They went carefully past the fast drying waterholes of the smaller watercourse, where the scorpions were fighting, and where from the trees insects were dropping to the earth to get to the waterholes – where scorpions tore them apart with their pincers.
‘All the insects and the scorpions are getting bigger here,’ she said.
‘And everywhere. And down South.’
The phrase down South did not go easily into her mind. She had often said, ‘up north,’ ‘down south’ – but south to her had meant their old home and her family. She was thinking that, to him, who knew so much more, south must mean much more. Nearly everything of what she said or thought was from their old home, from the What Did You See? game, from Daima’s memories. It was as if she had been living off all that ever since.
They took some time to get to the village. It was because she was slow. He kept getting ahead of her, stopping to wait for her, but then when they set off in no time he was ahead again.
In the village she told him which houses had the dead in them, which cisterns had corpses – but they must be dried up now, or skeletons.
At Rabat’s house he stopped, remembering. He slid back the door, peered in, went to the corner where Rabat lay, and stood looking down. Then he lifted the corpse by its shoulder, stared into the face, let Rabat drop, like a piece of wood. Except, thought Mara, any piece of wood we found we’d treat more carefully than how he has just handled Rabat. And she had learned another thing about him: the dead were nothing to him; he was used to death.
At their house Mara slid back the door and listened. She thought at first that Daima had died. There was no sound of breathing, but she heard a little sigh, and then a long interval, and another sigh.
‘She’s going,’ Dann said. He did not look at Daima but went into the inner rooms.
Mara lifted water to Daima’s lips but the old woman was past swallowing.
Dann came back. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘I’m not going while she is alive.’
He sat down with his arms folded at the rocky table, put his head on his arms – and was at once asleep. His breathing was steady, healthy, loud.
Mara sat by the old woman, wiping her face with a wet cloth, then her arms and her hands. She kept taking gulps of water herself, each one a delicious surprise, since it had been so long since she could simply lift a cup and take a mouthful without thinking, I must only take a few drops. Mara thought, If I don’t eat soon I will simply fall over and die myself. She left Daima and went to the storeroom. There were still some roots. She sliced one, licking the juice off her fingers. Then she reached up out of the dry cistern a can that had some of the white flour in it, which she had saved so that one day she would have the strength to leave. It had been three seasons since anyone had come with flour to barter. It smelled a bit stale, but it was still good. She mixed it with water, patted it flat, and put it out on the cistern top, where she knew it would cook in that flaming heat in a few minutes. When she went back to Daima, the old woman was dead.
Dann still slept.
Mara put her hand out towards his shoulder, but before she touched him he was on his feet, and a knife was in his hand. He saw her, took her in, nodded, sat down and at once drew towards him the plate of sliced root, and began eating. He ate it all.
‘That was for both of us.’
‘You didn’t say.’
She got another root, sliced that, and ate it while he watched. Then she brought in the flat bread from the cistern top, broke it in two and gave him half.
‘This is almost the last of the flour,’ she said.
‘I have a little with me.’
When he had finished eating he went to bend over Daima, staring. She probably hadn’t changed very much since he left, except that her long hair was white.
‘Do you remember her?’ she asked.
‘She looked after us.’
‘Do you remember our home?’
‘No.’
‘Do you remember the night Gorda rescued us and arranged for us to be brought here to Daima?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing?’
‘No.’
‘Do you remember the two people who brought us?’
‘No.’
‘Do you remember Mishka? And her baby, Dann? You called him Dann?’
He frowned. ‘I think I do. A little.’
‘You cried when you had to say goodbye to Mishkita.’
And now he sighed, and looked long and hard at her. He was trying to remember? He didn’t want to remember? He did not like it, her trying to make him remember?
It was painful for Mara: her body, her arms – her arms particularly – knew how they had sheltered Dann, how he had clung and hugged her, but now he seemed to remember nothing at all. Yet those memories were the strongest she had, and looking after Dann had been the first and most important thing in her life. It was as if all that early time together had become nothing.
