‘It’s not true,’ said Juba to Dromas.
‘It’s not true,’ said Mara to Dromas, and then again to Meryx, ‘But it’s not true.’
Dromas looked closely at her Juba, who nodded at her, smiling, and took her hands and said, ‘Believe me, Dromas.’
But Meryx sat beside Mara, silent and not looking at her, and his face – it hurt Mara to look at it.
Candace said, ‘Begin at the beginning.’
And Mara said humorously, ‘But surely you already know everything?’
‘Not everything. Tell it so everybody knows.’
There were more people than usual that night, twenty or so, all curious.
Mara began with leaving this house, the walk through empty streets, the dying milk beast – which was rescued, she assured them – the waiting chair and its porter, the eating house and the woman proprietor who was obviously expecting her.
‘Not my doing,’ said Juba.
‘No, it was the junior Hadrons,’ said Mara. ‘They organised it all.’ And went on to describe, and now in slow and careful detail, the journey around the perimeter of the Towers, the tunnels, the notices warning of the beetles, the mass of wire that had holes torn in it, the way the chair runner had been appointed to be available for her all day. She dared to take a look at Meryx, but he sat with his face turned away and Mara could see how concerned Dromas was for him, for she watched him, sighing.
Every detail, every moment; until she was kidnapped by Kulik, and taken to the young Hadrons. There, she told what had been said, but left out that Kulik had lied about her.
When she said that she had told Olec she was pregnant by Juba she could feel how Meryx took the blow as if he had not heard it before.
‘Meryx,’ she said, direct to him, ‘it was a lie. I had to. Please believe me.’
He simply sat on, listless, and shook his head as if to say, But it’s all too much.
Now people were getting up, about to drift off, and she said, ‘Please don’t go. I must say something, I must.’ And they sat down again.
And now she began an impassioned plea that they must leave, leave Chelops, while they still could. ‘You can take a lot of food and clothes; it won’t be a hardship, as it was for us. Please leave – I don’t know why I can’t make you see it.’ They were looking at each other, doubtful, serious, but she was afraid they were already deciding not to listen.
‘What is happening here is exactly the same as I remember from Rustam.’
‘You were a small child,’ said Candace. ‘How can you remember?’
‘I do remember. And this is the same. People leaving. Criminals. The gardens dying. The water going. Less food.’ But she thought, But up here it is not so bad. And they don’t know how bad things are down there, in the town. They live in this soft little place on the edge of the city …
Juba said, ‘We have had a bad rainy season.’
‘You told me yourself you have had several poor seasons recently,’ said Mara. ‘Majab’s emptying now, so the travellers are saying. I heard it in the eating house. There’s almost no one left. When we flew over it a year ago there were still people and things seemed not too bad. Then it was like what Chelops is like now. It happens so fast. In the Rock Village we heard that Rustam was empty and filling with sand. The Rock Village must be, by now. The sand is blowing into Majab, so they say.’
A silence now, a worried silence, but restless, people fiddling with their clothes, their hair, not looking at each other then looking, and smiling, wanting to smile it all away.
‘You should make preparations now,’ said Mara. ‘Pack everything up. Hire every kind of transport there is left.’
Now Candace leaned forward, and insisted, ‘Mara, it is quite understandable, with your history, that you should be nervous. But it only needs one good season for everything to go back to normal…’
‘No,’ said Mara, and Juba backed her up. ‘It will take more than one.’
‘And,’ went on Candace, ‘you don’t understand something. It doesn’t matter to us if everyone in the town leaves. We won’t have to feed them – it will be a good thing. We are quite self-sufficient here.’
‘The Hadrons wouldn’t let us leave,’ said Juba.
‘Then fight them,’ said Mara. ‘The militia will obey you, not the Hadrons.’
But she could see from their faces that it was the enormity of the effort they would need that was dismaying them. She thought, All this gentle, lovely living has made them soft. They aren’t fit for such an effort. But they have to be, they must be …
And she went on persuading, pleading, begging. Then she had an inspiration, and said to Candace, ‘Draw back the curtain off that map you have there.’
