Doris Lessing - Mara and Dann

These excursions were vetoed because the farm work would soon be starting. Then Leta suggested that when the weather was better he should go and fetch Donna, whom they had agreed would be invited to live here. Daulis said it would not be dangerous, if Dann travelled at night and kept well clear of the Centre.

They could all see that Dann was on the point of demanding Mara should go with him, but he stopped himself.

"Five Mahondis and two Albs," said Kira. "A new kind of Kin."

"You are going to like Donna," said Daulis.

"I didn't say I wouldn't. I like Leta, don't I?"

"Do you?" said Leta, laughing.

Mara said, "I think quite soon there won't be any Mahondis. I saw that in the Centre. Tribes — different kinds of people — they just die out." "Soon?" said Kira.

"Well," said Mara laughing, "a hundred years."

"Not thousands, then?"

Mara was teased by them because thousands appeared in her talk as often as The Centre.

"I don't want to wait until the weather is better," said Dann. "Why not now? And there's another thing: we are always talking about the next season, the next year. Suddenly, I'm a farmer. Being a soldier suited me better."

Daulis said gently, you could say coaxingly, smiling at Dann — the others joked that if Shabis was Dann's father, then Daulis was his big brother — "I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't fighting to be done one of these days, General Dann."

"I agree," said Shabis.

"Well, Daulis, well General Shabis, defending a farm is not the same thing as defending a country."

"Perhaps it will feel the same when you've worked on it and made it your own," said Mara, intending to sound calm, and calming. She knew the others were anxious about Dann, his restlessness, his discontent. She felt differently. Here in this place, this one place, were two men, two Ma-hondis. Two men had haunted Dann all his life, the good one and the bad one, sometimes merging into one, always a threat. These two men, Daulis and Shabis, were good men, had absorbed that past, and Dann was for the first time in his life feeling safe. Besides, a very bad man lay dead on the mountain, and Dann had killed him, as long ago he said he would. Or believed that he had killed him, at least most of the time. He felt safe: and that is why he permitted himself petulance and complaint. Probably this was what it was like being a parent, knowing why a child was like this or that, because of some event or incident, even a little thing, that the child had forgotten; but you couldn't say to the child, who was growing up to be a person, doing his best to forget the bad things, "This is why you do this," "I know why you do that."

Kira said, "And what about me when Dann goes off?"

"It'll give you a rest from my impossible behaviour."

"You mustn't go for long, because there's going to be a lot of work, as I know, from Chelops. But we had slaves there to help."

Here Dann and Mara protested, "But Kira, we were slaves too," and, "You were a slave, Kira."

"What? Nonsense." And she went on protesting. She had decided to remember, as her truth, that she had had slaves to do her bidding — true to a point — and that she had not been one.

Mara insisted, "We were the Hadrons' slaves."

"Then how was it we lived so well and had everything we wanted? How was it we ran everything?"

"Did you run everything for the Hadrons?" Shabis asked.

"Most things. But we were their slaves. They had got so fat and lazy and disgusting." And now Mara cried out, remembering, "We must not let ourselves get like that, it frightens me even thinking about it."

"Better slaves than be like Hadrons," said Dann.

"I don't see what's wrong with having slaves," said Kira, "not if you treat them well."

"We aren't going to have slaves," said Dann.

"Then there'll be a lot of work, even for seven people."

There was another little scene, equally suggestive of the possible developments in the lives of our travellers.

After a week of storms, of crashing and roaring seas, the sun shone and the sea lay quiet. For the first time in days they were all on the verandah, stretching themselves in the warmth. The two big dogs were there too, asleep, the sun hot on their fur. They were so peaceful there, these great animals, so harmless, just as if, at nights, their growls, or a sudden outbreak of barks at some threat they saw or heard, did not often alert the nerves of the people in the house, so that they got up and stood at a window to see the dangerous beasts outlined black against the sea or sky, staring out, motionless, watching.

On the warm brick of a pillar were two little lizards, bright green, with blue heads and yellow eyes.

"Oh they're so pretty," said Kira. "I do love them so."

Mara and Dann grimaced at each other, and Kira saw it and said, "More songs without words. What is it this time, do tell us?"

"We told you about the big lizards," said Dann. "And anyway, I'm getting sick of it. We've been sitting here day after day talking about what we've done. I'd rather talk about the future."

"Good," said Shabis, "because we really must have a serious talk about our plans for the season after next. We need to allocate work."

"Well don't allocate any to me," said Kira. "I think I'm pregnant."

"Oh thanks for telling me," said Dann. "Well, congratulations."

"I was going to wait a day or so to be sure, but this seemed to be a good time." And she was genuinely surprised that he was hurt. "Oh, Dann, you're so touchy."

"I think I might be pregnant," said Mara.

"I suppose you did bother to tell Shabis," said Dann.

Leta said, "I'm not pregnant, but whores don't get pregnant so easily."

When she struck this note, all of them criticised her, as now. "Oh Leta, do stop it." "Leta, you know you must forget all that." And, from Daulis, "Please, Leta, don't."

"Anyway," said Kira, with the casual honesty that was the nicest thing about her, "I wouldn't have got anywhere without men. But I'm not going to call myself a whore."

"Could we just stop talking about the past?" said Dann.

"Very well," said Shabis. "You start, Dann. What kind of work do you think you'd be good at, on the farm?"

Dann ignored him, looked straight at his sister, and said, "Mara, tell me honestly, no, truthfully, the real truth: when you wake up in the morning, isn't it the first thing you think of — how far you're going to go today, one foot after another, another little bit of the way up Ifrik? And the two of us together? Even if the thing you think about after that is Shabis?"

Mara took her time, smiling at him, eyes full of tears. "Yes," she said, "yes, it's true, but."

"I just wanted to hear you say it," said Dann.

DORIS LESSING was born of British parents in Persia in 1919, and moved with her family to Southern Rhodesia when she was five years old. She went to England in 1949 and has lived there ever since. She is the author of more than thirty books — novels, stories, reportage, poems, and plays. Her most recent works include two volumes of autobiography, Under My Skin and Walking in the Shade, and a novel, Love, Again.

Copyright

MARA AND DANN. Copyright © 1999 by Doris Lessing. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.