Doris Lessing - The Memoirs of a Survivor

We were organising our life, our rooms.

We were supplied with clean air at the cost of sitting and turning a handle to recharge batteries from time to time. It was warm: Emily went out with an axe and returned with great bundles of wood. And, just as I was thinking that the shortage of water would drive us to the roads, there was a clop-clopping outside, and a donkey cart made its appearance, loaded with plastic buckets of water, wooden buckets, metal buckets.

'Wa-a-a-ter! Wa-a-a-ter!' — the old cry sounded through our damp northern streets. Two girls of about eleven were selling the stuff, or rather, bartering. I went out with containers, and saw other people coming from the various blocks of flats around us. Not many, not more than fifty or so in all. I bought water dearly: the little girls had learned to be hard, to shake their heads and shrug at the prospect that people would do without water. For two buckets of good water — we were at least allowed to taste it before buying, I paid a sheepskin.

And then Gerald appeared, with about twenty of his gang — came with containers of every sort. Of course, there were all those animals up there, they needed water: but in a moment the gang had taken the water, simply grabbed it: they did not pay. I found myself shouting at Gerald that it was their livelihood, the little girls' — but he took no notice. I think he did not hear me. He stood on the alert, all vigilance, his eyes coldly assessing, while his children lifted down the buckets and ran off into the building with them, while the sellers complained, and the people who had come to buy water and had not yet been served, stood shouting and screaming. Then Gerald and the children had gone and it was my turn to be robbed. I stood with two filled buckets, and one of the men from the block of flats opposite held out his hand, lowering his head to glare into my eyes, baring his teeth. I handed over one bucket and ran indoors with the other. Emily had been watching through the window. She seemed sad. Also irritated: I could see the words she would use to scold Gerald forming in her mind.

A dish of clean water was put down for Hugo and he drank and drank. He stood beside the empty dish, head lowered: we filled it again, and he drank… a third of the bucket went in this way, and in our minds was the same thought — Hugo's, as well as ours. Emily sat by him and put her arms around him in the old way: he was not to worry or grieve, she would protect him, no one would attack him; he would have water if she had to go without or if I did…

When the water sellers came a couple of days later, they had men guarding the water with guns, and we bought in orderly queues. Gerald and his gang were not there. A woman in the queue said that 'that rotten lot' had opened up the Fleet River, and had started selling water on their own account. It was true, and for us, Hugo, Emily and me, a good turn of events, for Gerald brought us down a bucket of water every day and sometimes more.

'Well, we had to do it, we have to keep our animals watered, don't we?'

From the defensiveness of this, we knew that some hard battle had been fought. With the authorities? With other people using that source? — for of course old wells and springs had been opened everywhere over the city. If with the authorities, then how was it that Gerald and the children had won? — they must have done, to be able to reach and tap the supply.

'Well,' said Gerald, 'they haven't got enough troops to keep an eye on everything, have they? Most of them have gone, haven't they? I mean, there are more of us than there are of them, now…

And if everyone had gone, what were we — Emily and Hugo and I — doing here?

But we no longer thought about leaving, not seriously. We might talk a little about the Dolgellys, or say: Well, one of these days we really ought to be thinking…

Air, water, food, warmth — we had them all. Things were easier now than for a long time. There was less stress, less danger. And even the few people who were still lodged in the cracks and crevices of this great city kept leaving, leaving…

I watched a tribe go off as the autumn ended and winter came down. The last tribe, at least from our pavements. It was like all the others I had seen go, but better equipped, and typical of the caravans from our particular area: now, comparing notes, it seems that each neighbourhood had its peculiarities of travel, even styles! Yes, I can use that word… how quickly customs and habits do grow up! I remember hearing someone say, and this was quite in the early days of the departing tribes: 'Where is the shoe leather? We always have a supply of shoe leather.'

Perhaps it would be of interest if I described this late departure in more detail.

It was cold that morning. A low sky moved fast from west to east, a dark, pouring sea. The air was thick, and hard to breathe although there was a wind stirring and rolling drifts of the snow crumbs that lightly surfaced road and pavements. The ground seemed fluid. The tall buildings all around showed sharp and dark, or disappeared in snow flurries and cloud.

About fifty people had gathered, all rolled tightly into their furs. At the front were two young men with the two guns they owned prominently in evidence. Behind them came four more, with bows and arrows, sticks, knives. Then came a cart converted from a motor car: everything taken off down to wheel level, and boards laid over these to make a surface. The cart was being drawn by a horse, and on it was piled bundles of clothes and equipment, three small children, and hay for the horse. The older children were expected to walk.

Behind this cart walked the women and children, and behind them came another cart, and in the yokes were two youths. On this cart was a large version of the old hay box: a wooden container, insulated and padded, into which could be fitted pots which, taken off the boil just before the start of a journey, would go on simmering inside their nests and be ready to provide a meal at its end. After this second cart came a third, an old milk cart carrying food supplies: grains, dried vegetables, concentrates and so on. And a fourth cart, drawn by a donkey. It was arranged in cages. There were some laying hens. There were rabbits, not for eating, but for breeding: a dozen or so impregnated does. This last cart had a special guard of four armed boys.

It was the horse and the donkey that distinguished this caravan: our part of the city was known for its draft animals. Why we developed this speciality I don't know. Perhaps it was because there were riding stables in the old days, and these developed into breeding establishments when there was a need. Even our little common had horses on it — under heavy guard night and day, of course.

Usually, when a column of people left for the journey north or west, people came out of the buildings to say goodbye, to wish them well, to send messages to friends and relatives who had gone on ahead. That morning only four people came. I and Hugo sat quietly in our window watching, as the tribe arranged itself and left, without fuss or farewells. Very different this departure from earlier ones, which had been so boisterous and gay. These people were subdued, seemed apprehensive, made themselves small and inconspicuous inside their furs: this caravan of theirs would make rich booty.

Emily did not even watch.

At the very last moment Gerald came out with half a dozen of the children, and they stood on the pavement until the last cart with its cackling load had gone out of sight beyond the church at the comer. Gerald turned then, and led his flock back inside the building. He saw me and nodded, but without smiling. He looked strained — as well he might. Even to see that band of infant savages was enough to make one's stomach muscles tighten in anxiety. And he lived among them, day and night: I believe he had run out with them to stop them attacking the loaded carts.