Mara and Dann

  Dann seemed familiar with this place. He said he had come over this ridge when he was walking down Ifrik to get to her, that somewhere close there was an old city, ruins he had heard people talk about.

  They found a higher place, like the other nights, with flat rocks on it. There was no moon, but the stars glittered and seemed to rustle and talk. They ate the last piece of their bread, drank almost the last of their water, and lay down on a rock and looked up. The heat stored in the rock would warm them through the night, and above was the cold shine of the stars. He slept while she watched. She did hear scuffling and clicking from quite near, but these were not the sounds the dragons or lizards made. Then she slept. He woke her to show her an enormous beetle, yellow, with black feelers, running off to some rocks.

  Before the sun rose they moved off their rock with its store of warmth and walked along the ridge that marked the descent into Chelops. ‘And here it is,’ said Dann, ‘it is where they said…’ He sounded perplexed. Ahead of them were buildings of all shapes, round or square or like bowls, but they had no roofs and were all of a piece, with round holes for windows. They were of a dull greenish or brown metal, sometimes two-storeyed with outside stairs, but were mostly one-storey. When the two stood a foot or so away from a wall they saw their reflections, brownish distorted pictures of themselves, deep in the dull metal. What was this metal that still reflected after so long? It was not rusted, or dulled, or dented or scratched. The smooth, dull walls enclosed spaces that were hot and airless, or, rather, the air seemed flat, like stale water: both of them were pleased to step outside into the heat. They went from one to another and found not a crack, not a hole, not a chip. Mara pulled out of her sack the tunic that could be worn for years and never show a mark, or a tear, never lose its dull sheen, and she said to Dann, ‘Look.’ She held the slippery glisten of the tunic near the wall of a house: they were the same; and she put the can for their water near a wall: the same. The same people made the houses, the tunics, the cans. The two walked about among the houses, the sun beating down on them, and the metal of the buildings did not absorb or throw out heat but kept a mild, indifferent tepidity, no matter where they laid their palms. This city extended along the edge of the ridge and back from it for a mile or so: lumps of buildings, dead, ugly things that could never change or decay.

  Mara asked, ‘Did they tell you how old this place is?’

  ‘They think it is three thousand years old.’

  ‘Do they know what kind of people they were?’

  ‘They found bones. They used to throw their dead people down over the edge for the animals to eat. The bones were all broken up because they were so old, but those people were much taller than we are. They had bigger heads. They had long arms and their feet were big too.’

  The two were dispirited, dismayed, even angry. ‘How did they make this thing,’ said Mara, suddenly emotional, and she hit the wall of a house, first with her fist, then with a stone; but there was not a sound – nothing.

  ‘No one knows,’ said Dann.

  ‘No one?’

  ‘Those old people were clever. They knew all kinds of things.’

  ‘Then I’m glad they’re dead. I’m glad, I’m glad,’ said Mara, and began shouting, ‘I’m glad, I’m glad – ’ and she was shouting away into the hot air all her years of feeling the slippery deadness of the material sliding around her, on her body, her legs, her arms.

  Dann was leaning with one hand on a wall, watching her. What he said was, ‘Mara, you’re better, do you know that? When I saw you back there at the waterhole you couldn’t have shouted, or made this kind of – fuss.’ And he was smiling at her, affectionate, and with those narrow, sharp eyes of his for once ordinary – kind. And then Mara began to laugh. It was with relief. She felt she had escaped for ever the nastiness of that dead, brown stuff, and the unpleasantness that had made these houses. He smiled, while she laughed. She knew this was a moment new for them, of trust and relaxation, after such effort and danger. Did he know how rare it was for him not to be on guard?

