Mara and Dann (4 page)

‘Why here?' whispered Mara.

‘Probably another flood like this brought down dead animals and they piled up here. Or perhaps it was a graveyard.'

‘I didn't know animals had graveyards.'

‘The big animals were very intelligent. Nearly as clever as people.'

‘This is no graveyard,' said the woman. ‘All the different species together? No, it was a flood. We've seen today how it must have happened.'

The man was pulling from the mass of bones a ribcage so big that when he stood inside it the ribs were like a house over him. The ends of the ribs rested on the wet earth and sank in because of the weight. The big central bone, the spine, was nearly as thick as the man's body. If some of the ribs had not been broken away, leaving gaps, the man would not have been able to pull it: it would have been too heavy.

‘What on earth could that have been?' said the woman, and he answered, ‘Probably the ancestor of our horse. They were three times as big.' He went on standing there, with the broken ribs curving over him, the moon making another shadow cage with a blotch in it that was his shadow, lying near.

‘Don't forget where this place is,' said the woman to Mara. ‘We'll do our best to come back, but with things as they are who knows…' And she stopped herself from going on, thinking she would frighten Mara. Who was thinking, That means she doesn't know how frightening all the other things she has said were. And how could Mara remember where the bones were when she didn't know where she was going?

‘Come on,' said the woman, ‘we must hurry.'

But the man didn't want to leave. He would have liked to go on poking about among those old bones. But he came out from the ribs of the ancient horse and lifted up Dann, and they walked on, Mara holding tight to the woman's hand.

Soon it was dry underfoot. They were back in the dryness that Mara knew. She could hear the singing beetles hard at it in the trees. She felt her tunic: dry. The mud on her legs and feet was dry. Soon they would all be thirsty again. Mara was already a bit thirsty. She thought of all that water they had left and longed for it. Her skin felt dry again. The moon was getting its late look, and was going down the sky.

It was hot. Everything was rustling with dryness: grass, bushes, a little creeping wind. Then, ahead, was a Rock Village, and the man said to the little boy, ‘Don't make a sound,' and the woman said to Mara, very low, ‘Quiet, quiet,' and they were running towards the village. It was not
empty like the other one, for it had a feel of being lived in, and from a window in a house light came, just a little, dim light. And in a moment they had reached this house, and the man had slid the door along, and a tall woman came out at once. She put her hand on Mara's shoulder; and when the little boy, half asleep, slid down out of the man's arms, she put her other hand on his shoulder; and the three big people whispered over Mara's head, fast and very low, so she could not hear; and then she heard, ‘Goodbye Mara, goodbye Dann,' and then these two who had rescued them – and carried them and held them and fed them, brought them safely through all that water – they were running off, bending low, and in a moment had disappeared up into the trees that grew among rocks.

‘Come in,' said this new woman in a whisper. And pushed the children inside, and followed them, and pulled the door across in its groove.

They were inside a room, like the other rock room, but this was bigger. In the middle was a table made of blocks of stone, like the other. Around it were stools made of wood. On the wall was a lantern, the same as the ones that were used in storerooms or servants' rooms, which burned oil.

On the walls too were lamps of the kind that went out by themselves when the light was bright enough and came on when it was dark, and dimmed and lightened as the light changed; but these globes were broken, just like the ones at home. It had been a long time since these clever lamps had worked.

The woman was saying, ‘And now, before anything else, what is your name?'

‘Mara,' said the child, not stumbling over it.

And now the woman looked at the little boy, who did not hesitate but said, ‘My name is Dann.'

‘Good,' she said. ‘And my name is Daima.'

‘Mara, Dann and Daima,' said Mara, smiling in what she meant to be a special way at Daima, who smiled back in the same way. ‘Exactly,' she said.

And now, the way Daima looked them over made Mara examine herself and her brother. Both were filmed with dust from the last bit of walking and there were crusts of mud all up their legs.