And Candace got up and said, ‘No, Mara. I won’t. It’s enough for one evening.’ Then, to the others, ‘Let’s say goodnight, and let’s thank Mara for all the information she has given us.’
The company dispersed, and the note of their talk was a subdued grumbling and complaint.
Mara went with Meryx to their room, and she had to persuade him, again and again, that no, she had never mated with Juba, nor ever thought of it, ‘You must believe me!’ – and she supposed he did, in the end. But he wept, and she wept, they clung to each other, and they made love again and again. It was the middle of her fertile period. And Meryx said, ‘If you get pregnant tonight, I’ll never know if it is mine or Juba’s.’ And then he said, ‘You make love with me as if you love me, but you are leaving me.’
And she was making love most hungrily: because of the long, frightening day; because of how exposed she had felt, away from the protection of the Kin; because of the dying milk beast, which haunted her, for she knew there must be others; because she was going away from Chelops, and she knew she would leave her heart behind in this place, with these people, with him.
In the morning Juba summoned them all to tell them that a messenger had arrived from Karam, saying two things. First, that the young women working with the milk beasts must stop stealing the milk. If they did it again, they would be beaten. This reminded them that they were slaves. The second part of the message was that four Mahondi girls must be sent to the young Hadrons. There would be no coercion as to choice. The girls could choose from among the young men. When they were proved pregnant, they could return to the Kin, if they wanted. There was much anger, outrage, protests of ‘But I won’t go.’ But Karam had said which girls must go, by name, and these choices proved how well the Hadrons knew all their characteristics. The four were the youngest, good natured, and eager to please.
Meanwhile Mara was going to the Towers. Juba had said he would allow her to go only if he sent guards with her. She said, ‘But you didn’t insist on guards yesterday.’ He said, ‘I didn’t know the Hadrons planned to kidnap you.’ ‘The Hadrons said Dann was ill. I might have to stay in the Towers to look after him.’ Meaning: I know you don’t want him here. Juba said, ‘Bring him here.’ Which meant Dann had been discussed, and the Kin had decided to indulge her.
Four running chairs arrived. In three were two militia, and there was one in the chair for Mara. He held a knife, and a big club lay beside him.
Now she knew exactly where to go, and they arrived at the tunnel in the south-western quadrant before midday. Six militiamen had been ordered to wait for her, with the chairs, the porters, and their weapons. She wanted to go into the Towers alone, but the man with her in the chair insisted on coming too: Juba’s orders, he said.
The two stood hesitating at the entrance to the tunnel. They were afraid, and did not hide it. They did not know how long the tunnel was: a little, round eye of light meant its end. The air coming from it was bad. They were afraid of who they would meet inside it. Mara lit a big torch of brushwood soaked with tallow, and the militiaman took it from her and held it high. Now she was glad he was there. The earth of the tunnel was hard: it had been in use a long time. They passed the yellow carapace of a beetle, killed some time ago, for shards of black and yellow la
y about. The torchlight illuminated rough earth walls and a low earth ceiling. There were felted spiders’ webs on the ceiling, but these were not the monsters Mara had seen before, just ordinary working spiders, watching from their stations. About fifteen minutes of slow, cautious progress took them out into the air, from where they could look back and see the rusting tangles of the fence, which no longer could keep anyone out. They were right under the six black Towers of the south-western quadrant.
‘Central Tower, second level,’ she told the man, and they walked through the six, noting how the dust was heaping around their bases, and that it looked untouched, like sand piling around an impeding stone or dead tree. They were right under the Central Tower, and ahead was an entrance, with black steps going up to it. The steps had sand filling the back of the treads. The doorway into the Tower had had a door, but it was slanting half off its hinges, and they walked straight into the long passage, as big as a hall, that bisected the building. Near the entrance were the machines that had once, on a system of weights and pulleys, carried people to the top of the building, but they were disused now. Stairs went up. Feet had recently used those stairs: dusty footprints were on every step. The first level showed a corridor running high and wide to where a light came in through a broken window. The guard was walking just behind Mara, his knife in one hand, his club in the other. He said, ‘If someone is in front, then get behind me. If someone attacks from behind, then run up the stairs but keep me in sight.’ The stairs to the second level were steep and there were many of them. They arrived safely, having seen no one. Again there was the long, empty corridor, doors opening off it, as many as thirty or forty doors.