But she thought, If I did let my arms reach out now it wouldn’t be Dann, but only this strange young man with the dangerous thing between his legs. I could not just hug him or kiss him now.
Then just as the sense of herself, Mara, was fading away, and she was feeling like a shadow or a little ghost, he said unexpectedly, ‘You sang to me. You used to sing to me when I went to sleep.’ And he smiled. It was the sweetest smile – not a jeer, or a sneer – and yet what she felt was, the smile was for the songs, and not for her, who had sung them to him.
‘I looked after you,’ she said.
He really was trying to remember, she could see. ‘We’ll tell each other things,’ he said, ‘but now we should go.’
‘Where?’
‘Well, we can’t stay here.’
She was thinking, But I’ve been here, and Daima too … She wanted to give him something good out of those long years and said, ‘Up in those hills there are the old cities. You never really saw them. I could show you, when the fire has died out.’
‘There are old ruins everywhere. You’ll see.’
Mara and Dann stood on either side of the tall stack of rocks that was a table and looked at each other as strangers do who want to please each other, but thinking, I can’t read that face … that look … those eyes. And both sighed, at the same moment.
Dann turned away from the strain of it. He began looking around the room, with sharp, clever eyes: he was planning, Mara could see. What was going into those plans she could not even guess at. For she had been here, all this time, knowing nothing but this village, while he …
‘Water, first,’ he said. He took two of the cans that had the wooden handles set across the tops, put loops of rope into the handles, tested the loops, slung the cans on a thick stick. Then he took them inside to the cistern. He did not have to tell her why: the mud in that water would have had time to settle.
He brought the cans back. ‘A pity we can’t take all the cans.’
‘Don’t they have them – where we are going?’
‘Hardly any. Not of this metal. All these would keep us fed for a year. But never mind. Now, food.’ He put on the table a leather bag and showed her the flour in it. Enough for a few pieces of bread. Mara brought ten yellow roots from next door and a bag of the white flour traders had once brought.
‘Is that all we’ve got?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Get some of these things.’ He indicated Mara’s brown garment.
She grimaced, but went into the storeroom and fetched back an armful.
‘We can get food for these,’ he said. He bundled them, three and three.
She went back in, and fetched some of the delicate old garments from the chest full of them, and spread them out. He picked up one, frowning: his hands were unused to such fragile cloth.
‘Better leave these,’ he said. ‘If people see them they’ll think we’re … we’re…’
‘What? But we are. We wore these, at home. I don’t want to leave them.’
??
?You can’t take them all.’
‘I’ll take these two.’ The soft folds, pale rose, and yellow, lay glowing on the dark rock.
‘Perhaps someone’ll pay for them. Or give us something.’
Now they set two sacks side by side on the floor and began packing. First, into hers, went a roll of the torn-up material that she used for the blood flow. She was embarrassed and tried to hurry and hide what she was doing, but he saw and nodded. This comforted her, that he understood what a problem it was for her. She put in next the two delicate dresses, rolled up. Then the three brown ones. Then five yellow roots and her little bag of flour. Into his went, on top of an old cloth that had in it an axe, five roots, his bag of flour, three of the brown tunics. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘Wait.’ Mara went to Daima, stroked the old cheek, which was chilling fast, and stopped herself crying, because tears wasted water. She thought, Daima will lie here and go as dry as a stick, like Rabat, or the scorpions will push the thatch aside and come in. It doesn’t matter. But isn’t that strange? I’ve spent every minute of my time worrying about Daima – what can I give her to eat, to drink, is she ill, is she comfortable? – and now I say, Let the scorpions eat her.
‘Have we got candles?’
