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. ‘The
re 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 cand
le. 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?’