Mara and Dann mad-1

by Doris Lessing Little Dorrit

  "Don't worry about him," said the Commander. "Now, come with me." He led the way into one of the brick houses, if it was a house. She was in a room that had brick walls, a brick floor, a low ceiling, of reeds. There was a trestle table, and some wooden chairs.

  "Sit down," he said, and sat down himself behind the trestle. "I am General Shabis. What is your name?" He was looking intently at her, and she said carefully, "My name is Mara."

  "Good. Now. I know a good deal about you, but not enough. You are from the family in Rustam. You were with the Kin in Chelops. You were in trouble with the Goidels, but they let you go. I shall need to hear about Chelops."

  "How do you know I was there?"

  "I have an efficient spy service." Then, at her look, "But you would be amazed at the different versions I've heard of you in Chelops." "No, perhaps I wouldn't be."

  "No. I am going to have to hear your whole story." "That will take some time."

  "We have plenty of time. Meanwhile, you would probably like to ask a few questions yourself?"

  "Yes. Were you expecting me and Dann to come on that boat?"

  "We were expecting you round about now, yes. We always keep an eye on the boats. Well, there aren't many of them, only one every week or so." "And you always kidnap the girls for breeding and the boys for soldiers?" "Both for soldiers. And believe me, they are better off with us than they would be with the Hennes. At least we educate ours."

  At this she leaned forward and said, breathless, "And me? You'll teach me?"

  At this he smiled, and then he laughed, and said, "Well Mara, you'd think I'd promised you a fine marriage." "I want to learn," she said. "What do you want to learn?" "Everything," she said, and he laughed again.

  "Very well. But meanwhile, I'm going to tell you about what you'll find here. You do know, I suppose, that you are in Charad — the country of Charad — and that there are two people here, different from each other — very different: one the Hennes, and the other, the Agre — us. We fight each other. The war has been going on for years. It is a stalemate. I and my opposite number, General Izrak, are trying to make a truce. But they are very difficult people. When you think you've agreed on something then — nothing."

  "They've probably forgotten," said Mara.

  "Ah, I see you know them. But first of all — what was that thing you were making such a fuss about on the boat?"

  Mara told him. Then she said, "Don't all the boats have them?" "No. It's the first I've seen."

  "That boat that is stuck on the sandbank. The one that was attacked. It had one. It's the one we've got."

  "The Hennes did that. And you don't know how it works?"

  "The old woman knew — Han. At least she knew how to make it work. But it looked to me as if she is going to die. She said it was very old. There are hardly any left. One less, now." And her eyes filled with tears because she was thinking of the senselessness of it. If Han died then there was a bit of knowledge — gone.

  "These things happen," he said.

  "Yes, they do. And then something is gone for ever."

  He was affected by her reproach to the extent that he got up, walked about, then made himself sit down.

  "I'm sorry. But my soldiers weren't expecting resistance. There never is. I don't remember anyone being hurt — badly hurt — before. And it was Dann who began it."

  "Yes."

  "You mustn't worry about him."

  "I know enough about people who fight — the soldiers will punish Dann because he fought them."

  "No they won't, because I've given orders. And now, begin your story."

  Mara began at the beginning, with what she remembered of her childhood, her father and mother, her lessons, told him what she knew of the feuds and changes of power, and then how she and Dann were saved. Shabis sat listening, watching her face. She had reached how Dann had come back for her to the Rock Village, when her voice seemed to her to be floating away, and Shabis said, "Enough. You must eat."

  A servant brought food. It was good food. Shabis watched her, while pretending not to, working at something on the trestle — what was it? He was writing, on pieces of fine, soft, white leather. She had not seen anything like that since she was a little girl — and she could not stop looking.

  "What's the matter, don't you like the food?"

  "Oh yes, I'm not used to eating so well." For this was better and finer than even the Chelops food.

  "In the army we get the best of everything."

  She was thinking that he did not like what he was saying. And did not mind her knowing it. This captor of hers, was he going to be a friend? Was she safe? She did like him. He was what she had been happiest with in her life. He was a fine man, and now that it was not angry, his face was kind and, she was pretty sure, to be trusted. Probably Dann would look something like Shabis, when he was older.

  When she had eaten, the servant took her into a room where she washed and used a lavatory unlike any she had seen. It had a lever which sent water rushing through channels below. She thought, Well, first of all you have to have water.

  On an impulse she took off the old slave's robe she had been wearing day after day for weeks, and put on the top and trousers Meryx had given her. It smelled of him, and she had to fight down homesickness. When she went back Shabis said, "You look like a soldier."

  She told him this is what the men of Chelops wore.

  "Do you have a dress?"

  "It didn't seem the right thing, a dress."

  "No. You're right."

  He studied her. "Do you always wear your hair like that?"

  Her hair was now long enough to be held behind her head in a leather clasp. Like his: his hair was the length of hers and in a clasp. And like poor Dann's. Black, straight, shining hair, all three of them. Long-fingered hands. Long, quick feet. And the deep, dark Mahondi eyes.

