There had been another worry, the biggest of them all. One day, when there was still a little water left in the waterholes and she was not as thin as she was now, she saw a red thread of blood on her skin, on the inner thigh, and she thought, Something has stung me. But no, the blood was flowing from inside. She was at the waterholes when this happened. She went carefully back through the houses, holding the water cans so no one could see; but Daima had noticed and said, ‘Oh I hoped this would not happen. I thought perhaps you are too thin, there’s no flesh on you.’ She then told Mara what she needed to know. But what concerned her most was that Mara should never, ever, let a man near her, because for her to get pregnant was the worst thing that could happen. It would be the death of her – she was too undernourished, and the child would die too. Since then Mara had looked newly at every male, and at their instruments for making children, but she could not imagine not being able to defend herself. But while Mara thought about it, deciding there was nothing to be afraid of, with all the men so weak and hungry, she did keep an instinct of alarm alive for Daima’s sake. For she had been so apprehensive, so frightened for her – Mara could not remember Daima’s ever being so anxious.
Meanwhile, while the blood did flow there was a problem. The brown material did not absorb liquid. The mosses the village women used were all dust. Daima told Mara to tear up one of the beautiful old robes in the chest to use as pads, and Mara did, though it hurt to do it. She used secretly to let her mind linger over that chest of coloured garments, when the ugliness of everything around seemed to be dragging the life out of her.
The blood ran for two or three days, stopped. It came again. And Kulik, who had had too many problems of his own to notice Mara, sensed what was happening. He was thin, he was gaunt, but he was not weak, and Mara found herself looking out for him. When he saw her he came up, grabbed her by the arm, grinned right into her face and said, ‘What are you waiting for, a Mahondi husband?’
She tore herself free of him and ran, but then the blood stopped, and he seemed to know that too.
Kulik had had two sons. One was killed by a water stinger, not at the waterholes but just outside the village. The young man’s bones was all that they found. The other son went north with some travellers passing through. And then, but not long ago, Kulik went. He was the last to go from the rock houses.
Recently Mara had been thinking that if she did have a child – if the blood did come back – it would be something to love. For sometimes her arms ached to hold somebody. It was her little brother her arms remembered, she knew that, and now it was Mishkita, for she had so often gone to stand with her arms high around the beast’s neck, her head on its shoulder.
Suppose – Mara thought – that she had become too weak to leave? She had never had this thought before: it had always been, When I leave. This frightened her.
On this afternoon, as Mara sat on the rocky perch, she heard the light, rasping breaths from the dusty shelf where Daima lay and she thought, I have heard that breathing before, when someone is not far off dying.
Mara longed to be out of this dark, hot place where she and Daima were like two prisoners. She was dreaming of water on her face and on her arms, and running over her body. She took up a can, from sheer habit, from the line of cans near the wall and went out into the glare, though it was less now, being afternoon. She could hardly see the plain with its pale dryness, where some dust devils circled lazily in the haze. There was a fire somewhere. In the dust were little flecks of black from dead, burning grasses. They were bitter on her tongue. One fell on her and she rubbed and, because it was still warm, greasy marks were left on her skin. The fire smoke hung in dark clouds away beyond the hills of the old cities. If the fire reached them, that would be a real conflagration, for there had not been a fire there that Mara could remember, and there were all those dead trees and old scrub.
The spaces between the houses of the Rock Village were bare. The heaps of dust had been swept away by hot winds. Mara walked past the house where Rabat had died and where she now lay on her rocky shelf. Drying out had twisted those falsely smiling features into an angry sneer. There were scorpions on the roof but they could not get in. Mara went on slowly, listlessly, knowing she was straying about, not going directly forward. She could hardly keep her feet on the path to the ridge. No, she thought, she could not leave here; this is where she would die. It took a long time to reach the ridge from where she could see down to the lines of dead trees along the empty waterholes. She stood there resting, panting, her tongue dry between dry lips. Then she staggered down through the dead grasses. Among them were bones, but most of the bones were over the second ridge, on either side of the main watercourse. That is where the dying animals made their way, hoping there might be water left there. Every kind of bone was scattered about: big ones from the great animals that had died first because they needed so much water, to the little furry animals that had sometimes come up to the houses begging for water, before they died.
Mara did not stop at the first dry waterhole, the one where long ago Kulik had almost drowned Dann, nor the second, where lay the carapaces of two big water stingers, and the shells of turtles, and the bones of water lizards. Beyond was a stretch of clean white sand. She set down the can, which had not held water for months, and took off her tunic, and knelt on the sand. She came here, when she felt strong enough, to this bright, clean sand, to try to free herself of dust. For a long time she knelt there, running the fine white sand over her legs, then her arms, seeing how the dirty surface of her skin came away, leaving cleanness, and then she rubbed handfuls over her neck and her cheeks. The greasy lumps of her hair disgusted her, but she could not do anything to improve them, for the sand only stuck there. Pressing her eyes tight shut she rubbed sand over them and her forehead, again and again, and then lay on the sand and rolled her itching back and shoulders in it. She was rolling as she had seen animals do it, and at the thought she quickly raised her head to see if some scorpion or big bird, with its great talons and beak, or a lizard, had come for her; but no, the banks were empty. And now she knelt and looked down between her thighs to see if perhaps that trickle of red blood was back, but the lips of her slit were pulled tight and wrinkled with dryness. Where she should be peeing was a burning that she had become so used to it seemed only part of the angry, hungry, itchy desperation of her whole body for water. She peed so seldom, and when she did it was dark yellow and so strong she could not drink it, though she had tried, thinking that here was some sort of liquid going to waste. She had watched the dark drops being sucked into the dust and at once drying, leaving a few rough edges around the little pit, like an anteater’s hole.
