Mara and Dann

Mara was silent, hoping she had taken all this in.

‘Why are the special lamps here – look, like that one? At home only we have them, not the servants or the slaves.’

‘The Rock People raided once when there was a rebellion and fighting in the palace, and took away a lot of things. But it is a long time since these lamps worked. No one knows how they work.’

‘Why didn’t you ask those people who brought Dann and me here where your children are?’

‘There wasn’t time.’

‘Who are those people? Why did they want to save us?’

‘Gorda paid them to bring you. He probably thought there wasn’t any other place that was safe.’

‘Are we safe?’

‘Not very,’ said Daima. ‘But if my children could manage, then so can you.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Mara.

‘That’s good,’ said Daima. ‘That means you’ll be on your guard.’

‘I will try.’

‘And now, Mara, we should stop, and you can think about everything and we can talk again.’

‘And play the What Did You See game?’

‘As often as you like. I would enjoy that, after all this time. And we must play it with Dann, because there aren’t schools here and the children are taught nothing at all.’ She got up. ‘It is midday now. This afternoon everyone in the village will go over that ridge to the river, because there will still be new water there from the flood, and we will fill our containers. I’m going to take you and Dann so they can all see you. And remember, you are my grandchildren.’ And she embraced Mara, a good, hard hug, and she said, ‘I wish you were. I’m going to think of you as my granddaughter, Mara. You’re a good girl. No, don’t cry now; you can have a good cry tonight, but if we start crying now we won’t stop. And I’m going to wake Dann, or he’ll not sleep tonight. And I’ve got something new for you to eat.’

She took a big yellow root from a jar and sliced it fine. She put the slices in three bowls, poured water over them and went to fetch Dann.

Mara tasted the water the sliced root was in. It was very sweet and fresh, and Mara did not find it easy to remember her manners and sit quiet, waiting for Dann. He came to sit on Mara’s lap, and sucked his thumb until Daima told him to stop.

They ate up the root and drank the fresh water. Dann wanted more, but Daima said the roots in the jar were all she had until she could go out and hunt for more in the earth.

Daima then gave Mara a big jug and Dann a small one, and she herself lifted up four big cans that had set across their tops pieces of wood to hold them by, tied two by two with loops of rope. She pushed the door and it slid along in its groove, and the light and heat came in. Mara’s eyes hurt, and she saw Dann screw up his eyes and try to turn his face aside, so that he was squinting to see. Then Mara was outside the house, holding Dann’s hand, and her eyes stopped dazzling and she was able to see. There was a crowd of Rock People, all looking at her and at Dann. Mara made herself stand still and look back, hoping they did not see she was frightened. Now she was close to them for the first time in her life, she could see their dull greyish skin and their pale eyes, like sick eyes, and their pale frizzy hair, which stood out around their heads like grass or like bushes. And they were so big. Everything about them seemed to Mara unhealthy and unnatural, but she knew they were not sick but strong people. She had often seen them carrying heavy loads along the roads. A girl was in one of the People’s tunics. It was torn and dirty, but it had been a soft yellow colour once. She was splitting it because she was so big.

Daima was saying, ‘These are my grandchildren. They have come to live with me. This is Mara, and this is Dann.’

Everyone was staring at these two thin, bony little children, with their short black hair that should be shining and smooth but was stiff with dirt.

A man said, ‘Yes, we know about the fighting in Rustam.’ Then he said to Mara, ‘Where are your parents, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mara. Her lips were trembling, and she stood biting them, while he grinned at her, showing big yellow teeth.

‘This is Kulik,’ Daima said. ‘He is the head man here.’

‘Don’t you curtsy to your betters?’ said Kulik.

‘Curtsy?’ said Mara, who had never heard the word.

‘I suppose she expects us to curtsy to her,’ said a woman.

Then another woman came out of the crowd and said to Daima, ‘Come on, the water’s going fast.’

‘This is Rabat,’ said Daima to the children. ‘She lives in this house here, just next to us – remember? I told you about her.’

Rabat said, ‘Pleased to meet you. I remember your parents when they were little, like you.’

Now all the crowd was moving off, and going to where the ridge was and, beyond it, the river. Everyone carried jars and jugs and cans.

