The Cleft

by Doris Lessing

  That night under the great watching moon, when the children clamoured and demanded and made so much noise, had been a nasty revelation to Horsa.

  When Maronna had seen his assembly of ‘ships’ and scorned them and him, he then said he would not take the smaller boys, only older ones.

  Why did he not say he would take no boys at all? I think it was pride. To capitulate completely – no, and even as it was, the men had to submit to shrieks of sarcastic laughter. We may fairly assume this laughter. Which of us males has not been subjected to it?

  The smaller boys, told they were not to be with the men, rebelled and said they would run back to the forest clearing, to the trees, and wait there till the men returned.

  The men had no intention of being bound by promises of return. But before they could set off, something had to be done to warn the children off the forest. All the little boys, those returning with Maronna to the women’s shore, and those going with Horsa, set off, accompanied by the hunters with their weapons. It was quite a distance to the forest place on that day, when they were all tired, and there were many small boys. (Many: that is the word they used.) To reach the shore, and the men’s place, by nightfall meant forcing the pace, and the boys who knew the trees let out cries of joy on seeing them, but then the cries and jubilation stopped. Stretched out in the middle of the forest clearing was a family of the great felines, lying as if this place were theirs. The felines were what the children had been brought here to see, and even a look at them made their backs freeze with fear. Where were the pigs who had, only a couple of days before, taken two boys? A big sow, black, with gleaming tusks and teeth, was lying across the stream and even damming it: water was spilling in shallow lakes all around her. Her size was why she and the other porkers were safe from the felines. What animal could possibly take on a herd of lean fast pigs? Perhaps a pack of dogs.

  The children stood looking forlornly at their paradise, and some began to cry. It was dangerous there, despite the young hunters. Maronna set off for the women’s shore, with the smaller boys – chosen arbitrarily, by height and size. The larger small boys – it sounds as if they were about ten or so – escorted by the youths, set off back to find the men. It was already afternoon. Not possible to reach the men while it was still light. This company of boys reached a shore. (How many? ‘Quite a few.’) They settled on a wide beach, spent the night unfed, vigilant, while unfamiliar waves crashed near them and then far away as the tide went out.

  That was how the day ended when Maronna and Horsa were ‘reconciled’. And the women with her resumed their usual life. It is recorded that right from the start they fretted over Horsa and the vagueness of his plans, and very much about the children he had taken with him.

  The boys who were to go with Horsa were given rules they must learn and keep. These first rules were stringent, and there were punishments. Obedience was being taught, or being attempted. If Horsa was sorry he had agreed to taking any boys at all, even older ones, he never admitted it.

  The first day showed that Horsa had had no idea of what he was taking on.

  Imagine the excitement of the boys, each with his raft or a bundle of reeds, or even a tree trunk, setting off with the men on the first stage of the journey. They were wild, paddling with sticks or several bound together, or even their hands, getting in the way of the men in their larger vessels. They kept falling in and had to be rescued. They could all swim, of course, no question of their drowning, these water babies, but the ‘fleet’ planned by Horsa and his aides had to go slowly, the little boys took up so much of their attention. By the end of the first day it was clear: if the expedition was to make any progress the little boys would have to be removed from it. Horsa issued an edict. No boy could be part of the ‘fleet’, join the men, if he had not achieved his man’s body. Did that mean puberty? Did it mean older? What it certainly did mean was a crowd of boys sulking, angry, weeping, saying it wasn’t fair.

  But Horsa was adamant. The smaller boys would be on the shore, and they would be watched over by the youths, the hunters and trackers, and this part of Horsa’s company would go along the shore parallel to the men in their boats. In the evenings they would all meet up by the fires and for the feasting. … Yes, there was too much of the theoretical here even for Horsa who is revealed by this ‘edict’ to be one of those leaders who would expect difficulties simply to melt away.

  A shore has inlets, the mouths of rivers, some large; marshes, cliffs, and although watched over by the big boys, these children were bound to have a hard time working along that shore. And there were wild animals, too. All the boys had weapons. What weapons? Mentioned are knives, both seashell splinters and of sharpened bone, a kind of catapult, deadly even for big animals, bows and arrows. These little boys knew how to defend themselves. But they were soon tired out and complaining, and behaved, in short, like children, crying and subject to tantrums and tempers. The older boys complained. So the order was softened. Keeping parallel with the fleet of little ships meant running along the beaches, not going further inland, so the whole expedition had sometimes to wait for days while the children negotiated some mangrove swamp or big cliff. More than once the ‘fleet’ had to come in and lift the little boys round an obstacle, and when this happened they clamoured to be allowed to join the main party on their improvised boats. Complaints and tears and trouble, and there are songs from that time, sardonic songs, telling of the brave warriors who had often to leave their adventures and look after children.

  How Horsa must have cursed his decision ever to allow children, yet he did not voice what he felt.

  Before the expedition had gone too far away, some girls returned to the women’s shore, and always took some boys with them. This was for their own safety, because of wild animals, but it may be assumed that Horsa was glad to get rid of a boy or two or more when he could. Meanwhile the women’s shore became ever more crowded and noisy and inconvenient.