She was kneeling there, rocking back and forth as Daima did, or had done – for pain and grief, eyes shut – when she heard thunder and opened her eyes to see clouds that were not smoke clouds. They were far ahead, on the horizon; but up there, in the north, was water, was rain: she was sure she could smell it. Slowly she climbed out of her little sandy desert and stood on the bank above the dried watercourse to look at the clouds: it was so long since she had seen lightning dance in banks of black cloud. Her skin craved and ached – soon, soon, drops of rain would fall and hiss on her parched skin … But she had done that before, stood waiting and watching rain on the horizon, but no rain had come. The clouds were growing bigger, gaining height over her. Was the thunder louder? She thought, If there are any animals left, they will be thinking as I am, and running as fast as they can to get here. But she could see no animals. Then she saw, as she had as a child, what seemed like the earth rolling down towards her, a brown avalanche; but now the flood was a low, brown creeping, and not very fast, not roaring and raging and throwing animals and trees and branches about, but it was coming, and would soon be here. At last she could drink her fill and fill the can and take it back to Daima, who had not felt water on her tongue or her lips, only the juice of the yellow roots, for days now.
The flood had reached her, and was slowly spread
ing out, but low down, filling the waterholes which bubbled and hissed, drinking in the wet, and billows of white foam almost reached Mara’s legs, and she stepped back. This was nothing like the floods she remembered, when it had seemed the whole world had become water; but it was a flood, this was water, and she knelt at the edge and plunged in her face and arms and then her whole body, rolling in it as she had in the sand. And then there was a great clacking and clattering and the surface of the flood was carrying a white load, which was bones, the bones of so many dead animals. She had to move quickly back, for now there were trees too: not the green, fresh trees that had tossed and bounded on the surface of other floods but the dead, white, fragmented trees of the drought. It was dangerous to be in the water or even too close. She stood back and waited for the water to carry the bones and trees past her. Then she saw, farther down, a big tree had stuck itself in a bank, and another came to rest against it; and behind this barrier were piling bones, loads of bones – a mass, a multitude – and she remembered how, long ago, she had seen the bones spilling out from under the bank on the big river she had come through with the two rescuers she had never seen again, or heard of. ‘Remember,’ the man had said to her, ‘remember where this is.’ But she had never been back to see if the bones were there or had been washed away again. Yet that place was no farther away than the short walk it had needed for the two strangers and Dann and her to get to the village. And now here was a new mountain of bones, with brown water rushing through them making them knock against each other. When the flood went down they would remain and the dust would blow over them and they would be hidden. People would think, This is just a river bank, until another flood … The clacking and clicking seemed to be less and the brown water was running more slowly. Up north the sky was blue, the hot, bright, antagonistic blue of drought, and soon the water would be gone. Desperate, she stepped into it, risking blows from the last of the bones, and splashed herself and drank and drank. It was muddy water, but she could feel her body soaking it in. Soon she was standing by water running low again and shrinking back into the waterholes; and her body was fresh and cool, and the filthy, dry paste of dirt had gone, leaving on her a film of the dust the water carried, a greyish film. She thought, I’m the same colour as the Rock People, but did not care. For she was thinking of Daima, and how she had not yet felt the water on her face and in her mouth. Mara was stronger now. With the sun setting in a blaze in the again hot, dry sky behind her she went home, walking well, looking at every step for insects or scorpions or anything at all making its way to the waterholes. And she did see some scorpions, the big ones, going in lines towards the water.
In the dark, hot room Daima moaned, and her breath was hot and heavy. Mara took down the shutter and opened the door a little, and gave Daima a drink, and said it had rained up-country and there had been a small flash flood. But Daima was too ill to care now, and Mara washed her all over, slowly, for a long time, so the water could sink into that drying, cracking skin; and she rubbed cloths over her hair. And made her drink, again and again.
When the morning came, Mara would go up to the waterholes again, and perhaps over the next ridge to the river, to fill the cans and bring them back, to get more water into the cistern that was in the house, though no longer locked up, since there was no one to steal it. She would make the journey again and again till the cistern was full – but then Mara thought, What for? Daima will soon die and there will be nothing here to keep me. Mara was awake all night, standing at the door, looking into the dark and at the sky, where all the stars were out, washed clean and glittering. The very moment the light greyed she took up cans and shut the door tight, and went on, the only moving thing in that hot landscape, up the ridge to its top, and stopped to see what she could see. The flood had gone, leaving a film over everything, greying the white bones heaped up against the dead branching trees. The waterholes were filled, and around every one were scorpions, and beetles and spiders. Where had they been hiding all this time? She had not seen anything but scorpions for a long time. The stretch of sand where she had rolled yesterday was there again, a white glisten over a dark dampness. On the dead white trees along the watercourse the branches seemed clotted with dark crusts or bumps. Insects again, all kinds of them. Had they drunk what they needed and fled up the trees to get away from the scorpions?