Rabat was just in front of Mara, who could see the big buttocks, like hard cushions, moving under the brown stuff, and sweat dripping down fat arms. Rabat smelled strong, a sour, warm smell, and her pale hair glistened as though it had fat on it – but no, it was sweat. And then Mara saw that the brown garments everyone wore seemed different. It was the strong light that was doing it: making the brown silvery, or even whitish, and on one or two people even black; but the colour changed all the time, so that it was as if all these people were wearing shadows that slipped and slid around them. Looking down at her own tunic, Mara saw that it was brown; but when she lifted her arm the sleeve fell down in a pale shimmer that had black in its folds.

Meanwhile Rabat had fallen back to Daima and was saying, very low, ‘Last evening four soldiers came asking for you. I was on my way back from the river and saw them first. They asked if you had children with you and I said no, there were no children. Then they asked where all the people were and I said at the river. I didn’t say you were at home, though I knew you were there with the children. I was afraid they would go to the river and ask, but they were tired. I’d say they were on their last legs. One said they should stay the night in the village, and I was going to tell them we had the drought sickness here, but the others said they should hurry on. They nearly came to blows over it. I’d say they might have killed each other by now. They were quarrelling with every word. It seemed to me they didn’t really want to be bothered with the children at all, they wanted to take the opportunity to run up north.’

‘I am indebted to you,’ said Daima to Rabat, in a deliberate way that Mara could see meant something special.

Rabat nodded: yes, you are. Then she bent down to Mara and said with a big, false smile, ‘And how are your father and mother?’

Mara’s mind was working fast, and it took only a moment to see that Rabat was not talking about her real parents. ‘They were well,’ she said, ‘but now I don’t know.’

‘Poor little thing,’ said Rabat, with the same big, sweet smile. ‘And this is little Dann. How are your father and mother, dear?’ Dann was stumbling on, his feet catching in the grass tussocks and tangles, and he was concentrating so hard on this Mara was afraid he would forget and say, That’s not my name, and Daima was afraid of it too. ‘I don’t know where they are,’ he said. ‘They went away.’ And the tears began running down his dirty face.

Again Mara could not help seeing herself and Dann as all the others must: these two thin, dusty little children, different from everyone here except for Daima.

They were now going up the rise between dry trees whose leaves, Mara knew, would feel, if she took them between her fingers, so crisp and light they would crumble – not like the leaves of the plants in the house at home, soft and thick and alive, that had water put on them. These trees had not been near enough to the flood to get any water.

Now all the crowd stopped on the crest of the rise and waited for four of them to catch up. Again Mara was surrounded by the Rock People: these big, strong people, with their great balls of fuzzy hair that she could see, now she was so close, was not always the same paleness but sometimes almost white, and sometimes a deep yellow. If they wanted to they could kill Dann and her, just like that. But they hadn’t killed Daima, had they? And Rabat was Daima’s friend…No, she wasn’t, Mara thought fiercely. She was not Daima’s friend, but only pretending to be.

In front of them the grass was covered with the brown dirt from the flood, which had been mud but was quite dry now. This was the slope down to where the water was – but surely this could not be the same river, for that had been so wide and this was just a little valley.

There were some trees marking where the water was, and a lot of animals of every kind clustered by the water, and that is why the villagers had to go to the water all together: for protection.

It was quite a short walk down, and the people in front were shouting and yelling to scare away the animals. They were mostly of the kind the People used for meat and milk – rather, had used. Some were smaller furry ones that tried to hide themselves in the grasses; and there were cart birds too, though Mara could not see if the one she thought of as her cart bird was there. All the feathers and fur were dry and you could not see how thin the beasts were.

And now Dann was tugging at Mara’s hand: ‘Water, water,’ he was shouting.

‘You’d better be careful,’ said Rabat to him, ‘or you’ll get yourself eaten up by a water dragon.’ She said this with a smile, but it was not a real smile and Dann shrank away from her.

Now everyone was standing around the biggest pool and beating it with sticks, and there were all kinds of wrigglings and heavings under the water, and dark shapes appeared and sank, and then out came an enormous lizard, a water dragon, that lived in water and pulled smaller animals in to eat. The people stood back as it hissed at them, darting its tongue and banging its tail about, and whipping it from side to side. Then it turned and was off into the grass. ‘They are all going off to the big river,’ said Rabat. ‘There is a lot of water there and it is still running.’

