Mara and Dann (64 page)

There was a recklessness about the ways they used their soil and their water.

‘These were peoples who had no interest in the results of their actions. They killed out the animals. They poisoned the fish in the sea. They cut down forests, so that country after country, once forested, became desert or arid. They spoiled everything they touched. There was probably something wrong with their brains. There are many historians who believe that these ancients richly deserved the punishment of the Ice.'

And in another room: ‘The machines they invented were ever more subtle and complex, using techniques that no one has matched since. These machines it is now believed destroyed their minds, or altered their thinking so they became crazed. While this process was going on they were hardly aware of what was happening, though a few did know and tried to warn the others.'

Shabis had told her that the people alive now were the same as those
so clever, but so stupid, ancient peoples, and in Mara's mind was a little picture of what she had found in the Tower: Dann near death, one man with his throat cut and another nearly dead. Dann had killed that man, but he did not remember it. And there was another picture: of Kulik, with that teeth-bared, ugly grin, and his murderous heart.

When she got back to her room one day, she found Felissa looking with distaste at her old brown snake, or shadow, garment.

‘We don't have this in our collections,' she said. ‘Will you give us this one?'

‘But Felissa, your museums are collapsing, they are falling into ruins.'

‘Oh my dear, yes, but that is why we need you and Dann so badly. We could soon get everything back to how it was.'

‘Felissa, I have to say this: I do truly believe that you and Felix are living inside some kind of impossible dream.'

‘Oh no, dearest Mara, you are wrong. Felix and Dann are talking, and I'm so glad.' She stroked Mara's arms, and then her face, and murmured, in her intimate, caressing way, ‘Dear, dear Mara.' And then, brisk and busy, ‘Dear Princess, you are such a lovely girl, I would so like to see you in … '

Spread over Mara's bed were gowns and robes that she had noticed hanging in the cupboard but, thinking they were Felissa's, had not touched them. She had walked through a hall full of clothes, from ancient times, but by then could not take in any more news from the past.

These clothes had been taken from the museum.

‘Please, please, put this one on,' entreated Felissa, and held up a sky-blue garment of shiny material that had a full skirt, and – this was something Mara had not seen or imagined – was tight about the hips and waist, and had bare shoulders and a bare back. ‘This was a dress they called a ball gown,' said Felissa, ‘they danced in it.'

‘How is it these things haven't fallen apart from age?'

‘Oh, these aren't the originals, of course not. They brought the originals here to Ifrik, when the ice began, to the museums they were making then, and as they faded and decayed they were always copied and replaced. Probably these are nothing like as wonderful as the originals, because we are not as wonderful as those old peoples.'

‘But we are as warlike,' said Mara.

And now a quick, shrewd glance, far from the intimate, caressing style of her social self.

‘Yes, warlike. I'm sorry to say that is true. But that is what dear Prince Shahmand – Dann – is discussing with my husband.'

She held out the dress. Mara pulled off her robe and got the thing on somehow, but her waist was too thick for it and it gaped. She stood in front of a big glass that Felissa wheeled in from her own room and saw herself – and fell on the bed laughing.

‘But you look beautiful, Mara,' Felissa fussed.

Mara took it off.

Now, to her amazement, Felissa removed her garments that were composed of so many veils and draperies of grey and white, and stood revealed in long pink drawers, and a kind of harness for her breasts. ‘Yes, these are from the museum too. But they are beginning to rot and we do not have the means to replace them so I thought I might as well have the benefit.'

She took from the cupboard a pink gown, all laces and frills, and put it on. She paraded up and down, glancing at herself in the looking-glass, and then at Mara, smiling. Mara saw she did this often: these clothes were not really here for Mara, Felissa wanted Mara to admire her.

And she was a pretty old thing, or perhaps not so old, quite slim still, but her limbs were hardly … And Mara could not prevent herself looking at her own smooth, fine, silky limbs.

