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

‘Will I? I suppose I will. And then …’ Here there was a good long pause and Griot had no idea what Dann might say next. ‘Griot, do you ever think of – of the cities – the cities under the marshes? Did you know they were all copies of the cities that long ago – long, long ago – were all over Yerrup? That was before the Ice. They were built here on permafrost. That is, permanent frost, that would last for ever – that is how we think, you see, Griot, that the things we have will last. But they don’t last. The cities sank down into the water. All of us, we live up here and just down there are the old dead cities.’ Now he was making himself lean forward to hold Griot’s eyes, trying to make what he was saying reach Griot who, he was sure, was not taking it in.

‘Dann, sir, you’ve forgotten, I’ve had bad times too. And when you’re frightened or you’re hungry you have all kinds of bad thoughts. But there’s no point in that, is there? It doesn’t get you anywhere.’

‘No point in starting again. Yes, Griot, exactly; no point. Over and over again, all the effort and the fighting and the hoping, but it ends in the Ice, or in the cities sinking down out of sight into the mud.’

Now Griot leaned across the table and took Dann’s hand. It was cold and it shook. ‘It’s the poppy, sir. It’s still in you. You should go to bed, have a rest, sleep it off.’

The snow dog did not like Griot touching Dann and he growled. Griot removed his hand.

‘We live in these ruins, Griot, these ruins, full of things we don’t know how to use.’

‘We know how to make some of them. And there is something else I discovered while you were away. I’d like to talk to you about it when you wake up.’

‘Rubbish, ancient rubbish, Griot. I had the right idea when I set fire to it. No, I won’t do it again, don’t worry.’

‘There are things here you haven’t seen.’

‘Mara and I explored the place.’

‘There’s a hidden place. The old people didn’t know about it. They didn’t care about all that. All they cared about was you and Mara – well, that’s the past.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘But the servants – the Centre had hereditary servants.’

‘It would.’

‘Yes. They knew the Centre and the hidden things. They never told the old people. Only the servants knew. And there are things …’

‘More old rubbish.’

‘No, wonders. You’ll see.’

Dann got up unsteadily, his weight on the snow dog who adapted himself to him.

‘And you haven’t heard what is going on at the Farm.’

‘Do I want to hear it? Yes, of course I have to hear it.’

He stood by the table, balancing himself there with one hand, but his weight was on Ruff’s back. He listened.

‘But my child isn’t in danger – Rhea, you say? Because it is Kira’s.’

‘It is Mara’s child who is in danger. But Leta and Donna – they never let Tamar out of their sight.’

‘I was going to suggest you ask Leta to come. She has all that knowledge of medicines.’

Griot knew that there were people in the camp with this knowledge, or some, but he did not want to discourage Dann’s interest, so he said, ‘I’ll send for Leta. Donna can keep watch on Mara’s child.’

Dann said, ‘If Shabis goes back to Agre, the child could go with him.’

Griot repeated what Shabis had said.

‘Then … that’s it,’ said Dann, shaking off these problems, because they were too much for him – as Griot could see.

Dann walked to his quarters, with that cautious steadiness people use when they are afraid of falling. The snow dog went with him.

Griot sat on in the empty hall. The airy apertures of its upper parts showed a light snow whirling about the sky.

Snow: and that mass of people out there he was responsible for might never have seen it. Against extreme cold all they had was fleecy red blankets. Soon they would be streaming into the hall to complain: and so it was, in they came. How were they to make fires when there was no firewood, and reeds burned so fast they were ash before they gave out warmth? Well, it made a change from the problem of too many people in too small a space.

He was expecting Dann to rejoin him: it was his need that made him think so. So much weight on him, Griot, so many difficulties. But Dann did not emerge and when Griot went to see, he was lying as still as a stunned fish and seemed hardly to breathe. The guards were dozing, the snow dog lying stretched out asleep beside him.

It occurred to Griot that he must postpone his expectations of Dann. Perhaps next day, or the next … Griot had plenty to think about. He was rehearsing how he would report his discoveries.

When Dann had gone on his walk to the east, Griot had decided to explore the Centre’s resources. This plan lasted a day or two. Griot had had no idea of the vastness of the place: it would take too long. It was immediately obvious that some parts had been so thoroughly plundered there was nothing to hope for from them. Halls so long and wide you could hardly see their edges, were empty: these had held guns, weapons, of the kind to be seen in armies in every part of Ifrik. What had been left were samples of what had gone. In a space that could have housed an army would be displayed a single sword of workmanship which no one could match now: a musket; a bow made of unknown wood; guns Griot had seen in use, that fired iron balls; but of course many of these had gone too. Empty halls: and the need for space. But these vast spaces had leaking roofs and in some places puddles that were not from the roof: excuse enough not to put them into use. The sheds and huts the soldiers lived in were drier and warmer than these frigid leaking halls. Many of the fugitives and outcasts that had found hiding places in the Centre had sneaked themselves places in the soldiers’ camp and Griot pretended ignorance.

Other halls, as vast, were full of artefacts whose use was now known, and stood in a crammed order that had not been touched for – but Griot did not enjoy talk of thousands of years.

The places that interested him had machines that he believed might be copied and used now, for agriculture, or boats of intriguing designs. He put some soldiers on to examine all these, and found – not for the first time – what a treasure of expertise and skills were in that crowd of runaways out there, now his army.

He left them to it, demanding that they should memorise what they had found, well enough to describe it all to Dann.

He had become absorbed in an unexpected direction: the water that was welling up, so it seemed, from deep under the Centre.

He asked for volunteers to dig, who had some knowledge of wells, or shafts, and within a few days they had come to say they had found layers of wood.

They had stood all around a pit and looked down at beams laid in a cross-hatch, on which had been built foundations of stone.

First of all, the wood. There were no big trees for many days’ walking in any direction. On the mountain were light trees, useless for building. These beams would have been heavy, even before they were soaked. Wood. Anywhere they dug, and not too deep down, were beams, and no one, none of these people from so many different countries, had seen trees that could have provided this wood. In one spot, the highest place in the Centre, Griot put the soldiers to dig further and they came on layers of wood and then more, deeper still. Once there had been forests here. Probably if you dug deeply enough into the marshes there would be trees lying pickled in that sour water. And then there was the stone. The Centre, or parts of it, was built of stone. Other parts were of bricks made of mud and reeds. Layers of time here: Griot knew that this interested Dann and so he stored up the information that was being brought to him by the soldiers. So much. All were interested, in their various ways, and some knowledgeable. Griot, who had never had a day’s schooling until he reached Agre and Shabis’s lectures for the troops, listened while his soldiers talked of things far above his head. Griot did not pretend to knowledge he did not have and was eager to listen – for Dann, who would soon return and be ready to hear all this. Griot remembered Mara, and how she talked of the Centre and of its stores of information, its lessons, and that is why he was sure about Dann. But Dann did not return.