And Mara could see how the different kinds of animals were making their way from this smaller river up on to the ridge opposite and over it. She understood now. This was not the big river she had crossed – how long ago? it seemed a long time – but a smaller one that joined it.

The water of this pool was still being beaten, the sticks flailing about over the surface, and then there appeared a water stinger. Mara had never seen one, though she knew about them. It was very big, as big as the largest of the Rock People, and it had pincers in front that could easily crush Dann, and a long sting like a whip for a tail. This beast came straight out of the water at the people, its pincers opening and closing and its little eyes gleaming and cruel. The people did not run away but stood around it, so they were brave, and they beat the stinger with their sticks; and in a moment it had rushed through a gap in the crowd left for it to run through, and it went into a nearby pool with a big splash. The animals still around that pool sheered away. And now Mara saw that another water stinger, a smaller one, was by that pool and its tail sting was holding a quite big, furry animal – which was still alive, for it was bleating and crying as the pincers tore off bits of meat and stuffed them into the stinger’s mouth.

The crowd were now all standing around the pool they had beaten. And then they all fetched their jars and containers and bent to fill them, and Daima did too, and Rabat, and Mara found a place low among all the big legs and filled her jar, and helped Dann fill his. Then, again, all the people stood around the pool, looking at it. Then, one by one, they stepped down into the water or jumped in. And Dann pulled himself off Mara’s hand and was in, splashing and paddling like a little dog. ‘Hey, there,’ said Kulik, grinning, ‘look what we’ve got here,’ and he ducked Dann, who did not come up at once. Which meant that Kulik was holding him under. ‘Stop it,’ said Daima, and Rabat said nothing but climbed down into the water and pulled Dann up, coughing and spluttering. Kulik only laughed, showing those big yellow teeth. Now Mara was in, and Daima. Dann did not seem to know what had happened, for he was laughing and shouting and struggling to get out of Rabat’s arms back into the brown water. But Daima took the child from Rabat and went out of the water with him, though he was kicking and complaining. She never once even looked at Kulik. Mara quickly splashed herself all over, keeping close to Rabat, who stood near her, her brown tunic floating around her middle, staring hard at Kulik. Then Daima called, ‘Mara,’ who most reluctantly got out of the water, feeling it flow down off her and away from the stuff of her tunic, so that it was dry at once. Mara saw that Daima had called to her because a woman was bending down to take Daima’s cans. As Daima took the cans from her, this woman giggled and smiled, just as if she had not been going to steal Daima’s precious cans.

Rabat had got out of the water, and was standing with them, her tunic streaming and very dark, then lighter and then silver.

Everyone was getting out of the pool, and the animals that had not gone off to the other ridge were coming back and standing at the edge again.

Mara saw that Dann had had all the dust washed off him, but his hair was tangled and dull and her own felt stiff and nasty. Would she ever again have smooth, clean, shiny hair?

Daima, her hands filled with her four cans, and Mara, holding Dann, and Rabat went together away from the pool. Dann was tugging at Mara’s hand, looking back over his shoulder at the pools and the animals and chanting, ‘Water, water, I want the water.’

‘You mustn’t ever go there by yourself,’ said Daima, and suddenly Mara understood what a very big danger that was. If Dann got away from them and went to the water…She would have to watch him every minute. He could never be left alone.

Soon they were walking through the rock houses. Some were bigger than Daima’s, some smaller, some not more than a room with a roof of rough grass. The stone roofs of some houses had fallen in. There were heaps of rock that had been houses. Outside every house was a big tank made of rock. There was one outside Daima’s. All kinds of little pipes and channels led from the different roofs to the tank.

Rabat was saying things to Daima that Mara knew were important.

‘I milked our milk beast,’ she said. ‘And I gave it food and water. I knew you were busy with your grandchildren.’ She did not make that last word a joke with her voice, but Mara knew she meant to tell Daima she did not believe her story.

‘Thank you,’ said Daima. ‘You were very kind. I am in debt to you,’ she said, in the same special way.

‘I took half the milk, as usual,’ said Rabat.

‘I’m going to need milk for the children,’ said Daima.

‘She is giving less milk than she was.’

‘Then I shall need all of it.’

‘You are indebted to me.’

