Doris Lessing - The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog

Closer they drew, and closer: as the mists neared the Middle Sea they vanished, vanquished by the warmer airs of this happy sea … so Dann was seeing it, as the boat crunched on the gritty shore.

That pouring weight of wet air, the mists, was speaking to him of loss, of sorrow, but that was not how he had set out from Durk’s inn, light-hearted and looking forward to – well, to what exactly? He did not love the Centre! No, it was Mara, he must see Mara, he would go to the Farm, he must. But he stood on the little beach and stared up, and the falling wet whiteness filled him with woe.

He turned, and saw Durk there, with the boat’s rope in his hand, staring at him. That look, what did it mean? Not possible to pretend it away: Durk’s honest, and always friendly, face was … what? He was looking at Dann as if wanting to see right inside him. Dann was reminded of – yes, it was Griot, whose face was so often a reproach.

‘Well,’ said Dann, ‘and so I’m off.’ He turned away from Durk, and the look which was disturbing him, saying, ‘Some time, come and see me at the Centre. All you have to do is to walk for some days along the edge.’ He thought, and the dangers, and the ugliness, and the wet slipperiness … He said, his back still turned as he began to walk to the foot of the cliffs, ‘It’s easy, Durk, you’ll see,’ and thought that for Durk it would not be easy: he knew about boats and the sea and the safe work of the islands.

He took his first step on the path up, and heard an oar splash.

He felt that all the grey dank airs of the marshes had seeped into him, in a cold weight of … he was miserable about something: he had to admit it. He turned. A few paces from the shore Durk stood in his boat, still staring at Dann, who thought, We have been together all this time, he stayed away from his island and his girl because of me, he is my friend. These were new thoughts for Dann. He shouted, ‘Durk, come to the Centre, do come.’

Durk turned his back on Dann and sat, rowing hard – and out of Dann’s life.

Dann watched him, thinking, he must turn round … but he didn’t.

Dann started up the cliff, into the mists. He was at once soaked. And his face … but for lovely and loving Marianthe he did not shed one tear, or if he did, it was not in him to know it.

He thought, struggling up the cliff: But that’s what I’ve always done. What’s the use of looking back and crying? If you have to leave a place … leave a person … then, that’s it, you leave. I’ve been doing it all my life, haven’t I?

It took all day to reach the top, and then he heard voices, but he did not know the languages. He sheltered, wet and uncomfortable, under a rock. He was thinking, Am I mad, am I really, really mad to leave ‘down there’ – with its delightful airs, its balmy winds, its peaceful sunny islands? It is the nicest, friendliest place I have ever been in.

After the soft bed of Marianthe his stony sleep was fitful and he woke early, thinking to get on to the path before the refugees filled it. But there was already a stream of desperate people walking there. Dann slipped into the stream and became one of them, so they did not eye his heavy sack, and the possibility of food. Who were they, these fugitives? They were not the same as those he had seen three years before. Another war? Where? What was this language, or languages?

He walked along, brisk and healthy, and attracted looks because of his difference from these weary, starving people.

Then, by the side of the track, he saw a tumble of white bones, and he stepped out of the crowd and stood by them. The long bones had teeth marks and one had been cracked for the marrow. No heath bird had done that. What animals lived on these moors? Probably some snow dogs did. The two youngsters – these were their bones. Dann had never imagined what he and Mara might have looked like to observers, friendly and unfriendly, on their journey north. Not until he saw the two youngsters, seemingly blown towards him by the marshy winds, until he caught them, had he ever thought how Mara and he had been seen, but now here they were, scattered bones by the roadside. That’s Mara and me, thought Dann – if we had been unlucky.

And he stood there, as if on watch, until he bent and picked little sprigs of heather and put them in the eye sockets of the two clean young skulls.

Soon afterwards he saw a dark crest of woods on the rise ahead and knew it would be crowded with people at last able to sit down on solid ground that was dry. And so it was; a lot of people, very many sitting and lying under the trees. There were children, crying from hunger. Not far was Kass’s little house, out of sight of these desperate ones, and Dann went towards it, carefully, not attracting attention. When he reached it he saw the door was open and on the step a large white beast who, seeing him, lifted its head and howled. It came bounding towards him, and lay before him and rolled, and barked, licking his legs. Dann was so busy squatting to greet Ruff that he did not at once notice Kass, but she was not alone. There was a man with her, a Thores, like her, short and strong – and dangerously alert to everything. Kass called out, ‘See, he knows you, he’s been waiting for you, he’s been waiting for days now and the nights too, looking out …’ And to the man she said, ‘This is Dann, I told you.’ What she had told her husband Dann could not know; he was being given not hostile, but wary and knowledgeable looks. He was invited in, first by Kass: ‘This is Noll,’ and then by Noll. He had found them at table and was glad of it: it was a good way to the Centre and his food had to last. The snow dog was told to sit in the open door, to be seen, and to frighten off any refugees sharp enough to find their way there.

Noll had come from the cities of Tundra with enough money to keep them going, but he would have to return. The food and stores he had brought, and the money, were already depleted. This was an amiable enough man, but on guard, and sharp, and Dann was feeling relief that Noll was the kind of fellow he understood, someone who knew hardship. Already the islands were seeming to him like a kindly story or dream, and Durk’s smiling (and reproachful) face – but Dann did not want to recognise that – a part of the past, and an old tale. Yes, the fishermen had to face storms, sometimes, but there was something down there that sapped and enervated.

In spite of the damp, and the cold of the mists that rolled through the trees from the marshes, Dann thought, This is much more my line.

Kass did not hide from her husband that she was pleased to see Dann and even took his hand and held it, in front of him. Noll merely smiled, and then said, ‘Yes, you’re welcome.’ The snow dog came from his post at the door to Dann, put his head on his arm and whined.

‘This animal has looked after me well,’ said Kass. ‘I don’t know how often I’ve had desperadoes banging at the door, but Ruff’s barking sent them off again.’

And now Dann, his arms round Ruff, who would not leave him, told how he had gone down the cliffs to the Bottom Sea and the islands, but did not mention Marianthe, though Kass’s eyes were on his face to see if she could find the shadow of a woman on it.

These two were listening as if to tales from an imagined place, and kept saying that one day they would make the trip to the Bottom Sea and find out for themselves what strange folk lived down there, and discover the forests of trees they had never seen.

When night came Dann lay on a pallet on the floor, and thought of how on that bed up there he had lain with Kass and the snow puppy, now this great shaggy beast who lay by him as close as he could press, whining his happiness that Dann was there.