Daima went next door and came back with a wide, shallow basin made of the metal Mara knew never chipped or broke or bent. This was put on the floor. Mara took off Dann the brown, slippery garment and
stood him in the basin and began to pour water over him. He stood there half asleep, and yet he was trying to catch drops of water with his hands.

‘We are so thirsty,' said Mara.

Daima poured half a cup of water from a big jug, this time made of clay, and gave it to Mara to give to Dann. Mara held it while he drank it all, greedily; and when Mara gave the cup back to Daima she thought it could happen as it did yesterday – yesterday?…it seemed a long time ago – when Dann drank all the water and it was not noticed that she had not drunk anything. So she held the cup out firmly and said, ‘I'm thirsty too.' Daima said, smiling, ‘I hadn't forgotten you,' and poured out half a cup.

Mara knew this carefulness with water so well there was no need to ask. When Dann stepped out of the basin, Mara pulled off the brown thing and stood in the dirtied water. Daima handed her the cup to pour with and Mara poured water over herself, carefully, for she knew she was being watched to see how well she did things and was aware of everything she did. Then, just as she was going to say, Our hair, it's full of dust, Daima took a cloth and energetically rubbed it hard over Mara's hair, interrupting herself to examine the cloth, which was brown and heavy with dust. Another cloth was used to rub Dann's hair, as dirty as Mara's. The two dusty cloths were thrown into the bathwater to be washed later.

The two children stood naked. Daima took the tunics they had taken off to the door, slid it back a little and shook them hard. In the light from the wall lamp that fell into the dark they could see dust clouds flying out. Daima had to shake the tunics a long time.

Then they went back over Dann's head and Mara's head. She knew they were not dirty now. She knew a lot about this stuff the tunics were made of: that it could not take in water, that dust and dirt only settled on it but did not sink in, that it need never be washed, and it never wore out. A tunic or garment could last a person's life and then be worn by the children and their children. The stuff could burn, but only slowly, so there would be time to snatch it out of flames, and there would not even be scorch marks. There were chests of the things at home; but everyone hated them and so they were not worn, only by the slaves.

Now Daima asked, ‘Are you hungry?'

‘Yes,' said Mara. The little boy said nothing. He was nearly asleep, where he stood.

‘Before you go to sleep remember something,' said Daima, bending down to him. ‘When people ask, you are my grandchildren. Dann, you are my grandson.' But he was asleep, and Mara caught him and carried him where Daima pointed, to a low couch of stone that had on it a pad covered with the same slippery, brown stuff. She laid him down but did not cover him because it was already so hot.

On the rock table Daima had put a bowl with bits of the white stuff Mara had eaten yesterday, but now it was mixed with green leaves and some soup. Mara ate it all, while Daima watched.

Then Mara said, ‘May I ask some questions?'

‘Ask.'

‘How long will we be here?' And as she asked, again, she knew the answer.

‘You are staying here.'

Mara was not going to let herself cry.

‘Where are my father and mother?'

‘What did Gorda tell you?'

Mara said, ‘I was so thirsty while he was telling me things, I couldn't listen.'

‘That's rather a pity. You see, I don't know much myself. I was hoping you could tell me.' She got up, and yawned. ‘I was awake all night. I was expecting you sooner.'

‘There was a flood.'

‘I know. I was up there watching it go past.' She pointed to the window, which was just a square hole in the wall with nothing to cover it or stop people looking in. It was light outside: the sun was up. Daima pointed through it, past some rock houses to a ridge. ‘That's where you came. Over that ridge is the river. Not the place you crossed, but the same one higher up. And beyond that is another river – if you can call them rivers now. They are just waterholes.' Then she took Mara by the shoulders and turned her round so that she was facing into the room. ‘Your home is in that direction. Rustam is there.'

‘How far is it from here?'

‘In the old days, by sky skimmer, half a day. Walking, six days.'

‘We came part of the way with a cart bird. But it got tired and stopped.' And now Mara's eyes filled and she said, beginning to cry, ‘I think it must be dead, it was so thin.'

‘I think you are tired. I'm going to put you to bed.'