She indicated the big floor candles. Among them was one half-burned. Forgetting what it concealed, Daima had set it alight one evening, and it was only when an acrid smell of burning leather reminded them that they put out the flame. Now Mara took up the stump, turned it upside down, dug out the plug at the bottom and pulled out the little bag. She spilled on to the old rough rock a shower of bright, clean, softly gleaming gold coins. Dann picked one up, turned it about, bit it gently.
She could have cried, seeing those pretty, fresh, gold rounds, dropped in there from another world, like the coloured robes – nothing to do with this grim, dusty, rocky, cruel place.
‘I don’t think anyone would want these,’ said Dann. ‘I don’t think anyone uses them now.’ Then he thought and said, ‘But perhaps that’s because I’ve just been … I’ve been with the poor people, Mara. This is what I’ve been using.’
He took from the inside pocket of his slave’s garment a dirty little bag and spilled out on to the rock surface beside the scatter of gold some coins made of a light, dull greyish metal. Mara picked up a handful. They were of no weight at all, and greasy.
‘This is the same metal as the old pots and the cans.’
‘Yes. They’re old. Hundreds of years.’ He showed her a mark on one of them. ‘That means five.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘Five. Who knows what five meant then? Now they’re worth just what we say.’
‘How many of them to one of the gold pieces?’
And now he laughed, finding it really funny. ‘So much …’ He spread his arms. ‘No, enough to fill this whole room … Leave them. They’ll get us into trouble.’
‘No. Our parents … our family, the People, sent them to us. To Daima.’ She scooped them up, counting into the little bag, which was stiff with the candle wax, the pretty, bright little discs of gold, each the size of Dann’s big thumbnail, twice as thick and surprisingly heavy. Fifty of them.
‘Fifty,’ she said; and he said, ‘But keep them hidden.’
And that was how they could have left behind the coins that would save their lives over and over again.
Because of this little fluster and flurry over the gold, which really did seem to steal their minds away, they forgot important things. Matches – that was the worst. Salt. They could easily have chopped a piece off the bottom of a floor candle, but they didn’t think of that until too late. Mara did just remember to take up a digging stick, as they went out, which she had used for years and was as sharp as a big thorn.
What they were both thinking as they left, slinging the carrying pole between them: We have the most important thing, water.
4
The two stood at the door and looked into the glare and the heat and the dust. Black flecks were floating about. Red flames could be seen beyond the hills. The wind was coming this way. As they thought this, a spurt of flame appeared at the top of the nearest hill and at once ran up a dead white tree and clung there, sending up flares of sparks.
‘If the wind doesn’t change the fire’ll be here in an hour,’ said Dann.
‘It can’t get inside the rock houses.’
‘The thatch will burn over Daima,’ said Dann.
Well, thought Mara, haven’t I just decided it doesn’t matter what happens to dead people? She felt sad, nevertheless, and angry with herself. She thought, If you’re going to feel sad every time someone dies or goes away, then that is all you’ll ever do … But she was wiping the tears away. Dann saw and said nicely, sorry for her, ‘We’d better go if we don’t want to be roasted too.’ A thin line of flames, almost invisible in the sunlight, was creeping towards them in the low, dry, pale grass.
They walked, then ran, though Mara was pleased she had the stick to hold on to, through the rock houses, up the first ridge, down past the already half-empty waterholes, each one clustered with spiders and scorpions and beetles – some dead, some alive – up the next ridge and down to the stream, which was running so low that it was only a string of waterholes with wet places between each.
Dann set down his can, told Mara to do the same, and caught two frogs, killed them with his knife, which he took from under his tunic, and skinned them – all in a moment. She had never seen anything so quick and so skilful. He gave her some pink meat to eat. She had not eaten meat, or could not remember doing so. She watched him chewing up pink shreds and felt her stomach heave, and he said, ‘If you don’t, you’ll starve.’
