The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ want to see his sister’s child too,’ said Griot.

      He was using a tone to Kira he never had when he was here before. He stood his ground while she sparked off anger, muttered something, turned and went out.

      ‘Never mind her,’ said Leta, her voice full of dislike.

      This must be a jolly company of people, Griot thought. He was glad he was not trapped here.

      He asked to sleep on the veranda, so he could slip off in the morning. He slept lightly. In the night he watched Kira come out and stand at the top of the steps, looking out. She only glanced at him, and then went out into the dark.

      Very early he woke and saw her a little way down a slope to where some sheds stood, talking to some people who he knew were newly arrived refugees. They must have come by the marsh roads, not seeing the Centre. The two dogs were with her; when they saw he was awake, they left her and came to wag their tails and lick his hands, and then went a little way with him.

      Before he turned a corner on to the road, he saw Leta on the veranda. Her hair glistened in the early light: it was like sunlight. Her skin was so white: he could never decide what he thought about Albs. They fascinated but they repelled him. That hair – how he wanted to touch it, to let the smooth slippery masses run through his fingers. But her skin … he thought it was like the white thick underbelly skin of a fish.

      Donna’s hair wasn’t fair, like Leta’s, but dark and fine, and where it was parted, or when a breeze blew, the skin showed dead white. Once, Griot knew, all of Yerrup had been filled with these Alb people, all with white fish skins. He didn’t like thinking about it. A lot of people said Albs were witches, the men too, but Griot did not take this seriously: he knew how easily people said others were witches, or had magical powers. And why should he complain? When his soldiers said Dann had magic in him, Griot merely smiled and let them think it.

      Before Griot had even reached the gates of the Centre he heard the commotion in Dann’s quarters: shouts, the snow dog’s barks, Dann’s voice. He ran, and burst into the room where Dann was standing on his bed, arms flailing, eyes and face wild. There was a sickly smell. Dann saw Griot and shouted, ‘Liar. You tricked me. You went to intrigue with Shabis against me.’ The two soldiers on guard, minding Dann, stood with their backs to a wall: they were exhausted and they were frightened. The snow dog sat near them, as if protecting them, and watched Dann, who jumped off the bed and began whirling around, so that his outflung hands just missed first one soldier’s face and then the other’s; he whirled so that his fingers flicked Griot’s cheek, then a foot went out as if to kick Ruff, but the animal sat there, unflinching. He let out a low growl of warning.

      ‘Sir,’ said Griot, ‘General … no, listen, Dann …’

      ‘Dann,’ sneered Dann, still flailing about, ‘so it’s Dann, is it? Inferior ranks address their superiors like that, is that it?’

      Now Griot had had time to see that on a low table was a greasy smeared dish and on that a lump of poppy which had been burning and was still smoking.

      Dann leaped back on the bed and stood, knees bent, hands on his thighs, glaring around. His dark pupils had white edges. He was shaking.

      ‘And there’s another thing,’ he shouted at Griot. ‘I’m going to burn down your precious Centre, full of rubbish, full of dead old rubbish, I’m going to make a fire big enough to scorch all of Tundra.’ He fell back on the bed, obviously to his own surprise, and lay staring up, breathing in fast sharp gasps.

      One of the soldiers said, in a low voice, which was dulled by fear, ‘Griot, sir, the General set fire to the Centre, but we stopped him.’

      ‘Yes, I did,’ came the loud voice from the bed. ‘And I will again. What do we want with all this old rubbish? We should burn it and be finished.’

      ‘General, sir,’ said Griot, ‘may I remind you that you asked me not to let you have poppy. It was an order, sir. And now I’m going to take it away.’

      At this up leaped Dann and he jumped off the bed towards the poppy, and then changed his mind, to attack Griot, who stood there as if hypnotised. And he was: he was thinking that in the fearful strength of his seizure Dann could overmaster him easily and in a moment.

      The snow dog walked in a calm considered way to where the two men faced each other and took Dann’s right arm, lifted to strike, in his big jaws and held it. Dann whirled about. A knife had appeared in his other hand, but it was not clear if Dann meant it for Ruff or for Griot. The snow dog let himself move with Dann’s movement but did not let go.

      Griot said, ‘Sir, you ordered me to keep the poppy from you.’

      ‘Yes, but that wasn’t me, it was The Other One.’

      And now, hearing what he had said he stood transfixed, staring – listening? He was hearing … what?

      ‘The Other One,’ muttered Dann. Yes. Mara had said it, the other one, she had said it reminding him of what he was capable of, reminding him of how he had gambled her away. The Other One … and Dann. Two.

      Just where he was standing now, he and Mara had stood and he had heard her tell him, because of some folly he was about to commit, ‘You wouldn’t do it but the other one would.’

      The Other One. Which one was he now? The snow dog let Dann’s arm fall from those great jaws and returned to where he had stationed himself, near the two bemused soldiers.

      ‘The Other One,’ Dann said. He whirled about, so that they all thought he might be beginning again with his flailing and his threatening, but instead he took up the dish with the smoking poppy on it and thrust it at Griot.

      ‘Take it. Don’t let me have it.’

      Griot beckoned one of the soldiers, handed him the dish and said, ‘Get rid of it. Destroy it.’ The soldier went out with the dish.

      Dann watched this, eyes narrowed, his body quivering; he slackened and let himself fall on the bed.

      ‘Come here, Ruff,’ he said.

      The snow dog came, jumped up on the bed and Dann put his arms round him. He was sobbing, a dry painful weeping, without tears. ‘I am thirsty,’ he croaked.

      The remaining soldier brought him a mug of water. Dann drank it all, began to say, ‘More, I need more …’ and fell back, and was asleep, the snow dog’s head on his chest.

      Griot ordered the soldier to go and rest, and see to it that there were replacement guards. He needed to sleep, too.

      That scene with Dann – but he had seemed more like a demented impostor – had gone so fast Griot hadn’t understood what was happening. He needed to think about it. Afraid to go too far from Dann, he lay on the bed in the adjacent room and left the door open.

      The other one, Dann had said.

      He, Griot, needed to ask someone – Shabis? It was Mara he needed to talk to. If he could bring her back, even for a few moments, he would know exactly what to ask her.

      Through the open door Griot watched the two replacement guards enter from outside and stand by the wall. Ruff growled a soft warning, but let his great tail wag, and fall. He slept. Dann slept. Griot slept.

      And woke to silence. СКАЧАТЬ