Daima took Mara into an inner room. It was like the outer room
without the big table of rocks in the middle, but it had couches made of rocks, three of them, built against the walls. It wasn't thatch here but a roof of thin pieces of stone.

Daima showed Mara which shelf to use and a little rock room that was the lavatory and said, ‘I shall lie down for a little too. Don't take any notice when I get up.' And she lay down on a shelf that had pads on it to make it soft, and seemed to be asleep.

Mara on her rocky shelf, which was hard in spite of the pads, was far from sleeping. For one thing she was worrying about Dann next door. Suppose he woke and found himself alone in a strange place? She wanted to wake Daima and tell her, but didn't dare. Several times she crept off this hard shelf that was supposed to be a bed and crept to the doorway to listen, but then Daima got up and went next door. Mara had time to take a good look at her.

Daima was old. She was like Mara's grandmothers and grand-aunts. She had the same glossy, long, black hair, streaked all the way to the ends with grey, and her legs had knots of veins on them. Her hands were long and bony. Mara suddenly thought, But she's a Person, she's one of the People, so what is she doing here in a rock village?

Now Mara knew she wouldn't sleep. She sat up and looked carefully around her. A big floor candle made a good, steady light she could see nearly everything by. These walls were made of big blocks of rock. They were smooth, and she could see carvings on them, some coloured. These walls were not like the ones in the other rock house, whose walls had been rough. Overhead, the big stone columns that held up the stone slabs of the roof had carvings on them. There were shelves made of rock, and in the corner a little room, sticking out, and opposite that a door into an inner room, with curtains of the brown, slippery stuff. This room had a window, but there were wooden shutters, not properly closed. People could see in if they wanted. Outside now, people were walking about; Mara could hear them: they were talking.

Now Mara was sitting up, arms on her knees, and she had never thought harder in her life.

At home there was a game that all the parents played with their children. It was called, What Did You See? Mara was about Dann's age when she was first called into her father's room one evening, where he sat in his big carved and coloured chair. He said to her, ‘And now we are going to play a game. What was the thing you liked best today?'

At first she chattered: ‘I played with my cousin…I was out with
Shera in the garden…I made a stone house.' And then he had said, ‘Tell me about the house.' And she said, ‘I made a house of the stones that come from the river bed.' And he said, ‘Now tell me about the stones.' And she said, ‘They were mostly smooth stones, but some were sharp and had different shapes.' ‘Tell me what the stones looked like, what colour they were, what did they feel like.'

And by the time the game ended she knew why some stones were smooth and some sharp and why they were different colours, some cracked, some so small they were almost sand. She knew how rivers rolled stones along and how some of them came from far away. She knew that the river had once been twice as wide as it was now. There seemed no end to what she knew, and yet her father had not told her much, but kept asking questions so she found the answers in herself. Like, ‘Why do you think some stones are smooth and round and some still sharp?' And she thought and replied, ‘Some have been in the water a long time, rubbing against other stones, and some have only just been broken off bigger stones.' Every evening, either her father or her mother called her in for What Did You See? She loved it. During the day, playing outside or with her toys, alone or with other children, she found herself thinking, Now notice what you are doing, so you can tell them tonight what you saw.

She had thought that the game did not change; but then one evening she was there when her little brother was first asked, What Did You See? and she knew just how much the game had changed for her. Because now it was not just What Did You See? but: What were you thinking? What made you think that? Are you sure that thought is true?

When she became seven, not long ago, and it was time for school, she was in a room with about twenty children – all from her family or from the Big Family – and the teacher, her mother's sister, said, ‘And now the game: What Did You See?'

Most of the children had played the game since they were tiny; but some had not, and they were pitied by the ones that had, for they did not notice much and were often silent when the others said, ‘I saw…', whatever it was. Mara was at first upset that this game played with so many at once was simpler, more babyish, than when she was with her parents. It was like going right back to the earliest stages of the game: ‘What did you see?' ‘I saw a bird.' ‘What kind of a bird?' ‘It was black and white and had a yellow beak.' ‘What shape of beak? Why do you think the beak is shaped like that?'