Mara sat there while the modes and fashions of hundreds of years paraded in front of her. She had not heard of fashions, until now, and found the idea of it amazing and even absurd. From time to time Felissa cooed, ‘Oh, do try this on, Mara, it would suit you.' But that was not the point of this little scene.

Mara sat on, smiling, and thought that nothing more ridiculous had ever happened to her than to watch an elderly brown-skinned woman parading about in clothes made for thousands-of-years-ago women – white women, who clearly had a very different shape, for not one of Felissa's experiments closed at the waist. Mara imagined these clothes on Leta, and found that hard too. That great bundle of fair, shining hair – yes, that would suit some of these dresses.

And so passed that afternoon. That night, when Dann came to their rooms, he went straight into his and shut the door. He did this as if casually, but it was a bad moment, and his conscious glance at her showed it. She wanted to know about his discussions with Felix, so she knocked, and there was no answer. She knocked louder. He came to open the door, and she knew who it was who stood there frowning.

‘I don't like this place and I want to go,' she said.

‘Just a little bit longer.'

‘What does he want you to do?'

‘He wants me to raise an army from the local youngsters. There are a great many, he says, that are dissatisfied and they want the Centre to be the way it once was. This place is like a fortress. He says I was General Dann and I should know about war. Well, I do know, Mara.' And she saw his suddenly foolish, proud smile.

‘And we would feed this army by stealing food from the farmers?'

‘But they would benefit, because we would protect them.'

‘Protect them from what? This place has a good government, Daulis said so.'

‘The government would be on our side. They like the Centre.'

‘So why do the farmers need protection?'

‘Oh, there are raids sometimes. Don't nag at me, Mara. I need to know more before I tell you.' And he shut the door in her face.

Mara spent some days in the museums. She was in a place where she could satisfy every hunger she had for knowledge, for information, to find out – learn. Some of the buildings were as good as hours of talking with Shabis. Even a wall, with a few lines of fading words, could tell her at a glance about things she had puzzled over all her life. She felt her brain was expanding. She felt she was soaking up new thoughts with every breath she took. And all the time she was thinking of Dann, with this Felix, whom she hardly saw, because he disliked and distrusted her and knew she was trying to persuade Dann to leave. This ruthless, cold man, with his social smiles and courtly manners, was not stupid. Felissa was stupid, because of a conceit of herself that made it impossible to discuss anything. Any conversation at once returned to Felissa. For instance, Mara asked her about the tombs in the sand that had held old books, old records, the city that had been found when the sands shifted; and Felissa at once said that she knew nothing about it. Mara persisted: she had been told about The City of the Sands.

‘Who told you? It's nonsense. What sands?'

‘Those leather books in the museum. There's a notice saying they were copied from books made of paper made from reeds.'

‘If there ever was a sand city I'd know about it. I've made it my business to know everything.'

Now Felissa was meeting her as she came back from her days spent wandering through the things, and peoples, and tales of the ancient
world, to clutch her hands, and stroke them, and murmur how happy she was that Dann and Felix were getting on so well, and how wonderful it would be if Mara could soon tell them she was pregnant.

Dann was silent, was morose, was very far from Mara, who watched him and Felix walking together, back and forth, in the great empty space between the outer fortress wall and the inner building. The good-looking, elegant Felix, and handsome Dann – they made a fine couple. Dann was deferring to Felix, perhaps not in words, but his demeanour was respectful, and the tones of his voice almost obsequious. And she knew only too well the rather foolish inflated look that was getting worse every day.

If she did not end this now it would be too late.

One night, when he shut the door between them, she knocked until he opened it. There he stood,
the other one
, and she heard without surprise, ‘Mara, I'm going to do it. There's everything here to make something wonderful. And look at me – everything that has happened to me, and my being a soldier, it all fits. Even you must see that.' And he turned away, pulling the door to shut it, but she held the door and said, ‘Dann, I'm leaving tomorrow, by myself if I have to.'