Mara was hungry. Now she had drunk enough so that her whole body was sated, and the many aches and sorenesses were not one pain all over her body but could be felt separately – her stomach was shouting, was screaming, at her that she must eat, she must … But what?
Mara went on up the second ridge, and when she reached the top saw more or less what she had expected. There was a running brown stream, low down under the dead white trees with their white branches, like arms: Please, please, give us water. There were bones in piles on both sides of the water, but not very far up, and on the bones sat all kinds of insects and scorpions. She went slowly, watching every step, between the bones to the water’s edge. It was a slow, sinking stream with wet, whitish clay all along it, which would soon be hard crusts and ridges – as hard as the surface of the white on the walls of the old buildings of the dead cities in the hills. Mara had not come here very often, because when the waterholes nearer the village were dry this river was too. Why had she come here so seldom? For one thing she liked better than anything going to the old cities. And then, when the villagers were still here, she kept her distance and none of them would go near the old cities: they liked the water holes. Her life had steadily narrowed, even before she had become too weak to go to the hills.
The mud the water had carried down had sunk down to the bottom of the pools. She could see clear down through the water. Her ears were ringing. The singing beetles were there on the branches. She had not heard them for … She could not remember when she had heard them last. Another sound … surely not … it was not possible … Yes, there was a croaking from the edge of a pool. Some toad or frog had lived through the dry years under the hard, dry mud, and now, the water having softened the mud, the creature had climbed up through it and there it was, sitting on a stone. There were several. When the water went down – and it was going down fast – goodbye, that would be the end of them. The end, too, of the singing beetles. There would be silence again.
Mara stripped off the brown tunic and knelt by a pool. Slowly she sank into it, and rolled in it and lay there absorbing water; and then, when that pool was muddy, went to another pool and squatted, looking in. She could see herself, so thin, only bones with skin stretched over them. Her eyes were deep in her face. It was her hair – those greasy, solid clumps – that she hated. She could hardly bear to touch them. She was staring down at herself there in the water, and saw that next to her was someone else. For a moment she thought her reflection was doubled, but she raised her head and saw on the other side of the pool a youth, who was staring at her. Deliberately, he cupped his hands, dipped them in the water, and drank, keeping his gaze on her. He was naked. She saw there between his legs what Daima had told her she must be afraid of: the two young, round balls in their little sac, and the long thick tube over them – nothing like the wrinkled old lumps Mara had seen so often when the Rock People bathed. This youth was not as thin as she was. There was flesh on him. It had been a long time since she had seen skin fit so nicely over the bones of a face, or arms and legs that had a smooth softness to them. There was a quickness and lightness about him as he squatted there, balancing on his heels and letting the water trickle through his fingers. She was thinking, I ought to be afraid of him. She was thinking, He isn’t one of the Rock People … And then she knew it was Dann and, moreover, had known from the first. She reached her arms out towards him across the water, but let them fall, and smiled, and said, ‘You’ve come back.’
He did not say anything. He was looking at her as she was at him, at every little bit, taking in, finding out … But why didn’t he say anything? He did not smile, he did not seem to have heard. He only frown
ed and examined her. Five years he had been gone. He had been ten years old, and now he was fifteen. He was a man. The Rock People married when they were thirteen or fourteen and could have children by Dann’s age.
‘I heard you were still here,’ he said. ‘Before that I thought you must be dead.’
‘Everyone is dead, except for me and Daima.’
He stood up. He took up from the ground a whitish rough tunic of the kind servants had worn back home. He shook the dust out of it and slid it over his head. For the first time, it occurred to her that she was naked. She put on her brown tunic, hating it, as she always did. And he was making a face as he saw it. He was remembering that – and what else?
She wanted to ask, ‘What did you see?’ – but you asked that about a place, a feather, a tree, a person, not five years.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked, and he laughed. That was because it was a stupid question. He had not laughed or even smiled till now. ‘Have you been here all this time?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Just here, nowhere else?’
‘Yes.’ And she knew that part of what she wanted to know had been answered. His smile was scornful, and she was seeing her life as he did when he smiled: she had done nothing, been nowhere, while he …
‘Who told you I was here?’
‘Travellers said.’
She thought that he was speaking Mahondi as if he had forgotten how to. She spoke it with Daima, so she had not forgotten.
‘You haven’t been meeting many Mahondis,’ she stated.
That laugh again: short, ‘That’s it, yes. Not many.’
‘I’m going back to see how Daima is. She is dying.’ She dipped her cans and began walking back. She did not know if he would come with her. She could not read his face, his movements; she did not know him. He might just walk off again – disappear.