Or Dann sat with Ali, and Griot hoped no soldier would come in for advice, because he was listening.
Ali: ‘The pages they left pressed against that glass stuff, they were chosen because they were important. But each was chosen from a whole book, so that whole book is important.’
Dann: ‘But we’ll never know what was in the whole book, only that one page.’
Ali: ‘And that page only partially, since the languages are so old—it’s like seeing the worlds of ghosts—the ghosts of ghosts, and the meaning is like words heard in a wind, blowing them away. We are looking at words that were copied from others, written by people who lived long before them—long, long depths of time, sir. So long.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, if there are ghosts, then they must be pretty well past their best, sir.’ Dann laughed. ‘Yes. When we stand by those glass walls in there, and look, it’s like looking into Time, and our eyes are not made for that.’
Griot thought, If I could talk like him, talk like Ali, if I could read all those languages, if only I could…
And now Dann indicated a shiny new sheet of pressed reed and said, ‘So, what’s this? It’s not broken up, like some.’
‘It’s a history, sir.’
‘When? Where? What?’
‘That information isn’t on this sheet, sir. It must be in the hidden pages of that book.’
Dann actually groaned, and held his head between his impatient palms.
‘I’ll read what there is, but it’s only an approximation.’
And Ali slowly read, hesitating sometimes for what seemed long moments, ‘When it was clear the Ice was going to come down from the North…a bit I can’t read…lamentation, because of what would be lost. The greatest civilisation in history…a good lot missing here. It was decided to replicate some cities so that at least some of our civilisation would be remembered. Fighting broke out over which cities should…’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dann. ‘Exactly. Fighting. Well, what else? At least that hasn’t changed.’
‘…so many cities. Each city wanted to be rebuilt in North Afrique. This spelling has changed. Some were richer than others. The rich ones succeeded. The Ice advancing faster than…People fought to get away from the Ice…into the south…Millions…we don’t know how many a million was…The new cities were built everywhere over northern Afrique…mostly on sand. The old cities of Urrup were large. Each…centre…usually older than the peripheries, but no attempt was made to replicate the suburbs because they were considered ugly and…not enough supplies of building materials. When a new generation was told, this city is a replica of Rome, or Paris…it was forgotten that this could only be a small part of the old city…forgotten how vast the old cities had been.
‘The inhabitants of Afrique fought the refugees coming in from Urrup and there were many wars. While the cities were still a great wonder, they began to empty. The technologies that made them function had gone. The cities that had been meant to carry the name and the idea and the fame of old Urrup stood empty for hundreds of years, and began to fall into ruins, and then—but a long time after—the permafrost began to melt and the cities sank down into the water. And we will never know what was in the rest of that book.’
‘If we break the glass, then…’
‘All that old mass of books will crumble.’
‘How did they get the air out?’
Ali shrugged. ‘We don’t know.’
‘They must have pumped it out. Sucked it out?’
Ali shrugged.
‘Who did? Who were they?’
Ali shrugged.
‘They wanted to be known. They wanted us to know them.’
‘I think they didn’t visualise us—so long after. A nearer succession of descendants, perhaps…and they were so long ago…we have a tale in our country, about the Centre.’
‘About the Centre?’
Griot intervened: ‘There are stories about the Centre everywhere. As the refugees come in, we collect their stories.’
‘Our fragment goes like this—it is part of a children’s tale’:
The place where Princes do not guess
The secrets that their servants know.
Hidden windows clearly show
Lost wisdom from the long ago.
Do not try for it unless…
‘Unless what?’ Griot asked.
‘Who can know, now?’ said Ali.
‘Servants,’ said Dann. ‘Those nasty old vultures who were here when Mara and I…’ The name seemed to drain his attention away from them, the two with him. He stared, breathing hard.
Ali and Griot sat quietly, waiting. Dann came back to himself and went on, ‘They knew it all. They knew about the hidden place.’ And now he laughed aloud, not pleasantly, and said, ‘And for what were those nasty old crows keeping their secrets?’