‘I shall go in first,’ said the man. ‘No, I have my orders.’
And they began on a systematic inspection of the rooms. Some had had recent occupants. There were discarded containers, a roll of stained and torn bedding, old clothes like rags left on the floor. Everything was dusty. No people. Where had they gone? ‘North,’ said the guard. ‘They’ve all gone up North.’ There was the heavy, sickly smell of poppy, and there were whiffs of ganja, but not as strong.
Then, at the eleventh or twelfth attempt – they were losing count – the guard opened a door, stepped smartly back because of what he saw and stood to one side to let her in, with his knife held out in front of him. ‘Be careful now,’ he said.
Mara saw three bodies, lying with their heads to the opposite wall, very still. Asleep…or dead? The smell was horrible: a concentration of fumes and sickness. The guard briefly retched, but stopped himself, holding the back of the hand with the knife in it to his mouth. His eyes, staring at the bodies, were appalled, shocked, afraid. Mara would have liked to run away, but she made herself walk in. She bent over the body nearest to her, whose face was hidden by an arm, probably to keep off light falling painfully into his eyes, and saw that this man was so ill, he was nearly dead. His breathing was feeble, coming at long, irregular intervals, and his eyes were half open. He could die on any one of these light, gasping breaths. A Mahondi. The second body was indisputably a corpse. Again, a Mahondi, and there was a gash across his throat, and a pool of glazing blood.
Now Mara knew, because of the shape of the head, what she would see. She knelt beside Dann, who was prone. She turned him over. He was drugged senseless. His face was covered in sores. On his arms and legs were sores and scabs on dry, flaky skin. His eyes were glued with pus. His whole body was festering, and sick, thin flesh clinging to bones.
‘Dann,’ she said, ‘it’s Mara.’
He did not open his eyes but he groaned. He tried to speak between gummed lips. ‘Mara,’ he said, and muttered and groaned, until at last she understood what he was saying: ‘I killed the bad one.’
And now, at least partially enlightened, Mara looked again at the face of the dead man and the face of the nearly dead one and saw they were alike. Brothers, perhaps – or could have been. Dann was here because he had been a prisoner, certainly of these two men, but most of all because of his own ancient and terrible obsession.
‘He was bad,’ said Dann, in a child’s voice. ‘Mara, he was the bad man.’
In a corner stood the can Dann had carried so far, when they travelled here, and in it slopped a little sound of water when she shook it. She poured water into that sick, foul-smelling mouth, and his lips reached up towards it as if they were creatures on their own account, desperate for water.
‘Can you get up?’ she asked.
Of course he could not get up, but Mara had said it because she could not connect this poor, sick thing with the lithe and light Dann she knew. The guard gave her the knife and the club and, his face screwed with disgust, easily lifted the starved body into his arms. Around the clear space where Dann had been was a litter of lumps of black, sticky, poppy stuff, pipes, matches, and bags of bright green, dried leaf. Mara quickly took the matches and hid them. The guard looked at her strangely: he had never known that you could lack matches.
She looked at the dying man and the guard said, ‘That one won’t be alive tonight.’ And in fact it looked as if he had died already: he was very still.
And so Mara and the guard, with Dann in his arms, went back down the corridor to the stairs, down the stairs to the first level, and down more stairs to the ground level. All the way Dann lay limp, but now his eyes were open. At the foot of the stairs the guard laid him down to take a rest, and Dann muttered, ‘Water, water,’ and Mara gave him all that was left in the can – which she had not been able to leave behind. Outside the Tower, Dann put up his arm to shield his face, and this encouraged Mara, that he had that much strength. And then they went back through the tunnel, Mara holding up the torch. Near the entrance a couple of girls came towards them.