‘You can put the debt for the milk beast against your debt to me for the roots.’

‘What about the soldiers?’

‘That is such a big debt I don’t think a little milk could match it.’

‘A quarter of all the milk,’ said Rabat.

‘Very well,’ said Daima. Her voice sounded heavy, and angry. She did not look at Rabat, who was looking at her in a way that said she was ashamed. ‘They are such pretty children,’ Rabat said, trying to make up for insisting on the milk.

Daima did not say anything.

They had stopped outside the house next to Daima’s. Suddenly the two women embraced, and Mara could see they hadn’t meant to. Rabat was saying, ‘I have hardly any food left. Without the milk…’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Daima. ‘We’ll all manage somehow.’

Rabat went into her house, taking the water cans, and the others went on to Daima’s house.

Mara stopped by the big rock cistern. ‘Is there water in here?’

‘There would be if it rained.’

Dann was jumping up like a puppy, trying to get hold of the cistern’s edge so as to haul himself up. Daima took the cans of water into the house, rescuing Dann’s jar, which was in danger of being kicked over. She came back and lifted Dann up and sat him on the edge of the cistern.

‘There’s a scorpion,’ he said.

‘It must have fallen in, then.’

Mara was trying to pull herself up: her hands could not get a proper grip on the edge, which she could only just reach. Daima lifted her up and she sat by Dann, pulling her legs up well away from the angry scorpion, which was trying to climb up the rocky sides, but falling back.

‘Poor thing,’ said Mara.

‘It’s like the water stinger,’ said Dann, ‘only much smaller.’

Daima fetched a stick, pulled herself up, sat on the edge of the tank and said, ‘Mind,’ reaching down the stick. The scorpion gripped it with its pincers, Daima lifted – and the scorpion let go. ‘If you don’t hold on you’ll die there,’ said Daima, but this time the scorpion kept its grip on the stick, and Daima lifted it out carefully. The three watched the beast scuttle off into the mats of dead grass.

‘It’s hungry,’ said Daima, ‘just like everything else.’

It was so hot on the edge of the rocky box Mara’s thighs were burning. She jumped down. So did Daima, and lifted down Dann before he could protest.

‘How long since there was water in that?’

‘We had a big storm about a year ago. The cistern filled up. I kept carrying water through to the tank you saw inside. And I’ve made that water last.’

‘Perhaps we will have another storm,’ said Mara.

‘Sometimes I think it will never rain properly again.’

Inside the house Dann began yawning. He ate some sour milk, making faces; and then Mara took him next door, to the lavatory, and then to his bed. He was asleep at once.

Mara thought, I want Dann to sleep, so as to sleep away the bad memories, but I want to remember everything. What is the What Did You See? game if it is not trying to remember everything? The light was going outside. Daima lit the big floor candle. This room was cool because of the rock walls, in spite of the warm air coming in at the window. Tomorrow the sun would jump up like an enemy and then soon it would be too hot to go out of doors.

Mara sat at the rock table with Daima.

‘Is Rabat a spy?’ she asked. ‘Does she tell the others everything about us?’

‘She is a spy but she doesn’t tell everything.’ Daima saw from Mara’s face that she did not know what to ask. ‘Things are not simple,’ she said. ‘It’s true that I shouldn’t trust Rabat – isn’t that what you are thinking?’

‘Yes.’

‘But she did look after me when I was ill. And I looked after her when she broke her leg. And when my children were small she helped me with them.’

‘Didn’t she have any children?’

‘She did, but they died. It was when we had the little drought, and they got the drought sickness.’

‘Will she tell the others about the soldiers asking for us?’

‘She might, but I don’t think so. But it wouldn’t matter. If the soldiers offered money for us, yes. But I think they were really running away as fast as they could. Rabat counts on me. She has very little food left. When the traders came last time I bought food for her because she had nothing to exchange. They give flour in exchange for the roots, but it is difficult finding the roots. Some people here grow a little poppy, but it has been too dry. The water in her tanks is finished, and I’ve been giving her some. And she does help me with the milk beast.’

‘Why doesn’t she have one?’

‘I said things were not simple. She had four milk beasts left. She and her husband gave me one for my children. It was her husband that was so kind: he was a really good man. And he died. One night some people on the run came through here and they stole her three milk beasts. So now she shares mine. It is only fair – I suppose.’

