Mara and Dann

  She said, ‘But those cities, the ones near the Rock Village, they had people in them for thousands of years, Daima said, and now they are just nothing.’ And as she spoke, she thought that she used the word thousands because Daima did, yet she still did not know more than the ten fingers on her hands, the ten toes on her feet. Long ago she had been taught more than that, in the school at home, but in her mind it was the same as if she said hundreds or thousands, and yes – there was another word – millions. He let his hands fall and said, ‘We walk over all these bones, all the time.’ She knew that tears wanted to come into those sharp, clever eyes of his, which were beautiful when he sat thinking, or had just woken; but his mouth was tight. ‘When I came this way to get you I saw skulls, people’s skulls, piles – I couldn’t count them.’ And now his face was so close to hers she could feel the heat from it on her cheeks. And his eyes seemed to press into hers. ‘Why is it happening, Mara? Why don’t we understand anything? No one knows why anything happens.’

  And then he let her go, turned away, picked up the end of his pole and waited for her to lift hers. ‘There was a boat,’ he said. ‘That was only a week ago.’ His voice sounded ordinary again. They went on, carefully, well beyond the edge of wet, for in both their minds was the thought that if a water dragon or a lizard had survived it could be up and out of that water to get one of them. The water stingers rattled as they moved, so you could hear them. She was thinking, I say words like day or week, or year, and never think what I am saying, but behind these words are what they are. I know what a day is because the sun shines in it, and then there is dark, and I say night. But why a week, and why a year? She was tormented, haunted, by memories that refused to come properly into her mind: she had been taught these things, she was pretty sure. And now she did not know what a year measured, or why the rain fell or did not fall, or that the stars were … Of course she had known about the stars: she remembered her father holding her up to look at them, and saying, ‘That one there is …’ But she had forgotten all the names.

  They were at a place where once there had been a wooden jetty; but now the wood had rotted and all wood was so scarce that it was of stone that the causeway was made, leading to the water’s edge. A boat was coming. Mara had never seen one. It was a fisherman’s boat, Dann said, a big one, and a crowd of people were approaching over the dried mud, about twenty of them. Two men had long oars, and stood at the front and at the back of the boat. She and Dann went on with the others. There was a rail around the boat and she held on tight. They were all standing close together, and the smell of the crowd was thick and sour. The boat was low in muddy water. At the last moment a man and a woman came stumbling to the boat. They were the couple who had been robbed last night. It seemed they hadn’t found food anywhere else, because they were hardly strong enough to stand. Dann glanced at them indifferently, as he did at the others. Water stingers were watching them, their eyes and pincers sticking up out of the water. Everyone kept an eye on them: a stinger could knock someone in with its tail. Now the boat was in the middle of the little lake, and from down here the mountains seemed high. Yet the ones behind them were where Dann and she had come in a morning.