  ‘The people who lived here,’ she said at last, summing up, ending their little moment, ‘they must have been monsters. How could they have borne it? To live all your life in houses that can’t change, with things that never break, with clothes you can’t tear, that never wear out?’ And she kicked a house, hard, so that her long toenails scratched the metal – or would have, if this metal could be affected by anything. For three thousand years these things had been here. And she remembered the ruins of the cities near the Rock Village with affectionate respect for them, their generosity in giving up what made them to people who came after, so that the houses of the Rock People were made of the stones and pillars of those people who had lived there so much earlier.

  She squatted in the dust, took up a little stick, and said, ‘Tell me about numbers, Dann. Tell me about three thousand.’ And she laid her two hands flat on the earth: ten; and stretched out her two feet: ten again. He knelt in the dust opposite her, and with a stick wrote 10, then 20, looking at her to see if she understood. Then he went on: 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, saying the words as he wrote. And again he looked at her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One hundred.’ She had reached that point herself, though not to write it with these strange new marks. And now she could go on, with this little brother who knew so much more than she did.

  He made ten marks side by side in the dust, at a little distance from each other; and under each, ten strokes; and under each of those, ten. ‘A thousand,’ he said, and sat back on his heels so she could have time to take it all in. How sweet it was, this being close here, alone, learning from him, while he taught her. Neither wanted it to end. They had not been alone with each other a moment all these past days. And now, in this deserted place, they were comfortable together, and not in danger, they were pretty sure – and then they saw the sweat running down each other’s face and remembered they had only a mouthful of water each and that they were very thirsty.

  They stood up.

  ‘Where did you learn?’ she asked.

  ‘I was at school in Majab.’

  ‘At school?’ she asked. ‘How?’

  ‘I worked in the day and had lessons at night. But then I left and that was the end of school.’

  ‘What else do you know?’

  ‘Not much, Mara.’

  They were standing not far from the rocky edge, and they went to it and looked down over the city, over Chelops. And now in the full daylight she could see clearly what had been impossible to see in the dusk. The whole city lay there, spread out, and they could understand its plan. The first thing you had to see was that roads ran in from north, south, east and west to the centre, which was an enormous, very tall, black building, dwarfing everything for miles around. The roads were like nothing Mara had even imagined. They were straight, wide, and were made of a smooth, dark stone – or so it looked from here. Nothing moved on those roads. Where they met at the central tower were four quarters, each filled with smaller but still important buildings, all exactly the same: six to a quarter, and each glum, threatening, solid, dark, with regular windows that the sun flashed off, like knives. There was no movement inside this central core of the city, which was defined by an encircling road, narrower, but the same as the quartering roads. A vastness of irregular, lively buildings of all sizes and shapes and colours began at the circling road, making courts and compounds and avenues where there were trees. The trees seemed to droop, but they were not dead. In the streets of this city a lot of people were moving, and vehicles too. There was a big market place that was not central, and there seemed to be others here and there.

  ‘This city was built to be the first city of the country.’

  ‘Of Ifrik?’

  ‘No, just of the country. It is a big country. It is from Majab in the south far up beyond Chelops in the north. We would need weeks to walk across it. It is the biggest country in this part of Ifrik.’

  She was for the first tim
e in her life hearing of a country, rather than of towns, or villages. ‘What are the people like?’

  ‘I don’t know. I came through it so fast because of all the policemen, and it was at night.’

  6

  Now they began walking down a steep slope of chalky sand, where long ago the people of the houses that looked like cooking pots had thrown their dead. There did not seem to be bones now – not on the surface, at least. The chalky white of the earth was old bones: she knew how bones became white dust. The white was rising all around them, and they were beginning to look like floury ghosts; and they laughed at each other, and slid down the slope, which became steeper and then so steep they had to step off to one side to a gentler slope, which was still made of white chalk; and then at the bottom there was green, and some living trees, and a little stream. It had once been a big river, but water was still bubbling up from somewhere, for it was not standing in holes but actually gently running. Clear water. Sweet water. And with a shout both flung off their dirty robes and were about to throw themselves in when they remembered their commonsense, and stood waiting at the edge, looking, for they did not know if there were water dragons or stingers or snakes. Dann took up his pole and began probing a pool. Here the bottom could not be reached. They moved to the next where the water spread and a sandy bottom showed. Dann pushed the pole into every bit of the pool, again and again. And then he flung down the pole and both of them jumped in. The cool water enclosed them, and they sank to the bottom, and lay on white sand, and then at the edge, their heads out; and their bodies felt as if they were drinking in the water, and Mara let the water run all over her dusty scalp with its little scruff of new hair. And then Dann produced from the bottom of his sack a little piece of hard soap, showing it in triumph, and they washed and soaped and scrubbed and then all over, again and again, till the soap vanished into the white bubbles that piled the pool.