‘Do you always fetch water from the pool where we were today?’

‘That little river has been dry for a couple of years. The big river has been nearly dry. I’ve got enough water in my tank in there to last us, if we are careful. I’m going back to the pool tomorrow when everyone goes. And I want you to keep Dann here.’

‘You think Kulik meant to drown him?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps he began by a joke and then…It would be very easy to keep him under a little too long.’

‘Why did he want to kill Dann? A little boy?’

‘Little boys grow up. And so do little girls, Mara. Be careful all the time. Not that you have to keep in the house. I’m going to teach you how to milk the animal, and how to let the milk go sour and make cheese. And how to find the roots too – and that is very important. You have to be out and about and do your share. I might die, Mara. I’m an old woman. You have to know everything I know. I’ll show you where the money is. But remember: it is easy to slip a scorpion into a fold of cloth or throw a stone from behind a wall so that it looks as if it has come off a roof, or put a child in a cistern and pull the rock lid over. A child did die like that once. One of theirs, though. No one could hear it cry out because the lid was a fit.’

‘That means someone meant to kill it.’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘That means that they fight each other – the Rock People.’

‘Yes, they do. There are families who won’t speak to each other.’

Suddenly Mara giggled, and Daima seemed surprised. Mara quickly said, ‘We haven’t enough water. We only have a little food. But they quarrel.’ And looked at Daima to see if she had understood.

Daima said, very dry, but smiling, ‘I see you are growing up fast. But that is the point. The harder things are the more people fight. You’d think it was the other way about.’

Next morning Daima said to Dann that he could go out and play just outside the doorway, where they could see him. He went out and stood poking a stick at the dust. He seemed half asleep. Mara thought that if their mother could see this dirty little child with his matted hair, she would not know him. Above all she would not know this listlessness. Soon there were footsteps, and voices, and two men came, and stopped a few paces away to stare openly through the doorway, where Daima and Mara could be seen sitting at the table. Dann was staring at them, and then began moving closer to them, step by step, his eyes going from one face to the other. The two men stood looking at him, surprised, then uneasy, then angry. They spoke to each other in low, angry voices. And still Dann moved towards them, step by step, staring. ‘Shooooo,’ said one man, and the other shook a stick at him, as if Dann were an animal.

‘What’s the matter with the child?’ asked Daima. ‘Stop him.’

‘I know what’s wrong,’ said Mara, and she did, though at first she hadn’t. The faces of the two were so alike you could hardly tell them apart: two angry faces looking down at the child, their lips thin and tight with dislike of him. Mara ran out and grabbed Dann just as one man picked up a stone to throw at him. ‘Dann,’ she said, ‘no, no, no.’ And to the man, ‘No, please, don’t.’ And still Dann stared, twitching with fear, his whole body shaking in his sister’s hands.

‘You keep those brats of yours to yourself,’ one man said loudly into the doorway to Daima.

And they went off, the two men, as similar from the back as from the front: heavy and slow, both with the same way of poking their heads forward.

Mara held the child as he sobbed, limp against her shoulder; and she said to Daima, past his head, that there had been two men with similar faces, and one had threatened to beat them and kept them without water, and the other was kind and gave them water – and now they seemed to Dann the same: the two brothers, Garth and Gorda.

Daima said, ‘Those two out there grew up with my two. I know them. They are bullies and they are sly. Dann must keep away from them, and you too, Mara.’

And now Mara began explaining to Dann that two people can look the same but be quite different inside, in their natures, that he was confused because of what had happened…And as she talked, she was thinking that all that had been less than a week ago.

While Mara talked, Dann was staring out of the door, where the two men had stood. She did not know if he had heard her. She went on, though, talking and explaining, because often he surprised her, coming out later with something that showed he had understood.

‘Let’s play the game,’ she tried, at last. ‘What did you see? – ’ then, at home, with the bad people? ‘What did you see? – ’ later, with the man who gave us water? Slowly Dann did begin to answer, but his eyes were heavy and his voice was heavy too. Mara persisted, while Dann did reply, but he was talking only about the bad man, the bad man, with the whip. At last Mara stopped. It looked as if the child had muddled it all up: the scene that had gone on for hours, in their own home, when they had to stand hungry and thirsty, being threatened by the whip, and the other one in the rock room when Gorda came in. ‘Don’t you remember how he was kind and gave us water?’ But no, Dann did not remember, and he said, ‘Those two men out there, with the stick, why did they have the same face?’