  She began her tale again. When she reached the Kin in Chelops he kept stopping her, wanting more detail, about how they lived; how they managed to keep some kind of independence, although slaves, about the Hadrons, and then, the drought. She knew he had got the essential point when he asked, "And you think they can't see their situation because they've lived too comfortably for too long?"

  "Perhaps not everyone who lives comfortably is so blind?"

  "I can hardly remember what peace was like. I was very young when the war began — fifteen. Then I was in the army. But before the war it was a good life. Perhaps we too were blind? I don't know."

  She went on. There was another break, when the servant brought in a drink made of milk, and bread, about the time the sun went down. She was thinking about Dann, afraid he would try to run away — or fight, or despair.

  She dared to plead, "I am so worried about Dann." "Don't be. He's going to have special training. He would make a good officer."

  "How do you know?" "It's my job to know." "Because he is a Mahondi?"

  "Partly. But you do know there are very few of us left now? The real Mahondis?"

  "How should I know? I know nothing. I have been taught nothing. I don't know how to read or write."

  "Tomorrow we'll decide what you are to learn. And I've already ordered someone to come and teach you Charad. It is spoken all over northern Ifrik. It is the one language everyone speaks."

  "Until today I never thought about people speaking different languages. I've always heard Mahondi but I never had to think about it."

  "Once everyone did speak Mahondi, all over Ifrik. That was when we ruled Ifrik. It was the only language. But then Charad came into the North. Now everyone speaks Charad and a few still speak Mahondi."

  "I'll never forget how frightened I was when I heard people talking but I didn't understand what they said."

  "You'll understand it soon. Now go on with your story."

  But she did not finish that night, because he wanted to know about everyone she had met in the River Towns: the inns and the innkeepers; how people looked, how they talked, what they ate; about Goidel and the easy style of
that government. She hesitated before telling him about the gaol, the two women, and what they did for her, but suspected that he knew something already. And so she did tell him, and even how hurt she felt because Meryx did not know. She could see from his face that he was sorry for her and, which she liked as much, that he was sorry for Meryx.

  "That's very hard," he said. "It really is. Poor man." Then he hesitated, but said, "You didn't know there had been an uprising in Chelops?"

  "No." And her heart sank, thinking first of Meryx, then of the new babies.

  "There was a boat through here a week ago. The stories of travellers are not necessarily reliable, but it is clear that there was an uprising. And that is about it."

  "Who rose up?"

  "They said, slaves."

  "Well it can't be the Kin, so it must have been the ordinary slaves." "Can you remember the names of the people you met in the River Towns?"

  But it was no good, she was thinking of Chelops. And so he told her to go to bed and they would start again in the morning.

  She stumbled into bed and was asleep without seeing the room she was shown; and when she opened her eyes in the morning she thought she was back on the hill near the Rock Village, looking at the pictures cut into the walls, or painted on the plaster. Then she thought, But these are different people, very different. They are tall and thin and built light, not at all like the ones she had been studying all her childhood. And the animals — yes, here were the water dragons again, and the lizards, but also all kinds of animals she had never seen. The carving was fine and precise, though the stone was so old all the edges of the carving had blunted. Once the rock carver must have used knives so delicate and fine that nothing like that was known now, and he — she? — had held in their minds images of what they carved as bright and clear as life; and those lines and shapes had travelled down into long, thin, agile fingers — here those hands and fingers were, on the rock face — on to the rock face. You could see the muscles on a leg, long clever eyes, the nails on hands and feet. Once these pictures had been tinted. There were tiny smears of pigment, red, green, yellow. There was a sound in the room behind her and she had whirled around, was across the room, and standing over the servant from last night, who was just about to slide the bag of coins she had snatched yesterday into his pocket. Mara brought down the side of her hand hard on his wrist and he dropped the bag and howled. He began to plead and gibber in Charad, while he smiled and fawned. In her own language, he knew only the words "sorry," "please" and "princess." "Get out," she said, in Mahondi. He ran out holding his wrist and whimpering.

  She sat on the edge of the narrow board bed she had slept on, under a single thin cover. It was hot, but not the wet heat of the River Towns. This was a large room. The lower parts of the wall were very old, with the incised pictures on them; and above these, though irregularly, for ruins do not make for evenness, the walls continued up to a roof of reeds. The upper walls were of mud mixed with straw. The floor, from the past, was of coloured, shining, tiny stones, set in patterns. Between the lower walls and the floor, and what rose up above them — how many years? Thousands? Those old people, what would they have said to these lumpy, crude, upper walls where tiny shreds of straw glinted? Ruined cities. Cities of all kinds. What was it, why was it, this law that beautiful cities had to fall into ruins? Well, she knew one answer, because she had seen what had happened to the Rock Village: drought. But was it always drought? On the walls of old ruins, on the beams of the fallen buildings she had seen coming here were marks of fire. But fires swept across a country year after year, and the people protected their homes. If they did not keep a watch day and night through the dry season, then fire could consume everything in the time it took for a strong wind to change direction. But people did keep watch. So fires could be too strong, or people too lazy? Drought. Fires. Water? That was not something easy to imagine.

