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

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СКАЧАТЬ on a sloping cliff face but on a dry rock under sweet-smelling bushes. To be rid of the dank reek of the marshes … he took in great breaths of clean healthy air and so it was all that day and the next, and he thought he must be careful, or he’d run straight into the fighting, if it still went on. And all that time no people had come towards him along the track. Then he saw them, two – well, what were they? Children? When they came close, stumbling, their knees bending under them, he saw they were youngsters, all bone, with the hollow staring eyes of extreme hunger. Their skins … now, what colour was that? Grey? Were there grey people? No, their skins had gone ashy, and their lips were whitish and cracked. They did not seem to see him; they were going past.

      These two were like him and Mara, long ago, ghostlike with deprivation, but still upright. As they came level the girl – it was a girl? – yes, he thought so – nearly fell and the boy put out his hand to catch her, but in a mechanical, useless way. She fell. Dann picked her up and it was like lifting a bundle of thin sticks. He set her by the road on the side where the moors began. The boy stood vaguely, not understanding. Dann put his arm round him, led him to the grass verge, put him near the girl, who sat staring, breathing harshly. He knelt by them, opened his sack, took out some bread, poured water on it to make it easier to eat. He put a morsel in the girl’s mouth. She did not eat it: had reached that stage of starvation where the stomach no longer recognises its function. He tried with the boy – the same. They smelled horrible. Their breath was nasty. Then he tried out his languages, first the ones he knew well, then the odd phrases, and they did not respond at all, either not knowing any of them, or too ill to hear him.

      They sat exactly where he had set them, and stared, that was all. Dann thought that he and Mara had never been so far gone they could not respond to danger, had lost the will to survive. He believed these two were dying. To reach the Centre would take many days of walking. They could reach Kass, after a few days, but would be met by her broad sharp knife. Beyond them the moors stretched towards Tundra’s main towns, a long way off. And if they did manage to get themselves up and walk, and reached the marshes, they would probably fall in and drown, or tumble over the edge of the cliffs.

      And then, as he sat there, seeing how the morsels of food he had placed in their mouths were falling out again, they crumpled up and lay, hardly breathing. They would die there. Dann sat with them, a little, then went on, but not in his pace, his rhythm: he was thinking of how Mara and he had been so often in danger, but had always come through, had slid through situations because of their wariness and quickness, were saved by their own efforts or because of the kindness of others. And by luck … those two back there had not had luck.

      He saw coming towards him a slight figure, walking in a slow obstinate way that Dann knew: this person, a man, was walking on his will, which was far from the ease of how one moved on that rhythm that seemed to come from somewhere else. He was thin, bony, but was in nothing like the bad state of the two youngsters. Dann called out in Mahondi and was at once answered. He could see the man didn’t want to stop, but Dann held out some bread, a dry piece, and walked forward with it, and the man stopped. He was a small wiry fellow, yellowish in colour – which was his own real colour and not because of starvation – with dark serious eyes and black locks of fine hair. He had a sparse beard. This was no thug or rough.

      Dann started his interrogation, while the man ate, not in a frantic grasping way, but carefully.

      Where had he come from?

      From a very long way east.

      But surely there is a war?

      Yes, two, bad ones. The one nearest here had fought itself to a standstill, there was no one left but real soldiers, preparing to make a stand. The one further along was raging. His own country had been invaded; there was civil war. He had left, made a circuit around the further war, knowing it was there, had worked for a farmer for shelter, and some food. And now, what would he find if he went on?

      Dann told him, carefully, watching him nod, as he took in the important points. He must not let himself fall into the marshes or over the cliffs. If he went on long enough he would come to a vast complex of buildings, called the Centre, and there he could find a man called Griot, who would help him.

      And why did Dann do all this for this stranger? He liked him. He was reminding him of someone, a friend who had helped him, Dann thought, and there was something about that intelligent face …

      ‘What is your name?’

      ‘They call me Ali.’ He added, trusting Dann as Dann trusted him, ‘I was the king’s scribe. I had to run away – I was too well known.’

      ‘And your country’s name?’

      Dann had never heard it. It was beyond Kharab – and Dann scarcely knew where that was.

      He gave this Ali a hunk of Kass’s bread, and watched him hide it in his clothes, before he went on, hesitant at first, because he was tired, but then stronger, and steadily. Then he turned and looked back at Dann and gave a little bow, hand on his heart.

      And as Dann watched him, thinking of him as a friend – why did he feel he knew this Ali? – he heard shouts and the sounds of running feet. What he saw then made him drop over the edge of the cliff, though it was steep there, because he knew these people meant danger. A large noisy crowd and they were hungry, and some wounded, with old dried blood on them, and half-healed cuts. If they knew he had food they would kill him. He could see all this from that one glance.

      He did not put his head up over the edge until they had gone on.

      He knew Ali was quick and clever enough to hide from them.

      And what was Griot going to do with this crowd of bandits when they turned up?

      He saw near him a quite large path. Down he went between slabs of dark rock that had been smoothed by water, thinking that previous descents to the Bottom Sea had taken him half a day, but the Middle Sea was deeper here, for darkness fell when there was a long way to go. He ensconced himself for the night in a shelter for travellers, hoping he would not have company, but though he slept with his knife ready there was no knock, or intruding feet, or the strong smell of an animal. He stood outside the hut door as the sun rose, seeing that this part of the Middle Sea was full of islands, some whose tops were level with and even higher than the edges of the sea. And the islands were wooded, he could see that, easily now, and there were lights on them that went out as the sunlight grew strong.

      He was thinking of those two who probably still lay by the side of the track, whom he had seen wavering towards him, as if blown by the wind, hatchlings in a storm – and why should he care more about them than so many others? But he did think of them. The crows or other raptors of the wild moor would have found them by now.

      He let the sun flush his stiff limbs with warmth and took the path again. Many used it. Before he reached the edge of the Bottom Sea he saw another travellers’ hut. Wood. He had become so used to reed roofs, walls, reed everything that it was pleasant to see well-honed planks and solidly encompassing roofs of wooden tiles.

      It was well past midday now. The sky blazed and the sea was very blue and full of sharp little waves. Very cold water – his fingers went numb at once. On the shore was a flat place where a post stood on the water’s edge. He saw two things; that it was submerged a third of the way up, and that fish traps were tied to it. The post was to hold a boat and so he had only to wait and there would be a boat. There was a bench. He sat and looked across at the nearest island from where he could expect the boat. He could be seen from there. Probably the boatmen kept a lookout and came over when they saw someone waiting. He drowsed – down here he did not feel fearful, or the anxiety of watchfulness. He was woken by a boat scraping at the landing place. In the boat was a youth СКАЧАТЬ