  The returning girls said that journeying with Horsa was difficult, not least because there were not enough girls to match the men. There is mention – for the very first time in our histories – that there were couples, recognised pairs. Horsa did not like this; it caused dissension, even to the point of fighting and quarrelling over the girls.

  Horsa was too much of a tyrant, said the returning girls.

  Horsa … who, in fact, was he? First, he – or a Horsa – had ended the fighting among the different groups in the forest, taking command, making a whole from many subdivisions. ‘The forest became safe,’ say the women’s histories, ‘and we could go anywhere there, unharmed, provided we went in groups.’

  That was surely Horsa’s best self, the brilliant commander whom everyone was happy to obey. And then he organised the forest life, keeping the little boys safe in their trees, choosing the hunters and trackers, and who would look after the clearing, the sheds and the lean-tos and the fires. The predators who prowled and watched the company were kept at a distance. Yet he was also the leader who brought the expedition to disaster. Two different people? Names, in those old days, were attached to qualities: Maronna seemed always to be the name of the women’s leader. Horsa had diplomacy and tact, necessary for a commander of many men (how many?), but he did not know how to manage his expedition, which the women called foolhardy, dangerous, ill-planned, stupid. And Horsa’s adventure turned out to be all those things.

  For a long time, at least the period of a pregnancy, the seas the ‘fleet’ travelled over were serene, warm and gentle. The dug-outs and logs, the bundles of reeds and coracles, went happily along by the beaches, well in sight of the little boys, and it was easy to come in to the warm sands for meals, or for the night. Nothing was difficult, then, at the beginning.

  Then there was something Horsa could not have avoided, and he must have reckoned with the possibility: there was a big storm, and all the little craft, which so comfortably and pleasurably carried those young men along, were smashed and lay wrecked along the beaches, together with other
refuse from the storm. To reassemble the little craft was not a big challenge, and a few little vessels were put together, but Horsa did not at once suggest setting forth. They all camped along the beaches, made their great fires, hunted in the forests, cooked their meat, sent parties inland for fruit and green stuff – and seemed to be waiting. For what? The fact was the expedition had failed, and the smashed craft were only a confirmation of that.

  The trouble was the little boys – who, we must remember, cannot be compared with our children of the same age. They were ten, eleven, twelve, did not ‘have their man’s bodies’ yet, but could use all the weapons, could hunt with the hunters and track with the trackers, but they were rebellious and complaining, and dissatisfied with everything. Day after day, arduously clambering along these shores, which were sometimes easy but often not, watching for the arrival of the men from the sea, this was not what their early excitement for ‘adventure’ had promised. And they were tired, too. Some were children as young as seven or eight, if they had been well grown for their ages at the time Maronna had set off home, taking the younger ones. They sometimes wanted their mothers, or at least the women who liked children enough to be given childcaring as their work by Maronna. Horsa had known almost from the start that bringing the boys had been a mistake, but they were a long way from home – if home was the forest – and a longer way from the women’s shore.

  He planned to send all the boys back home, with the young men as guards, but when the plan was put to them the youths said no, to have to look after these peevish disobedient children for long and difficult travelling – no. We do not have another record of his young men saying no to Horsa. Then that meant the whole expedition would have simply to confess failure and go home?

  That would not be easy, would it? To say to the ever scornful Maronna that she was right – bad enough. But there was worse. Horsa had said he wanted to find out if, by following the shore, he would one day simply return to where they had started out – suddenly see the women on their rocks and know they had made a full circle of their land. And more, Horsa wanted to find another land, other shores, other – people? That was never ever suggested. But surely these people must sometimes have wondered if somewhere others like themselves lived as they did, wondering if they were alone in the seas and the forests?

  To go home to Maronna and the women and say … I find it hard to imagine words Horsa would use.

  But if the young men’s need from the time they were little boys had been to distance themselves from the women, they did now miss the ease of the visiting, women to men, men to women. And did they miss, too, the scolding and the advice?

  ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid – did you really think you could make little children into adults simply by treating them like adults? Did you really imagine that little boys would behave like your obedient young hunters because it would suit you if they did?’

  Horsa took some of his men walking along the beaches, to see what he might find; he took them on trips inland to high points, like very tall trees or hills, any lookout where they might spy something that would justify Horsa’s hopes.

  Time passed. And now at last a happening which dated events, for them as well as for us.

  There were several pregnant girls and their size and condition caused Horsa many difficulties.

  They gave birth and then the long balmy beaches where they camped and feasted, male beaches, full of mostly men, heard the wails of infants. Horsa was appalled, and so were all the young men. This is what they had run away from – wasn’t it?

  ‘Well, what did you expect? Girls give birth and babies cry, and you have to feed the babes and wash them and keep them warm – had you not thought of that? Idiots, fools, oh you make us lose patience with you … Horsa, do you mean to say you didn’t know this was going to happen? Don’t you remember we told you if you took girls with you they would get pregnant?’