‘Probably you,’ Griot ventured. ‘If you had agreed to go along with the old prince and princess.’
‘And now we’ve found it anyway—You found it, Griot. Without Mara and me having to dance to their tune.’ And he stopped again, staring, his breathing checked, his face cold.
Griot looked at Dann’s hands lying on the table. Fists, then they began clenching and unclenching. Long, fine hands, and there was a small trembling in the fingers. Dann saw it and shut his hands tight.
Ali’s hands, folded together, those thin, clever hands, seemed to be listening.
Griot’s hands, palms down, were large, solid, strong with energy. One could not imagine in those fingers the slender reed pen that lay near Ali, with the little clay pot of ink.
‘Sir,’ said Ali loudly to Dann. ‘Sir.’
Dann returned.
‘Sir, in the Centre there are boats we do not have. I am having scribes write down their measurements and descriptions. If I ever get to my country I’ll take them with me.’
‘Well done,’ said Dann. ‘At least not guns. Guns copied from the Centre are all over Ifrik.’
‘But in our country we already have a great many things that are in the Centre as exhibits.’
‘That means you are far in advance of us.’
‘We were in advance, sir, by more than you can imagine. There are records—our records are in our tales—we were once a great civilisation, before Yerrup, when Yerrup lived like savages in dirt and never washed themselves.’
‘And, so, what happened?’
‘Yerrup ceased to be savages. They acquired science—as you can see from the Centre…and then when the Ice came down they ran from Yerrup like rats from a disaster, overran us and destroyed what we had—except for the records in our tales, which we use to start again. We are starting all over again, sir.’
Dann sat, grinning, as if to himself, but they were meant to notice it. ‘So you are beginning again. Tell me, Ali, don’t you get tired of it?’
And Griot was listening as he never had. He knew he was near what it was that was deep inside Dann, that he could not reach, or imagine.
‘I know what you are thinking, sir,’ said Ali. ‘Yes, I know that thought.’
‘Over and over again,’ said Dann. ‘Never mind about the Ice, we don’t even need that. We can destroy everything without that. Again and again.’
‘Sir,’ said Ali steadily, ‘if you let that thought take over you might as well put one of these red blankets over your head and turn your face to the dark.’
‘Exactly,’ said Dann. ‘Yes. Well done, Ali.’
Griot could not hold back. ‘Sir…Dann…General…no. You can’t. Don’t you see…’ He stopped, his voice shaking.
‘Don’t I see what, Griot?’ He smiled, not his terrible smile, but the kind of smile he used listening to the tales he heard of famine and loss and fires and fighting. ‘Poor Griot,’ he said. He put out his elegant hand and laid it on Griot’s arm. Griot could feel the trembling of it. Never had Dann spoken to Griot as he did now: kind, even tender, and Ali’s smile at Griot was kind. ‘Poor Griot. Well…what can we say?’ He said
to Ali, withdrawing that cold, trembling hand, ‘Here is a man who has never had that thought. If it crept into his mind he wouldn’t know what it was.’
‘Then fortunate Captain Griot,’ said Ali.
‘Yes. Griot, when that thought does come knocking at your mind, remember I foresaw it and was sorry for you.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Griot.
Griot slept in a room between Dann’s and the hall, and he woke to hear the snow dog’s bark, not from Dann’s room but from somewhere in the Centre. He looked into Dann’s room, but he wasn’t there. Griot ran out and through the hall, where a grey light filled the spaces under the roof. A moon was up and, rarely, was not cloud-hidden. He ran when Ruff barked and stopped to listen when he stopped. The animal was somewhere near the hidden passages to the secret room. Griot saw the white mass of the snow dog ahead, where the way to the secret place began. Ruff was too big to insert himself through the narrow places. He stood on guard and turned to face Griot, threatening, then saw who it was and came to him, and took him in his jaws by the arm. He was wanting Griot to lead him into the secret place. When Griot had to leave him, the unhappiness of the animal’s bark made Griot’s heart beat uncomfortably. ‘Wait,’ he said to the snow dog, ‘wait, Ruff.’ Griot slid and wormed his way through. At the entrance to the chamber he saw a light ahead. Dann sat on the floor, his arms stretched out round the not-glass bubble, as if he intended it as an embrace. Dann seemed to be singing or crooning to himself but Griot could not make out the words. A wordless dirge of a song, as sad as the soft whines of the snow dog left outside.
