fed by the kindly deer, who sometimes played with the fawns as if they were fawns themselves.

      The feeding babies and deer would have to lie down together. There were no vessels or containers then. Soon, though, shells from the river became utensils, and gourds. There was not nearly as much weed in the river as there was in the sea, but these boys grew into strong lads, and the seashore was not far for hardy boys. This shore was a distance from the Clefts’ shore, but continuous with it. The boys did not know for a long time that if they had journeyed in one direction along their beaches – they had beaches, the Clefts only had smooth warm rocks – they would encounter the Clefts, their persecutors.

      They brought varieties of weed from the sea, and shellfish, and some sea fish, and the new babes were fed very well, as soon as they outgrew milk. And the friendly deer were offered weed, which they liked, and flesh of the fish and shellfish, but this they did not like.

      But it must have been hard for the boys, keeping the babes fed, even with the aid of the deer. The eagles were always bringing more of the Monsters and these were not mutilated now. The eagles were perched on high rocks from where they could see the Clefts and their rocks, and as soon as there was a new little boy, they swooped and saved it and brought it over the mountain.

      Some Squirts, we believe, were still hidden in the caves, but you cannot easily keep prisoner energetic boys, unless they are tied. Some Squirts were tied, but they made such a noise, yelling and screaming, that when they escaped, running away, guided by the great birds, the old Clefts were relieved. No more little boys were kept as ‘pets’, and the Clefts reverted to their earlier practice: any babe not snatched away by the eagles as they came out of the womb were put out on the Killing Rock and instantly carried off by the eagles.

      Soon there was a community of young males, we do not know how many. The chroniclers did not go in for exactitude. And time was passing, the very first arrivals were now strong young men, and troubled with all kinds of questions about their equipment of tubes and bumps and lumps. Yes, they knew now the tube was for passing urine.

      The males could not expect to live till old age, not when they were in and out of that dangerous rushing river, and the wild animals were so close in the trees. One died, of an illness, or of an accident, and the chroniclers did not specify; what they recorded was that this death raised a question … they saw that they could expect to die, and then what would they do to replace themselves? The Clefts had the power of birth, but they did not.

      As for the Squirts – and I like that term better than the Monsters: at least it is accurate – they began to be anxious about the supply of babes brought by the eagles. Suppose the eagles decided not to bring the boy babies over the mountain? Once the question had arisen it would not go away. Over there on their shore – and some of the boys remembered it well – the Clefts gave birth. Without the Clefts there would be no new arrivals in the eagles’ claws, there would be no Squirts.

      And how long did the period of questioning and doubt go on? We have no idea. The songs of the early men were histories, of a kind. They sang of their times with the Clefts, and the cruelties were well recorded. There were songs that told of escape from pain and fear to this valley where the eagles were their friends, the deer gave them milk, and there were fish in the river and in the sea. They had shelter, better than the early heaps of sticks. They were brave and strong and healthy, and their numbers were growing … but they did not have the knack of giving life.

      They were wild and restless, those first males, our so distant ancestors, and their nature took them long distances into the forests, and they began to know at least one part of their island, which was large, though they had no idea of that. They found great airy forests, deep and swift rivers and their tributaries, the little streams, pleasant hills, peaceful shores – this was what those earlier explorers found. They learned the ways of the wild animals and how to avoid them, and then, soon, how to kill them for food. They never killed the deer, their friends, whom they associated with gentleness and kindness, and with nourishment. They knew themselves to be better off, better fed, with much more space to move in, than the Clefts who never left their shore.

      They were always tormented by the demands of their maleness, but did not know what it was they yearned for. All the tricks and devices for allaying sexual hunger were theirs, including the use of a certain animal – not a deer, they could not have brought themselves to use their milk donors, their mothers, in fact. But they did not use the words for mother, father. How could they? They did not know they were, or could be, fathers. And they were not deer, though they loved the deer. Did they know the word ‘love’, or think it? I believe not.

      They thought often and with increasing urgency and curiosity about the Clefts, who lived exactly as they had always done, and not so far away. What had been an impossible distance for small boys was now nothing much. For the Clefts the walk to the Eagles’ Hills was impossible because they had never thought of doing it. The idea of simply walking there, climbing, and seeing what was on the other side had never occurred to them. They did not know that on the other side of the mountain was the wonderful valley where the Monsters were living. It had never come into their heads to wonder. Out of sight, out of mind; and never has this been better exemplified.

      Yet they were full of doubts now, and fearful. Their numbers were falling fast. They had never been very numerous, their instinctive inner regulator had seen to that. Some caves were half full, and then soon there were empty caves. Only half a dozen caves were occupied, and the old distinctions of Fish Catcher, Seaweed Gatherer and so on were blurring. The babies born Cleft were watched over, fretted over, were precious, while the Squirts were born to even stronger dislike, because it would have been better had they been born Clefts.

      Two girls, young things, lying half in and half out of the waves on a favourite rock, watched as a certain sea creature inserted a tube into another of its kind, and emitted a cloud of milky eggs. They felt they had been granted a revelation – perhaps from the Great Fish himself – and they went to the Old Shes and told them what they had seen, and what they now thought likely to be the truth.

      They were met by the slow tranquil gaze of eyes that had never been troubled by thought, even if they had learned anxiety, and no matter how these young Clefts persisted, saying that the Monsters might have a use, nothing would convince the old ones, if they had properly heard what was said.

      Next time a Monster was born, these two snatched it away from the mother, and shielded it from the eagles, and examined the ugly thing that made it a Monster. They saw the tube was not unlike the one on the fish. Rubbed, it became stiff, but there was no emissions of cloudy eggs. The babe screamed, the eagle, waiting there behind a rock, rose up and broke its great wings into the girls’ faces, and with its claws gently snatched the babe and carried it off. But it left behind questions and doubts.

      So the two communities were thinking about each other, though the Clefts did not even dream of walking past the Killing Rock, to the mountain and over it.

      As for the young lads, who were ranging further every day over their part of the island, fear of the Clefts kept them well away from those rocks and caves they had escaped from. Some did go up to the mountain where the eagles were, and stare towards