  Mara had not known there could be so many different kinds of people. There was a woman with a thick body like the Rock People, but her hair was a frizzle of bright red. She was with a man who was yellowish brown, a thin, sick man, and his hair was in shags of white, though he wasn’t old. There were three that could be Mahondis, tall and thin, but their hair was like the Rock People’s, a pale mass. She and Dann were the only Mahondis, but no one seemed to notice them or mind, and this was because, they decided, they both wore the long, loose, once white robes that everyone knew were slaves’ or servants’ dress. What would Mara and Dann’s parents think if they could see their children now? Would they even recognise us? – and Mara tried to remember her mother’s face, and her father’s, but could not. Their voices – yes, and they laughed a lot, she was sure. And they smelled: her father had a warm, spicy smell she had thought was the smell of kindness, and her mother a teasing, sweet smell … Meanwhile Mara was standing in a press of people who smelled of dirty sweat and feet. The water was muddy. The boat was hardly moving. The boatmen were shouting at Dann to use his carrying pole to push the boat along. Then they passed an oar through the crowd to her. They thought she was a boy, being so thin and bony inside that robe, and with her still bare pate. Only the men were being given oars and paddles. The sun was scorching down. It was midday. Over the mud shores the heat waves oiled and shimmered. As the oars and poles plunged into thick water, bones were disturbed and appeared for a moment, and sank, and, worse, corpses of beasts came up, emitting the most fearful stench, and went down, leaving the air poisonous. But the boat was making progress. Soon they were out of the lake and into the stream that fed it – a narrow, shallow flow that had once been a big river – and the boat had to be pushed along with poles. It was farther to the mountains than it had seemed from where they embarked, and by the time they reached them it was mid-afternoon. There was a jetty of rotting wood, and the boatmen ordered everyone off. Grumbling, the people got on to the shore. The boatmen held out their hands, and into them were put a fruit, a little bag of flour, a flap of bread. Mara and Dann offered two yellow roots, which the boatmen turned over and over, not having seen them before, apparently. To save argument the two jumped quickly on to the jetty. Mara was beside the woman they had robbed. She saw the mass of black hair just in front of her eyes and thought, But that’s like the fur of a sick animal. It should be standing out and strong, but it was limp and dull. The woman was swaying, she could hardly keep herself up. Mara pulled out from her sack one of the yellow roots and held it out to her. She was thinking, But she’ll need a knife – when Dann was there, with his knife, and was cutting the root in two. The movement was so quick, and Dann’s eyes narrow and sharp – she looked and saw the crowd was pressing in around them, all eyes on her sack, and on Dann’s, and on his knife – which was why he had been so quick to cut the root in half: he wanted everyone to see the knife. The woman began sucking at the juice, moaning and crying, and her companion snatched at the other half and chewed at it. Dann pulled Mara away, and they ran up into the mountain, not stopping until they were among rocks. Mara was thinking that Dann believed they were going to be killed, because of the sacks, and the water. And she waited for him to scold her, or say something, but he didn’t. And she was thinking, Those two, when Dann was stealing their little bag, if they had woken up and seen him, would he have killed them – all for a little dried fruit and a bit of bread?

  Dann said, ‘You must have a knife. And make sure that everyone sees you have got it.’

  They climbed to where they could look down on the lake, and the river running in from this end and out the other side, and the great basin of dried mud and dust. The mountains on the other side where they were yesterday stood up high and blue and fresh. ‘That cloudburst must have been there,’ she said, ‘somewhere in those mountains. And the flash flood went down the other way, it didn’t come this side. Otherwise that lake would be bigger. And it would be fresh.’

  ‘It hasn’t rained here for a long time,’ he said. And the sullen, restless note was in his voice again. And she was thinking, If that cloudburst had happened just a little way this side of those mountains, the flood would have come this way, not down past the Rock Village, and I would be dead now. And Dann said, angrily, ‘Everything is just chance. It’s just luck – who stays alive and who dies.’ And then, again, ‘You must have a knife.’

  They searched until they found a place where they could lie among rocks and look out. Several times they heard people from the boat go past, farther down. ‘They think the stream goes on and they can follow it,’ said Dann.

  ‘And it doesn’t go on?’

  ‘No.’

  She wanted to ask, What will they do? And what will we do? – but Dann had dropped off to sleep, just like that. She kept watch until he woke
, and then she slept while he kept watch. When the light came they drank water, but he said they should be careful, water was going to be short; and they ate the bread they had stolen, and a yellow root each. Now they had practically no food left. The dried leaves were so bitter Mara could not eat them, but Dann said they had to be cooked. There were no matches.

  ‘We’ll get some food today,’ he promised. And he smiled, a stretching of his lips, cracked and a bit swollen from the sun, and he quickly put his hand on her shoulder, but let it drop again, because he had heard a sound from down the hill. The hard, suspicious stare was back on his face, and he sent quick glances all around at the rocks and the dead or dying trees, and when a stone fell clattering down among rocks he was on his feet, his knife in his hand.

  Then, silence. He pushed his knife back into the slit in his robe, where there was a long, narrow pocket to hold it, and crouched down over their sacks. He pulled out the bundle of brown tunics, and laid two out on the rocks. One had come off Mara’s body yesterday. They stared, for again it had sprung into its own shape and lay fresh, glistening, unmarked, though it had been on her day and night for months. It was repulsive, that unchanging, slippery brown skin, lying there on the rock, with them leaning over it, both so dry and dirty, their skins scaling and flaking dust. ‘How could they do it, how did they?’ he asked, in that voice that meant he could not bear his thoughts. ‘They made these things … and those cans that never break or mark or change. How did they? How, how, how?’ And began twisting the thing in his hands, trying to make it tear; and he pulled at it to make it split, but it resisted him, lying there whole and perfect on the rock, shining in the sunlight.