He whirled about, his face ugly with suspicion and with anger. ‘You can't leave. I won't let you.'

‘Your marvellous plans depend on one thing. On me. On my womb.' And she tapped her stomach. ‘And I'm leaving.'

He gripped her two arms and glared into her face.

‘Dann,' she said softly, ‘are you going to make me your prisoner?'

His hands did not lessen their grip, but they trembled, and she knew her words had reached him.

‘Dann, are you going to rape me?' He furiously shook his head. ‘Dann, you once told me to remind you that when you were like this in Bilma, you gambled me away in a gambling den. I'm reminding you.'

For a few moments he did not move. Then she saw
the other one
fade out of his eyes, and from his face, and his grip lessened, and he let her go. He turned away, breathing fast.

‘Oh Mara,' he said, and it was Dann himself talking, ‘I am so tempted to do it. I could you know. I could do it all so well.'

‘Well, I'm not stopping you. I couldn't, could I? Tell those two that a prince with his royal blood and a concubine are quite enough to start a dynasty. I'm sure it must have been done. But you mustn't stop me, Dann. I'm going tomorrow morning with or without you.'

He flung himself down on his bed. ‘Very well. You know I wouldn't make you a prisoner.'

‘You wouldn't. But the other Dann would.'

She shut the door, and in her room assembled the clothes she had brought with her, put them neatly in her old sack, and lay down on her bed to keep a vigil. She was afraid to sleep. After a night of quite dreadful anxiety, the door opened and Dann stood there with his sack.

They embraced, quickly and quietly let themselves out of their rooms, went down the long empty passages, into the central hall, and then out of the big building, through the empty space between the walls, and found the big gate locked. Dann took up a stone and hit the lock and it fell into pieces.

It was only just light. They were walking east, returning to Leta. There had been no need even to discuss if this was what they should do. It was cold, and they were bundled in their old grey blankets. The sky was low and grey. Here they were, Mara and Dann, with scarcely more between them than they had had when they first set out far away down in the south. They saw the tears running down their faces, and then they were in each other's arms, comforting, stroking, holding hot cheeks together; and this passion of protectiveness became a very different passion and their lips were together in a way that had never happened before. They kissed, like lovers, and clung, like lovers, and what they felt announced how dangerous and powerful a thing this love was. They staggered apart, and now Dann's gaze at Mara, and Mara's at Dann, were wild and almost angry, because of their situation. Then Dann stood with his arms up in the air and howled, ‘Oh, Mara,' and Mara stood, eyes shut, rocking slightly, in her grief, arms tight across her chest, and she was gasping, ‘Dann, oh Dann, oh Dann.' Then both were silent, and turned away from each other, to recover. On the same impulse they set off again, but with a distance between them, and they were both thinking that if they
had stayed with the two in the Centre this was what they could have had, a passionate love that was approved, permitted, encouraged. They were in a pit of loss and longing.

Dann said, ‘Why Mara, why are brothers and sisters not allowed to love each other? Why not?'

‘They make too many defective children. I saw why in the Museum. There was a whole room about it.'

Her voice was stopped by grief and he was crying, and so they walked, well apart from each other, stumbling, and sobbing; and then Dann began swearing, cursing his way out of his misery, and Mara, seeing what anger was doing for him, began cursing and swearing too, the worst words she knew; and the two went faster now, fuelled by anger, swearing at each other and at the world, until they saw the Alb settlement in front of them. A doleful singing was coming from there, the saddest chant imaginable. Soon they could hear the words.

They arrived at Donna's door, knocked; she came out, and said at once, ‘If you've come for Leta, she left not more than an hour ago.'

She was staring past them at a crowd of Albs dancing and singing, their robes flying in a chilly wind. To the two Mahondis it really was like seeing an assembly of prancing, whirling ghosts.

‘Where was she going?'

‘To find you. But who else she hoped to find – that's another thing. But she could never fit in here. She's seen the world and the Albs here live as if no one but themselves exists.'