Dann did not turn his head, but stopped his song and said, ‘Griot, what are you doing here?’
‘I came to see if you are all right.’
‘But I already have one dog on guard, Griot.’ Dann got up and lifted his little flame high, so that the red glow fell on a shining page that was pressed to the transparency. Dann turned and Griot saw his face: eyes wild, and sick.
Dann walked past Griot to the exit and slid through, and now Griot was in the dark, and he was afraid. Tonight Griot could believe that ghosts guarded this place. He slid out quickly and saw Dann ahead, with his lantern, waiting for him.
‘This place smells. It smells, Griot.’
‘I suppose we get used to it.’
‘I haven’t got used to it.’
‘Sir, it is time we left here.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. But we haven’t finished with what we can learn from—that place in there.’
The moon went dark. Dann’s lantern was like a little red eye in the darkness. The moon shone again. Wraiths of mist floated about through the roofs and courtyards.
‘Do you believe in ghosts, Griot?’
‘I have never seen one.’
‘Oh, yes—now that’s the safe approach to it. But suppose you feel them, you don’t have to see them?’
‘And I haven’t felt them either. Sir…’ Griot attempted to joke, ‘I’d rather not talk about ghosts here, if you don’t mind.’
‘Always sensible, Griot. Come on.’ And he went ahead, with Ruff, to his room, where he sat on his bed with Ruff by him.
Dann said over the dog’s head, ‘Griot, I’m not well.’
‘No, sir, I can see that.’
For a while Dann sat, stirring his fingers about in the dog’s mane.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes, Griot?’
‘Could you say in what way you aren’t well?’
‘It’s The Other One, Griot. He wants to take me over.’
‘I see. Sir?’
‘Well, do you see? You have seen The Other One. You saw him.’
‘Yes, I have. But I’d say he’s not here now.’
‘He’s here all right. I’m here, aren’t I?’
Griot did not reply.
The dog whined softly. Griot was tired. It would soon be morning. He wanted to go to his room, lie down and sleep.
‘The thing is, Griot, it is easier being him than being me. If I just let myself become him I’d never have to think again. That would be wonderful, Griot.’
Griot sat down, not knowing he was going to, on a low seat, close to Dann and Ruff. He yawned.
‘Poor Griot,’ said Dann. ‘I know I am a disappointment to you.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Griot, shocked. ‘How could you be?’
‘It was in this very room that I first understood. It was when I knew there was The Other One. Before that I had not understood it. You see, I nearly betrayed Mara. Well, not for the first time. I gambled Mara—to slavers. Did you know that, Griot?’
‘No, how could I know that?’
‘They might have told you, at the Farm. I am sure Kira would never let a chance slip of making me sound—interesting.’
‘But Mara was there. And Shabis. He’d never let Kira say bad things about you—he always stopped her.’
‘Oh, yes, Shabis.’ And Dann flung himself back, and then was asleep—just like that. Griot dared to go quietly to him, bend over, look at that face, so sorrowful it was, and even in sleep, tense. The snow dog lay beside Dann and licked Griot’s hand.
Griot’s eyes filled with tears. He thought, There it is—love. But the beast loves him. He likes me well enough. And Dann called me his dog. Well, am I ashamed to be like Ruff?
He went back to his room, lay down and was instantly asleep.
The next night he was again awakened by the snow dog, but this time it was from the front of the Centre. Out he went and there was Dann, the snow dog beside him.
‘There you are, Griot.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve been thinking, Griot, but no matter how hard I think I can’t make sense of it. Mara and I came towards the Centre for the first time along this road here. That’s how we came, the two of us. But we aren’t walking there now. Do you see?’
