Doris Lessing - The Marriages Between Zones 3, 4 and 5

Did it matter? The fact was, all her life the possibility had been here for no more effort than the climb up flights of difficult stairs. And yet it had been as if her own mind had closed itself off to what it could do. Should do. Wanted to do …

Her sister was clinging to the rail with both hands, her fine clear profile lifted, her eyes shining. She seemed to shine everywhere; the strong evening light polished her soft gold hair, and the embroideries on her yellow dress glowed. She had seen!

When she turned to Al·Ith all she said was, ‘Why did we forget it?’

And Al·Ith had no reply.

Next, Al·Ith ordered the bells to peal out an invitation for all the regions to send in messengers, and as quickly as was comfortably possible. Then she took supper with her sister, who wanted to know about this new husband, and while normally she would have told Murti· everything, without any feeling of disloyalty, or betrayal, she found her tongue weighted. Why? Only partly because news about Zone Four must be so foreign to Murti· that it would be necessary to say everything again and again from a dozen different angles before she could begin to understand it, but also because she could feel Ben Ata thinking of her. She did not like this connection with him. She could not remember ever before, with any man, whether for parenthood or for play, feeling this yearning, heavy, disquiet. She judged it unhealthy — a projection of that Zone where all the emotions were so heavy and so strong. But this is what she did feel, and it was no use behaving as if she did not. Murti· felt the resistance in her, did not blame her, but was excluded, and she went away early to her rooms where her own children awaited her.

Surely a relation with one person that narrowed others must be wrong? How could it not be wrong?

But Al·Ith knew the real questions that faced her now were more urgent than these disquiets about that husband of hers, to whom she would certainly be ordered to return in due time — and she could not say whether she abhorred the thought or longed for him.

And she put herself to sleep so as to be fresh for the day ahead, which she hoped would bring her the insights she so badly needed.

The main Council Chamber of our Zone is not very large, for there is no necessity for it to contain more than twenty or thirty of us at a time, since this number adequately represents us: of course the representatives are different, according to their function. It is a square room, its ceiling not very high, situated where windows show sky, clouds, mountains, on three sides.

The floor has on it very large flat cushions, where we sit according to no order except of preference, and Al·Ith may sit anywhere: there is no need for her to be elevated or on a prominence with such a small number of people.

On this day she was in the Chamber before anyone else, and moved from window to window, looking down at our streets, and up at the mountains, and then for a long time at a certain spot towards the northwest. I was there that day, and found her when I entered — the second to arrive. I was struck at once by her restlessness, her anxiety. This was not the contained woman I had known since she was a baby: I am one of Al·Ith’s Mind-Fathers.

I stood by her at the window, and she gave me the wildest saddest look, and then sank her head on my shoulder, snuggling like a small child. But as a small girl she had been too independent and striving for such an action and I was disturbed more than I can say.

She soon pulled herself away. ‘Lusik, I don’t know myself.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’

Down below in the main square was a commotion, and we both leaned forward to watch, thankful to be taken out of our anxieties.

Delegates were arriving from all our regions, on horses and donkeys, and there were children on goats. These animals were being taken into the care of some young people whose task this was, and led under trees that shaded the square’s southern side. I had come in by camel, since I live in the extreme south of our lovely southern region. This beast, who did not often have the chance to make the acquaintance of animals other than her own kind, since camels thrive so well with us they are our main transport, was standing nose to nose with a fine black mare from the eastern herds.

It was such a pleasant and familiar scene that we were both cheered, but she said, ‘All the same, we are in bad trouble and I don’t know at all what it is.’

The room filled with our people, men, women, and two small girls who had already shown a proclivity for the arts of management and were being given opportunities to learn them.

There were twenty-five of us that day. Al·Ith sat down at once, under the west window, spread her yellow skirts around her, for she knew we liked to see her beautiful and well presented, and began.

‘We all know the situation. I take full responsibility.’ She waited, then, and looked around at us. Everyone had nodded, not in animosity, but saluting a fact. She smiled, slightly, and it was a bleak little smile.

‘What we have to know is this. In the last thirty-nine days, has there been any change in our situation?’

She paused again, looked carefully from face to face, and making sure to smile at the two little girls, who of course smiled back in adoration and total submission to their desire to be like her, and better.

‘In every region it has been the same. Animals have ailed, and lost their fertility. And we, too, have not been as we were. This I know. This we all know. And I might have known it before I did had I taken as much notice as I should of your reports.’

We all nodded again: it was the truth.

‘It is clear that everyone believes that my marriage with Ben Ata is in some way connected with this decline. We do not know why or how, but we may expect to see an improvement among us. As has already been announced to everyone, I am pregnant. This presumably is part of the prescription for our recovery.’

After every statement she paused and looked around, for signs of disagreement, or that anyone wanted to add to what she had said.

‘Well, then, it is thirty-nine days since I was taken to Ben Ata.’ The was taken came out of her with a bitter emphasis, and she at once regretted it, offering us a quick apologetic smile. By now there was no one present who had not seen her inner distress. There was an atmosphere in the Council room I had not experienced before. More than anything could have done, Al·Ith’s state told us how things were in our realm.

She waited quietly. ‘There has been no change at all in that time? No? Now, I have been pregnant for five days. Has there been any change in that time?’

At this one of the little girls said, ‘My sheep had twins yesterday.’

We laughed, and the proceedings halted while Al·Ith explained to her the gestation time for sheep.

Meanwhile, we were wondering if there had in fact been any change in the last five days? Discussion began. Al·Ith was listening carefully. And then she jumped up and went fast from one window to another, returning to the west window where she leaned, gazing out and up. This was not what any one of us had observed in her before. After a time I, as the only one of her parents present, went to the window and looked where she did. I could see only the massed piles of the western ranges.

She was reminded by my being there of her duty, and sat down again.

The little girl who had spoken about her sheep was humming.

It was one of our children’s games.

Find the way

And find the way

And follow on and through.

Through the pass There we must pass And gather in the blue …

Al·Ith was leaning forward, listening. There was not one of us who had not heard it a thousand times. The children made patterns of stones and hopped through them in certain definite rhythms which kept varying according to the rules of the rhyme.