  Mara went to her sack, and took out the blue and green cotton robes from Chelops. They were crumpled but they were wrong for this place, she knew, like the delicate older robes rolled at the very bottom of her sack. She brought out the brown, slippery tunic from the squashed depths, and there was not a crease in it. She put on the garments she had worn yesterday, and combed her hair, and tied it back. She checked that the rope of coins under her breasts was still in place. She went into the room next door with the bag of coins the servant had tried to steal, and the brown tunic. Shabis was eating breakfast. He nodded at her to sit down. She did and he pushed bread and fruit towards her. Then he saw the brown garment and stared.

  "What is that stuff?"

  She told him. "I wore this day and night for years. It never tears, or gets dirty. You shake out the dust. It never wears out." He felt the material and could not prevent a grimace. "It could be useful for the army," he said.

  "Like the sun traps, no one knows how to make it now. But I was thinking, Shabis. You should send someone after the boat. If Han is alive you could make her tell you how the sun traps work."

  He was silent. She realised it was because of how she had spoken. Then he said, "I can see that you are not likely to conduct yourself towards me in the proper manner."

  "And what is that?" She spoke smiling. She was not afraid of him. He was treating her like — well, like one of his family.

  "Never mind. But I agree with you. I sent a platoon to the boat. It hadn't gone far. The woman you call Han was dead. They were using oars, so it seems that no one knew how to keep the boat going with the sun trap. Our soldiers were just leaving when some Hennes came along. I didn't know they were so close."

  "We saw them running along the bank yesterday."

  "You didn't say so." He spoke sharply. She knew this was partly because she had spoken incorrectly towards him. "That was the most important thing you could have told me."

  "But we hadn't reached that part of my story."

  "I suppose you couldn't know how important it was. And now, shall we go on?"

  "First, will you keep this safe for me?"

  He looked at the leather bag, tipped out a few coins, and said, "This isn't the currency used here."

  "Not at all?"

  "Perhaps farther North. I hear they are more lax about what coins they use."

  "We're going North."

  "No, Mara, you are not going anywhere."

  He was not humorous, or gentle now, but severe. His mouth was tight, his eyes — no, not unfriendly — serious.

  And she was in a panic, knowing she was a prisoner again. She wanted to get up from this table and her good breakfast and run and run, and find Dann... And then?

  "Mara, between here and Shari there are Hennes, there is the Hennes army. Do you really want to be a Hennes soldier? Believe me, it's not like being an Agre soldier." He pushed over her bag of coins. "No one is going to steal these. By the way, did you know you broke that boy's wrist?"

  "Good. He is a thief." And at his look, which was a reproof, "I haven't done all the things I've done to let some little thief take what was so hard to get. When I grabbed this bag up yesterday from among all those feet I could have been killed. Like Han." And, as he sat silent, "Without the money we carried we wouldn't have got far from the Rock Village."

  "Don't worry, no one is going to touch anything of yours, seeing what you can do."

  "Good. And why did he call me 'princess'?"

  "It's a way of flattery. When they want to soften me up they call me 'prince.'"

  Here they sat seriously, eyeing each other, because of things that were not being said.

  "Are you going to start talking about precious children and mysterious plans?"

  "I could, but I've got more urgent things on my mind." "But there is a plan that involves Dann and me?"

  "Not a plan. Possibilities. And I think you'd better know I am not interested." He amended this. "I am not the one who is interested." A pause. He added, "And I don't see much point in your being interested yet, because you are so very far away from any place where it matters. Fa
r in time," he emphasised. "And far in travelling — hundreds of miles."

  "Well," said Mara, having taken all this in, "it seems to me that being Prince and Princess, all that kind of thing, isn't much use — not living like this."

  "I agree. And I want you to know that in my opinion the time has long gone past when it could be of any use, or of any interest. And now, can you go on with your story?"

  She went on. When she got to the bit where the Hennes soldiers appeared he asked question after question. What had they worn? In what condition were their uniforms? What were the colours of the shoulder straps? What was on their feet? Did they look well fed? Were they dusty and dirty? How many were there?

  She was able to answer in detail. "And they carried weapons I know aren't of any use." She described them. "The Hadrons have them."

  "Why do you say they aren't of any use?" She told him. "They aren't obsolete. They are copies of something very old. Very old. Some Hennes soldier with a talent for that kind of thing saw a weapon from an ancient museum. He thought out how to replicate it. Not exactly of course. We don't have that technology. But they do work. Most of the time. At first the Hennes army had the advantage, but then we got the thing too. So we are exactly balanced again. All that has happened is that many more people get killed and wounded." "How do they work?"

  "They shoot out bullets. We make bullets. You put the stuff we make matches from into a hole and light it and the bullet is shot out." He was silent, and grim. "I was taught at school that only five centuries after the ancients discovered how to make this kind of gun the whole world was in the grip of a technology that made them slaves. Luckily we don't have the resources or the people. Not yet, anyway."

  There was so much information here, and she only understood part of it. She cried out, "Last night you promised I will have lessons."

  "Language lessons first."

  "There's always something else first." And then, seeing his grave, uneasy look, she cried out passionately, "You don't know what it's like, knowing you're so ignorant, not knowing anything."