  Imagined scoldings and the words, ‘… and so what are you going to do now?’

  A babe died. A certain fly inhabited this beach, yellowish flies settling in swarms anywhere they could find food, like detritus washed in from the sea, rotting fish or dead sea animals, seabirds, seaweed and, as soon as the light went, the almost naked bodies of the boys and men who remembered that their aprons of feathers and leaves did have their uses.

  The fires were built tall and hot, and they all crowded in as close as they dared to the flames. The babe that died was swollen with bites and the girls tried to keep their infants safe by bathing them continuously in the waves – which made their skins pucker and become inflamed.

  Horsa ordered an exodus, but it was only to move along to a beach where the flies were not. One sandy beach is like another for its amenities.

  But the infants cried and were fretful, and the girls complained. They had come on this trip because they liked mating and the comradeship of men, but now they had gone off sex, and would not give ease to the men and the boys.

  So what use were they? the boys grumbled. ‘What use?’ argued the girls. ‘Aren’t we making a new generation of people?’

  But they are a horrid nuisance, said the boys.

  They had come such a long way, measured by time, at least nine months, though there had been stops and slows on the road. Measured by distance – but they did not know how to do that.

  How long would it take them to return? Return where? The glade in the forest? Their trees, which they dreamed of – what a wondrous time that had been, the safety of the great trees. Many of the young men and boys were saying they had been mad ever to leave. All that was needed were well-armed guards around the edges of the glade, to keep off the marauding pigs and the creeping felines.

  But for some reason no one wanted to do this: journeys are to get somewhere, find something, to discover, take possession … grumbling was not helping them. So what was to be done?

  Another babe died, and the sounds of weeping women were added to the babies’ crying. These boys could not remember babes dying from sickness. Presumably it was sickness that was taking these infants off?

  The girls who had lost infants became listless, and wept or lay about, their arms over their faces, silent, suffering … and milk dripped from their breasts. Oh, horrible, unseemly, and the boys showed their dislike, and yet these were girls who had shared their adventures and were comrades, like the boys – but then they spoiled everything by getting pregnant and then all the rest of the unpleasant sights and sounds. As for the very little boys, they were revolted.

  How much nicer it had been in the forest, not too far from the women’s shore. Girls could visit, got what they had come for – to have their wombs enlivened – and then they went back home again and there were new girls, and they were helpful and useful, so handy about the glade, and particularly so good with broken limbs and little sicknesses. And look at them now, preoccupied with their noisy infants, or lying silent and unhappy. And they would not be kind to the boys.

  And now there was a big halt in the histories. Horsa’s expedition and the destruction of The Cleft marked an end. It was a beginning too, of the villages in the forests. But then they did not know there would be villages. The chroniclers did not know it. The words ‘Horsa did not know where he was’ ended one long section of the histories.

  ‘It takes one to know one!’ I can tell when an historian is looking back to a time far from his or her own and is uncomfortable because times have changed.

  What did it mean to the new chroniclers to say: ‘Horsa did not know where he was.’ Where were they, these new voices? In the villages in the forests. We do not know how many villages there were, nor how many people lived in them. What the chroniclers felt they must emphasise was that every village had a double palisade round it, to keep out the animals. They knew where they were. For one thing, they were not far from the women’s settlements along the shores. It took time for the women – ages? – to consent to leave the sea and move in with the men, and only then if they were within walking distance of the shore
. So when the village chroniclers said, ‘Horsa did not know where he was,’ we must assume they knew where they were. The exploits of Horsa and his mad trip across the waves had by then become recognised in songs and tales for telling around the fires.

  I do not think that we Romans may easily imagine what it meant – Horsa not knowing where he was. We Romans are taught ‘where we are’ in a thousand ways. When our legions return from Gaul, from the lands of the Germans, from Dacia, they tell us where they have been. When invaders threaten Rome we know where they are from. Our ships travel the seas, go north even to Britain, to Egypt, and our slaves know lands we hardly have heard of. We Romans know where we are, and even a young child is taught to say, ‘This Rome of ours does not contain all that is known.’ And this child would know that if he stood on a beach and saw ahead a curving further shore, it might very well be the other side of a bay, and to get there would only need some days’ travelling from where he stands to reach that shore.

  But think of Horsa, and what he knew. He knew the rocky and choppy waves of the women’s shore. He knew the great river and the forests of the eagles’ valley. He knew the forest glade and its great trees and the ways from it to the women. So when Horsa stood on his beach – but he did not know where this beach was – looking ahead across the waves, he had no idea that he might be in a bay and he was staring at another part of it. Oh yes, he knew bays from his fleet’s progress around the shores from their starting place where he had said goodbye to Maronna. Little bays, little promontories. Did he have words for them? The later historians in the villages knew what a bay was, a promontory, because Horsa’s mad dash across the waves had taught them: this was no bay, small or large, where Horsa and his men idled on his beach, not knowing what to do. I repeat, ‘Horsa did not know where he was’ represents a limitation of knowledge that no Roman may easily imagine.