‘No, sir.’
Griot thought that Dann was worse than he had been last night.
‘And then, along this road, the one going to the Farm, Mara and I walked together. She and I—together. But she’s not there.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Have you ever lost someone, Griot, has someone died?’
This was such an absurd thing to say, Griot could not answer. Dann knew Griot’s history.
After quite a silence, while he tried to find words that would fit, he said, ‘No, no one died. Not the way you mean it. Not like Mara dying, for you.’
‘You see,’ said Dann in a quiet, reasonable sort of way, ‘that’s it, you see. That’s the whole point. Someone is here. She was here. Then, they aren’t here. She isn’t here. That’s the whole point, do you see, Griot?’
The two men stood together, close, on the wet road, in a wet dawn light. Over the marshes gleams of light were appearing. Mists were rising. Dann was peering into Griot’s face, while his hand clutched at Ruff’s mane. Too tightly: Ruff whined.
‘Sorry, Ruff,’ said Dann. And to Griot, ‘I simply can’t understand it, you see, Griot?’
Dann was appealing to Griot, leaning right forward, eyes on Griot’s face.
Griot said, ‘Dann—sir, but we know when someone is dead they are gone.’
‘Exactly,’ said Dann. ‘There. You understand. Come along, Ruff,’ and he walked back to his room, his hand on the snow dog’s head.
A few nights later a soldier came to wake Griot, apologetic, worried. He kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, Captain, but we don’t know what to do.’
Again, Dann stood in the early light with his Ruff, and now there were soldiers, one on either side, who were holding his arms. Ruff was barking.
‘Griot,’ said Dann, ‘they’re arresting me. They think I’m on poppy.’
Griot advanced to Dann. He had not thought of poppy and he was right: Dann’s eyes were strained and sad, but they didn’t have the mad shine of poppy.
‘The General was behaving oddly, sir. He didn’t seem to be himself.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Griot and the soldiers let Dann go. I
t was obvious he had struggled and perhaps hit out at them.
‘You have orders to arrest me if you think I am on poppy,’ said Dann.
‘Yes, sir. You were shouting. The sentries heard and came to wake us up.’
‘How do you know I wasn’t shouting to—raise some ghosts?’ He laughed.
‘It’s all right,’ said Griot to the soldiers.
‘The Captain says it’s all right,’ said Dann to the soldiers, who began to leave.
‘Go back to sleep,’ said Griot.
‘The Captain is telling you to go back to bed,’ said Dann, who was finding all this very funny.
‘Yes, sir. Goodnight, sir.’ The soldiers disappeared into the gloom of the parade ground.
‘Come on, Griot. Come on, Ruff.’ The three walked back to Dann’s door where he said to Griot, ‘Goodnight. And thank you, Griot.’
‘Goodnight, sir.’
As the door closed he saw Dann, sitting on the foot of his bed, his arms round the snow dog. ‘What shall I do, Ruff, what shall I do?’
And in his room Griot sat with his head in his hands: ‘What shall I do?’
That ghost of a man, wandering through the Centre, appearing at night on the roads outside, was Dann, the great General, on whom everything depended. It was not Captain Griot whose name was used among the soldiery as a talisman for the future; and in Tundra it was General Dann they talked about, waiting for the invasion that would not only rescue them but begin a wonderful new life. (Nothing in Griot mocked at these hopes; he envisaged the new life rather like the organisation of the army back in Agre: justice, order, fairness, kindness as a ruling idea.) It was Dann’s name that had the magic, for whatever reason, and Griot often enough brooded about that reason, while he watched Dann, trying not to let Dann see that he did. Suppose in his camp out there, the soldiers and the refugees who would become soldiers, those who—in spite of everything Griot could do—sneaked in and found themselves corners to hide in, suppose they no longer said in voices hushed because of the great thoughts General Dann’s name evoked, ‘General Dann—there he is. Yes, there he is.’
Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog Page 16