  They got out and stood looking at each other. Under all the dust and dirt had been Mara, had been Dann, and now they were there again. Their flesh was not firm and plump like the woman pilot’s, but at least the skin lay healthily on their bones, even on Mara’s, for she was no longer only bones and skin. And now at the same time they were shy and turned away. Dressed in dust they had not thought of covering themselves, but now they did. Mara averted her eyes from his thick tube and the two smooth balls in their little sac, and he glanced at her slit, with its fluff of hair, and looked away.

  She could not bear to put on that filthy garment, so stiff with dust it was lying on the earth with her shape in it. Naked, she stepped back into the pool with her garment, and he too with his. And they rubbed and rubbed in the soap foam, the soap itself having dissolved away; and soon the water was brown and the white foam masses were pale brown too. Dann washed his robe with his back to her. It was a strong muscled back, and her body was as hard and strong. On her chest, above the knotted cord of coins, were hard round plates, like Dann’s, but back at the waterhole in the Rock Village there had been no flesh there, only bones. When they had washed their robes, they laid them on a rock to dry. Their pool was no longer an invitation, being so dirty. Dann tested another, and they lolled in it and floated in it, while the sun sucked the water out of their two robes. And then it was midday, and they were hungry. Mara mixed the very last of their flour with water, and cooked it on the hot rock, and they ate, and drank a great deal of water, out of hunger, though Dann said that soon they would eat, he was sure of it.

  Then they put on their almost dry robes. Mara’s would never be white again, for it had been dyed by dust, and his was the same. But they were clean. They filled the water can from another pool and then, the carrying pole between them, the can hanging there, they set off to walk into Chelops, along the stream. In front of them soon was a barrier that they could not understand. It was several times their height, made of closely laced metal ribbons, covered with barbs like thorns, and rusty. There were holes in this fence where the metal had simply rotted away. There was a great gate, which they tried to push open, and then two men, big yellowish men with rolling, abundant flesh and cold yellow eyes, came running.

  Dann shouted at Mara to run – but there was nowhere they could run, the fences went on and on. When a man grabbed Mara she fought, but her wrists were tied together with thin rope, which hurt. Dann too, though he kicked and twisted and several times got away and was caught, had his wrists tied.

  Within half a day of entering Chelops, Mara and Dann were prisoners, charged with defiling the city’s water source, and for being inside a forbidden area, and for resisting arrest. On that same afternoon they were put to stand in front of a magistrate. Mara had been expecting someone like the guards, whom she now knew were Hadrons. But the man sitting on a little platform, looking at them, Mara thought, with curiosity, was not a Hadron. He was more like a Mahondi, but could not be because he was large and even fat. This was Juba, who soon would become Mara’s very good friend. Meanwhile he was seeing something that he expected to see several times a week: starved fugitives from the famine down south, whose first action was always to steal some food. These two had not, though they had no food at all. Juba never punished the thieves, merely sent them off to join the slave force. But in this case he had to find out what they were doing in the water pools. If they had come from the south then why not by the road everyone used? Why had they sneaked like criminals down over the escarpment?

  Mara was doing the talking. Dann, from the moment the cord went around his wrists, had become listless and silent, and seemed to have given up hope. He stood beside his sister drooping, sometimes shivering a little, and would not look up.

