Mara and Dann. Doris Lessing
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Dann’s nod, he laid them beside the big fruits and the bread.
The two glared at each other again. Mara thought that if it came to a fight Dann would win, because this man was as thin as a sick lizard and his hair had the flattened, lifeless look – pale, fuzzy hair. Starving children’s hair sometimes looked like that.
‘More bread,’ said Dann.
The man counted out from his pile one, two, three, four, five, six pieces of bread and pushed them forward.
And to Mara’s surprise, Dann let go the end of the garment and the man snatched it up, held it up, gloated. Mara thought, Something I’ve worn for years and years – it is worth some food fruits, a little water, and some bread. And stumps of candle.
‘Have you got another?’ asked the man, carefully pushing the garment into a sack and tying it tight.
Dann shook his head. Then – and Mara could feel Dann’s trembling, in the stick that lay from shoulder to shoulder – he said, ‘I want to change a gold fifty.’
At this the man’s face came to life in an ugly laugh. ‘Oh you do? And what do you want to buy with that? You can have one of the houses here for a few matches.’
‘Are you going to change it?’
‘Let me see it.’
Again the precious, shining gold piece seemed like a message from another time, or place. Dann held tight to one edge while the other stared at it. He sighed. Dann sighed. So did Mara.
The man’s eyes were glittering and he was very angry. ‘You could try your friends up there in that house. Wait till dark. You don’t want to be seen.’
Dann quickly put the bread, fruit, candles into Mara’s sack, and the two went away, as quickly as they could, and as far from the fat dragon as they could.
Dann began peering into the doorways of houses, but from each room came hissing, the sound of scales on dust or stone, the clattering of scorpions. Then there was a room that seemed to have nothing in it. The two went in, and Dann’s eyes were moving everywhere: up in the rafters, in the corners, behind the door. Was that a sound above them, in the room over this? There was something up there. Mara was frightened, but Dann took a big stone and jammed the door that led from this room into the rest of the house. He said, ‘Nothing can get in here.’ In the middle of the room, their eyes always on the door out into the market place, they squatted and drank water from a can, and ate two pieces of bread each. It was after midday, and the afternoon heat was yellowing the sky. Mara wanted to sleep, but Dann’s eyes were restless and suspicious: he was afraid. Several times people went past, stopped to glance in, and then went on. Then Mara did sleep, for she woke to see Dann at the door, watching some scorpions. It was getting dark.
Dann took one of the stumps of candle and fitted it into a hole in the wall. Mara was thinking, But we have no matches, when he pulled from the pocket that held the knife a single long match, and slid it back. ‘Last one,’ he said. ‘We mustn’t waste it.’ She had not known he still had a match. He hides things from me, she thought. Why does he? Doesn’t he trust me? Dann saw the look on her face and said, ‘Suppose someone said to you, “What does Dann have in his sack?” Well, if you didn’t know, you couldn’t tell them, could you?’ He laughed. And now what he saw on her face seemed to disturb him, for he said, ‘Oh come on, Mara. You don’t understand.’ There it was again, and she had no answer to it. He waited, watching her until she smiled, and then he gestured her to the door, and they went out, carefully, and stepped quickly past the scorpions.
They walked in the dusk up a path towards the lights of the house they had been shown. It was a house like the one she remembered from long ago: a tall, light, pretty house, and there had been a garden and trees.
They went up stone steps, and were outside a room that was lit by tall floor candles. Mara remembered furniture like these chairs and tables. A man came forward, smiling. Mara thought, He knew we were coming. And then, Of course, in a place where there are only a few people, everyone knows everything.
He was a Mahondi. The three of them were alike: tall, slim people with black, smooth, long hair. But he could not know that Mara’s black, fuzzy stubble was really hair like his.
‘I have a fifty gold,’ said Dann.
The man nodded, and Dann took out the coin. He gripped an edge tight, and held it out.
‘You’ll have to let me see it properly.’
That voice: waves of remembering went through Mara. She had become used to the heavy, rough voices of the Rock People. Dann let go of the coin. The Mahondi took it to a candle, turned it over and over, and bent to bite it. He straightened and nodded. Dann was trembling again. The man handed him back the coin and said, ‘What do you want for it?’
Dann had expected to change it, but now it was evident there would be no change. ‘We want to go North,’ he said. The Mahondi smiled: You don’t say! ‘How far could we go for that?’
‘Your brother and yourself? A long way.’
Mara could feel the carrying pole trembling again: Dann was full of fear, frustration and anger. It was because he did not know how much to ask, was afraid of being cheated. He asked, ‘Do you have transport? Can you arrange it?’
On the wall was an enormous coloured picture. Mara remembered it. It was a map. It was like the one she remembered from the classroom long ago. And it was the same shape as the one Dann had drawn in the dust for her. The Mahondi stepped to the map and pointed to a place in the middle. He meant: we are here. Then he pointed farther up the picture, to a black spot that said MAJAB, in large letters. It was a span of about three fingers’ breadth.
‘When can we go?’ asked Dann.
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘We’ll come back here,’ said Dann.
‘You’d do better to stay here. We’ll give you a room.’
Who was we?
‘How are we going to get to Majab?’ asked Mara. Dann and this Mahondi both looked impatiently at her for asking the question.
‘Well, of course,’ said Dann, ‘sky skimmer.’
Mara had not known they still existed.
The man said again, ‘You’ll be safe here.’ All of Mara longed to say, Yes, yes, yes, thank you; but Dann shook his head and then jerked it towards Mara – Come.
‘Then be here just after sunrise.’ And then they heard, ‘You shouldn’t go back into the town with that on you.’ Dann was walking away, not replying. ‘They know you’ve got gold. It’s dangerous.’
The last light was in the dark of the sky, a red flush. The two could hardly see the path. The man was watching them go. ‘He thinks we won’t be coming back,’ said Mara. ‘He thinks they’ll kill us down there.’ Dann said nothing. At least he didn’t say, You don’t understand – when Mara understood very well. It’s a funny thing, she thought, knowing something about someone, like why Dann is afraid of that Mahondi, but he doesn’t know. I don’t think I can explain it to him, either.
She could hardly bear to walk down into that town. In the market place the stallholder and some other people stood around the trestles eating. There was some bread and fruit there. All of them turned to watch Dann and Mara go past. Their faces were hard and cold. They had not expected to see the two again.
A woman said loudly, ‘Their own kind won’t have them.’
Those faces: Mara was looking at a hatred worse than anything she had known, even in the Rock Village. She whispered to Dann, ‘It’s not too late, we could go back up there.’ He shook his head. ‘These people want to kill us.’ But she could see he knew that.
They were returning to the house where they had been. The door was open on to the square: it had been closed when they left. Inside the main room some light came in from the