  He sighed, and she knew what it meant, for she was feeling what he felt through her whole self: here they were, these two hunted and hunting creatures, and in their hands, their property to use as they liked, these amazing and wonderful things that had been made by people like themselves – but they did not know how long ago.

  And now he pulled out the knotted cord of coins from the bottom of his sack, and in a moment had untied a coin and pushed the cord back, all the time glancing over his shoulders in case someone was watching. The slim, bright gold circle lay on the old grey rock. They sighed, both of them, at the same time. How long ago had that coin been made? And here it lay: the brightest, freshest, prettiest thing for miles around.

  ‘If we can change even this one coin, then …’ He put it down the long tube of cloth inside his robe that held the knife. ‘I’ll say you’re my brother,’ he said.

  ‘So what’s my name?’ she whispered, and her mind was full of that scene where Gorda had told her to forget her name. And she had: she had no idea what it was. She was going farther away from her real name now, when she said, ‘Maro. Dann and Maro.’

  They set off downhill, united by the carrying pole where the water cans swung. The trees here were not all dead. Some must have roots down into deep-running water, for they stood strong and green among the tree corpses. There was a bad smell, sweet and disgusting, as they came to where the hill flattened into another plain. That smell … She knew it, but not as strong. Dann said, ‘They made a big grave over there.’ He pointed. ‘Hundreds of people.’

  ‘Was it the water sickness?’

  ‘No, there was a war.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Water. Who was to control the water from the spring that makes the stream that feeds the lake we were on.’

  ‘Who won?’

  ‘Who cares? It is all drying up anyway.’

  As they walked away from the hill, the smell lessened and then it had gone.

  Dann walked lightly, warily, his eyes always turning this way and that, his head sometimes jerking around so fast because of a sudden noise, or even a gust of wind, that she thought his neck must ache. She tried to walk as he did, his feet seeming to see by themselves where there was thick, soft dust or some rocky ground where they would make no sound. She knew they were nearing a place where people were, and when she saw his eyes she felt she ought to be afraid of him, they were so hard and cold. Ahead was a town, and these houses were bigger than any she had seen, though she seemed to remember her own home had been built high, windows above windows, and these were like that, of brick, but nothing like as graceful and delightful. They were walking along a street between ugly houses. There had been gardens, but in them now were only scorpions and big yellow spiders that coated every dead bush or tree with webs as thick as the material her robe was made of. Some spiders were the size of a child – of Dann, when she first had charge of him. She was afraid, seeing their glittering eyes watching them go past. There seemed to be no people.

  ‘Did they all die in the war?’ she asked, in a whisper, afraid the spiders would catch the sound, and a web near them began vibrating and jerking as the spider climbed to see what had made the noise. He nodded, watching the spider. No people, nobody. Then she saw sitting in the open door of a house an old woman, all bones and eyes, staring out at them, and in the path between her and them were clustering scorpions, and she was flicking them away from her with a stick. But as they landed on the earth, they scuttled back to where they had been, their pincers all held out towards her. Quite soon she would not care: she would let that tired old wrist of hers rest, with the stick lying in front of her, and would wait for the scorpions.

  ‘I don’t like this place,’ Mara whispered. ‘Please, let’s go.’

  ‘Wait. There’s a market here. If it is still here.’

  They came into an open place of dull, yellowish dust, with some trestle-tables in the middle, and one man guarding them all. Around the edges of this space, along the walls of the houses, were scorpions. On the two dead trees were the spiders’ webs, and there was a big dragon, lying out in the sun as once dogs had done.

  Her brother was standing in front of the man, staring hard at him, and the handle of his knife was showing: his right hand was held ready near it. On the wooden slats of the trestle were a few of the big roots Mara had not seen for a long time now, bags of dried leaf, a few pieces of flat bread, a bowl of flour, and strips of dried meat. What meat? It did not smell: it was too dry.