  ‘My brother is ill,’ said Mara. ‘He hasn’t eaten enough.’

  ‘I can see that,’ said Juba. ‘You have committed a very serious crime. You don’t seem to realise how bad. It is a death sentence for defiling the water supply. And then you resisted arrest too.’

  Mara said, ‘I didn’t know about an arrest, or resisting.’

  ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘The Rock Village.’

  ‘But you aren’t of the Rock People. You are a Mahondi.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mara.

  ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘In Rustam.’

  ‘What is your name?’ Here it was again, a small tugging at her memory.

  ‘Maro.’

  ‘No, your family name.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You are going to have to tell me how you got down into our water supplies.’

  Mara had not wanted to mention Felice, but now she said, ‘Felice brought us to the top there.’

  This seemed to disturb him.

  ‘Felice did? And how did you pay her?’

  ‘She was – sorry for us,’ said Mara. And knew she had said something that Felice would be questioned about.

  They were put in a little room near the court while someone went off to find Felice. They were given food, at Juba’s order, and it was good, hot food, which made them feel better. Though Dann seemed not himself, and sat staring, and would not speak.

  How was it possible? Mara thought. Could one night, one terrible night in a child’s life, mark him for ever? So that he would never get free of it? Even though he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – remember it?

  When the messenger came back, he said that Felice was asleep when he got there, but said that she had given a lift to the two boys, since she was coming back to Chelops anyway. They had asked to be set down on the ridge and would make their own way down into Chelops. She had not taken payment from them. This was a relief, because when the guards had gone through their sacks, not very thoroughly, because they had to do it so often, they had actually found Dann’s cord of coins, but thought it was probably some sort of amulet or fetish, and had thrown it back into the bottom.

  Juba sat there for quite a time, his head in his hand, thinking. He could understand why Felice – who had piloted him often enough on official business – had felt sorry
for these two innocents. He knew quite well that he was not being told all the truth, but did not believe that truth for truth’s sake had always to be insisted on.

  In the end, he simply said to the guards, ‘Take the cords off.’ And, while Mara and Dann rubbed their wrists, ‘Take them to the slave quarters.’ These were buildings in a compound where Chelops’ slaves were housed. Dann and Mara were slaves because they were Mahondis, who had ‘always’ been the Hadrons’ slaves. They were not at once put to work but fed double rations for a few days. They were sent out with the other slaves before either of them felt strong enough, but were given light tasks to begin with. Then they kept streets and public buildings clean, acted as bearers for the chairs on poles the Hadrons were carried about in, or pushed the old skimmers that were now ground vehicles, or did any other tasks that needed doing. The slaves were well fed, worked twelve hours a day, and one day a week wrestled and threw each other in a big hall used for that purpose. Male and female slaves slept in different buildings.

  Dann and Mara had little opportunity to talk, for they were supervised by Hadron guards whose task it was to discourage any possible attempts at conspiracy.

  Where they had come from was spoken of with contempt, which masked a dread that what had happened – was happening – ‘down south’ or ‘down there’ in ‘the deadlands’ or ‘the bad place’ or ‘the dust country’ or ‘the country without water,’ could happen here too. No one went south but officials, to Majab, when they had to.

  The Mahondis were an inferior race and had always been servants and slaves.

  The Hadrons had built this city, and many other cities in the country, called Hadron, which they had settled and had always administered.

  Certain things were only whispered. No one lived in the administrative centre, those twenty-five grim buildings in the middle of the city, except criminals or runaway slaves or people passing through who did not want to attract the attention of the police. At some time in the past, when it was hard to find accommodation in the town, people lived there illegally; but Chelops had about a tenth of its earlier population, and many empty houses. Citizens were quietly leaving to go up North, fearing the spread of the drought. Water was not rationed, but the authorities punished those wasting it; there was food, but not as much as there had been. Both food and water supplies were in the hands of the Hadrons.