‘Where are all the people?’ asked Mara.
They were rigid with terror – of her, or of the club and the knife she held, and pressed past, backs to the earth wall.
‘Isn’t there anyone left?’ Mara persisted.
‘Why should we stay? What for? We’re off this afternoon.’ And they began to run as fast as they could. Mara heard, ‘Mahondi spies.’ ‘They’re spies.’
Mara had Dann beside her in the chair, the guard who had carried him on the other side. Dann groaned and his eyes rolled. The movement of the chair was making him sick. The four chairs jogged their way back to the Mahondi quarter, slowly, because the runner in Mara’s chair was finding it hard to pull three of them. Mara stopped them at Orphne’s house. Dann would end up there anyway. She did not want the Kin to see him in this state. When the guard lifted out Dann the four runners came to stare at him, recognising him. Their faces, and those of the guards, staring down at Dann, had that look that puts the observer at a distance, like a judge pronouncing sentence. Dann was going to die, those faces said. And the young men thankfully turned away, the porters back to their chairs, the guards to their barracks, away from the ill luck of death.
Mara told the guard to lay Dann on a bed, and thanked him and saw him, too, hasten away. Mara found Orphne stirring cordials in her dispensary, and showed her Dann. Orphne lifted Dann’s hand, saw how it fell, apparently lifeless. ‘So this is the famous Dann,’ she said; and as she stood there, in a white, floaty dress, a red flower in her hair, she seemed to have walked into that room out of another life, or truth.
‘I thought you were as bad as I was likely to see,’ she said, and then, ‘Let’s start.’ She went into her medicine room and came back with a strong-smelling drink. Between them, the two women got most of it into Dann, because he did swallow at last when choking became imminent, and went on swallowing, slowly, mechanically. ‘Good,’ said Orphne.
And now she took off her white dress and stood there in her long, flouncy, white knickers, her big breasts loose, and said, ‘If you don’t want that outfit to be filthy, take it off.’ Mara removed her clothes – Meryx’s. She could not stop herself looking enviously at Orphne’s breasts, when hers were still mere plumpnesses on her chest. Orphne saw her looking and said, �
��You had nothing at all there when I first saw you. Now, lift.’
They lifted the unconscious boy and took him next door, and laid him in a shallow bath. Over him Orphne poured sun-warmed water, full of herby substances. Dann was dirty, but nothing like as grimed as he had been a year ago, when the two of them came down the cliff into Chelops. The water was soon dark with dirt and blood and full of crusts from the scratches and ulcers. Then, as his body became visible, they saw around his waist a chain of scars that looked like knife cuts, as if he had decided to make a belt of scars for decoration or for ritual. They were red and sore-looking. The round, flat shapes under the skin told Mara what she was looking at, and she cried out to Orphne, who was manipulating the flesh there, ‘No, don’t squeeze.’ Dann had cut himself and slid in coins for safe keeping, and let the flesh heal over them. Orphne’s eyebrows were demanding explanation and Mara, close to tears, said, ‘I’ll tell you…I’ll explain.’
That water was flung out into the hot sun where its filth could be burned harmless, and more medicinal water was poured around Dann, who lay quite still, eyes closed, and did not move when Orphne wiped his face and his eyes, and then held his head to wash his hair. They dried him and laid him back on the bed. Orphne cut Dann’s nails, which were not far off claws, rubbed oil into dry skin, and examined his teeth, which were loose in inflamed gums, as Mara’s had been so recently. But now they were white, and tight in her head, and she was proud of them: so would Dann’s be, quite soon.
‘So,’ said Orphne again, ‘this is the famous Dann. He looks like you, or will when he’s better.’ The big, strong woman, with her big breasts, which shone with health, and which seemed to shine, too, with kindness, stood looking down at her patient; and then, evidently pleased, because he was already less inert, slipped on her pretty, white dress, replaced the cactus flower in her hair, and said, ‘Now Mara, you aren’t going to like what’s going to happen next, so I suggest you leave.’
Mara and Dann Page 25