  Dann took out the brown garment they had examined on the hill that morning, and she saw the man’s eyes narrow as he peered at it.

  ‘Haven’t seen one of those for a bit,’ he said. ‘Have you come from the Rock Village? I didn’t know anyone was still alive.’

  ‘There isn’t now,’ said Dann. ‘So this is the last of these you’ll be seeing.’

  ‘You aren’t Rock People,’ the man said. What he was really saying was, You are Mahondis.

  Dann ignored that and asked, ‘What will you give me for this?’ He held tight to one end of the tunic.

  The man looked steadily into Dann’s face, his teeth bared, and put on the board, one after another in front of Dann, six of the food fruits. He added a bag of dried leaf, but Dann shook his head and the bag was put back beside the other bags. A pile of the flat bread – Dann nodded. And waited. The two men stood glaring at each other. Mara thought they were like two animals about to attack each other. Past the man’s shoulder lay the dragon, apparently asleep. It was only a few paces away.

  ‘Water,’ said Dann.

  The man lifted on to the board a jar of yellowish water. Dann slid their two cans off the pole, and was topping them up with water from the jar when the man said, ‘I’ll take those cans.’ Dann did not respond, went on pouring. ‘I’ll give you these dried fruits for them.’

  Under the trestle was a sack full of dried fruits. Dann shook his head, put the cans back on the pole, where they swung between him and his sister.

  ‘We need more for this tunic,’ he said. ‘Matches?’

  The man sneered, then laughed. ‘I’ll give you a bundle of matches for the two cans.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Dann. ‘Have you got candles?’

  The man produced some stumps of candle. At Dann’s nod, he laid them beside the big fruits and the bread.
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  The two glared at each other again. Mara thought that if it came to a fight Dann would win, because this man was as thin as a sick lizard and his hair had the flattened, lifeless look – pale, fuzzy hair. Starving children’s hair sometimes looked like that.

  ‘More bread,’ said Dann.

  The man counted out from his pile one, two, three, four, five, six pieces of bread and pushed them forward.

  And to Mara’s surprise, Dann let go the end of the garment and the man snatched it up, held it up, gloated. Mara thought, Something I’ve worn for years and years – it is worth some food fruits, a little water, and some bread. And stumps of candle.

  ‘Have you got another?’ asked the man, carefully pushing the garment into a sack and tying it tight.

  Dann shook his head. Then – and Mara could feel Dann’s trembling, in the stick that lay from shoulder to shoulder – he said, ‘I want to change a gold fifty.’

  At this the man’s face came to life in an ugly laugh. ‘Oh you do? And what do you want to buy with that? You can have one of the houses here for a few matches.’

  ‘Are you going to change it?’

  ‘Let me see it.’

  Again the precious, shining gold piece seemed like a message from another time, or place. Dann held tight to one edge while the other stared at it. He sighed. Dann sighed. So did Mara.

  The man’s eyes were glittering and he was very angry. ‘You could try your friends up there in that house. Wait till dark. You don’t want to be seen.’

  Dann quickly put the bread, fruit, candles into Mara’s sack, and the two went away, as quickly as they could, and as far from the fat dragon as they could.

  Dann began peering into the doorways of houses, but from each room came hissing, the sound of scales on dust or stone, the clattering of scorpions. Then there was a room that seemed to have nothing in it. The two went in, and Dann’s eyes were moving everywhere: up in the rafters, in the corners, behind the door. Was that a sound above them, in the room over this? There was something up there. Mara was frightened, but Dann took a big stone and jammed the door that led from this room into the rest of the house. He said, ‘Nothing can get in here.’ In the middle of the room, their eyes always on the door out into the market place, they squatted and drank water from a can, and ate two pieces of bread each. It was after midday, and the afternoon heat was yellowing the sky. Mara wanted to sleep, but Dann’s eyes were restless and suspicious: he was afraid. Several times people went past, stopped to glance in, and then went on. Then Mara did sleep, for she woke to see Dann at the door, watching some scorpions. It was getting dark.