She forced the meat into her mouth and made herself chew. This hurt, because it was tough and her teeth were loose from starvation. But she did chew, and swallowed, and it stayed down. And now, for the first time in so long she could hardly remember, she needed to empty her bowels. She went off a little way into the grass, squatted, and the stuff poured out. Last time there had only been pellets, like Mishka and Mishkita’s black, round pellets. She was losing water to the earth. This was how people began the drought sickness, wet shit pouring from their backsides.
‘Perhaps I have the drought sickness,’ she shouted to Dann from her place behind tall grasses; but he shouted back, ‘No, you aren’t used to enough water.’
He made her kneel by one of the holes and drink, and drink again. Then he drank. They stayed there, side by side, feet in the water, their flesh soaking up wet. She was feeling her hair with both hands, wishing it away, knowing that if she put it into water the stiff, greasy clumps would not change. He watched. Suddenly he took his knife, said, ‘Bend your head.’ While she was thinking, Oh, he’s going to kill me, she felt the knife blade sliding over the bones of her skull and saw the horrible lumps falling into the sand. She kept quite still for fear of being cut, but he was skilful and there wasn’t a scratch. ‘Look at yourself,’ she heard, and bent close over the water and saw that her head was as smooth and as shiny as a bone or a nut; and she began to cry and said, ‘Oh thank you, thank you.’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ he mocked her gruffly, and she saw that thank-yous had not been part of his life.
She thought that her face, all bones, all hollows, made her smooth head look like a skull, and she again drank, wishing the water to fill out her face, her flesh.
‘We’d better get a move on,’ he said.
The sky behind them, where the village was, was black with smoke, and greasy burnt bits were falling everywhere around them.
She was thinking, I can’t move, I can’t. Running here from the village, up and down the ridges, had worn her out. Her legs were trembling. She was thinking, Perhaps he’ll just go off and leave me if I can’t keep up. He had gone off with those two men, hadn’t he? – without a thought for her, or for Daima?
‘What happened to those two men you went away with?’
He frowned. ‘I don’t know.’ Then his whole body seemed to
shrink and shiver. She could see little Dann, whom she had held trembling against her. ‘They were … they beat me … they …’ Dann could have sobbed, or cried out, she could see.
‘How did you get away from them?’
‘They tied me to one of them with a rope. I couldn’t keep up with them. Sometimes I dragged behind them on the earth. One night I chewed through the rope. It took a long time.’ Then he added, ‘Perhaps it wasn’t so long. It seemed long. I was just a child. And then I was starving. I came to a house and a woman took me in. She hid me when the men came to look for me. I stayed there – I don’t know how long.’
‘And then?’
She could see he would not answer much more – not now, at least. ‘I travelled north with some people. We came to a town that was still – it had people in it, it had food and water. And then there was a war again. I would have been a soldier, so I ran away again …’ And he stopped. ‘I will tell you, Mara. I want to know about you, too. But come on, we must go, quick.’
Again she was pleased that she had the stick between them, shoulder to shoulder, to steady her. They walked along the big watercourse, not close to the water, where the bones were heaped up, but halfway up the ridge. From there they could see the big flames leaping and climbing and dancing all over the hills where the big cities were. Well, those hills must have burned before, and often, and still the old walls stood.
‘While you were travelling,’ she addressed Dann’s back, ‘did you find out about …’ But she hardly knew what she wanted to ask, since there was so much she needed to know. ‘Has there been this kind of drought before? Or is it only here?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ he said, ‘but let’s keep quiet now. We don’t know who might be around.’
‘There’s no one. Everyone’s left, or they’re dead.’
‘There are people on the move everywhere, looking for water or for something better. Sometimes I think that all the people alive are on their feet walking somewhere.’
It was mid-afternoon, the hottest time, the sun beating down and the earth burning their feet. Mara’s naked head ached and throbbed as she walked with her free arm across it. The air was full of dust and of smoke. The sky was a yellowish swirl with dark smoke full of black bits pouring across it, and the sun was only a lighter place in the smoke. She wanted to lie down, sit down; she wanted to find a rock and creep under it …