He stuck his thumb in his mouth and the loud sucking began, and then he slept, while Mara sat rocking him and Daima went off to the river with her containers.

When she came back she washed them both again, while they stood in the shallow basin; and this time she washed their hair too, though it would not stay nice and shiny for long, with the dust swirling about everywhere.

Then Daima took the children out to where she said the milk beast was waiting – she had told Rabat she would milk it. Dann was clinging tight to Mara, so she could hardly walk. And she kept close to Daima because the milk beast was so enormous, and frightened her. Its back was level with Daima’s head, and she was tall. It was a black and white beast, or would have been if the dust wasn’t thick on it. It had pointed, hard hooves. Its eyes were clever and knowing; and Mara had never seen eyes like them, for instead of a soft coloured round with white around, these eyes were a strong yellow and had a black bar down them, and long lashes. She thought the animal looked wicked, but Daima had already slipped a loop of rope over its horns, and then the rope over a post, and she was kneeling right under the beast’s belly, where there was a bag that had teats sticking out like enormous pink fingers. Daima had a basin under the milk bag and she was using both hands to make the milk come out. It shot into the basin, which rang out like a bell, and meanwhile the beast stood still, chewing with quick movements of its jaws. It turned its head and put its nose on Daima’s neck, and then into Mara’s neck, and she cried out, but Daima said, ‘Don’t mind Mishka, she won’t hurt you. Now, sit down here.’ Mara squatted by Daima, feeling Dann right behind her, because he was afraid of the beast but needed her more. ‘Use both hands on one teat,’ said Daima. The hot, slippery teat filled Mara’s hands, and she squeezed, and a little milk came out; but Daima showed her how to do it and soon the milk was spurting. ‘There, you’ve got the knack,’ said Daima. ‘And she knows you now.’ Daima finished off the milking, until the bag hung empty, and the beast bleated and went off when Daima took the rope from her horns, picking her way among the humps and mats of grass to a group of milk beasts standing together under a thorn tree. They belonged to different people but they spent all their days together, and their nights too, in a shed, because the dragons came after them.

Daima had two cans of milk, one full and one partly full. They went to Rabat’s house and gave her the part-full can. She looked sharply into the can to see if she had her promised share, then smiled in the way Mara hated and said, ‘Thank you.’

Now it was the hot part of the day, and they sat in the cool half dark of the big room. Dann was sitting on the floor, his thumb in his mouth, pressed against Mara’s legs.

Mara saw that Daima’s eyes were full of tears, and then that tears were running down the creases in Daima’s cheeks. ‘It is funny,’ said Daima, speaking as if Mara were grown up, ‘the way the same things happen.’

‘You mean, your children, and then Dann and me?’

‘They wanted to play with the other children, but Kulik came and said, Keep your brats to yourself.’

Mara left Dann, and climbed up on Daima’s lap and put her arms around her neck. This made Daima cry harder, and Mara cried, and then the little boy began tugging at Mara’s legs to be lifted up, and soon both children were on Daima’s lap and they were all crying.

Then Mara said, ‘But your children are all right. They grew up. No one hurt them.’

‘Plenty tried to. And when I’d got them through it all, they went away. I know they had to. I wanted them to.’ Daima sat weeping, not trying to stop herself.

‘I won’t go away, I promise,’ said Mara. ‘I’ll never leave you alone with these horrible Rock People, never, never.’

‘I won’t go away,’ piped up Dann. ‘I won’t leave you.’

‘I’ll leave you first,’ said Daima.

Dann cried out, but Mara said, ‘She didn’t mean that she would leave us. She didn’t mean that.’

And the rest of the day was spent reassuring Dann that Daima did not mean to abandon them.

Now Daima said it was time to show Mara how to do everything. How to look after the milk beast, Mishka. How to make milk go sour in a certain way. How to make cheese. How to look in the grasses for the tiny plants that showed where the sweet yellow roots were, deep below. Which green plants could be picked to cook as vegetables. How to make candles. And soon Daima said Mara should know where the money was hidden.