wasn’t time.’
‘Who are those people? Why did they want to save us?’
‘Gorda paid them to bring you. He probably thought there wasn’t any other place that was safe.’
‘Are we safe?’
‘Not very,’ said Daima. ‘But if my children could manage, then so can you.’
‘I’m afraid,’ said Mara.
‘That’s good,’ said Daima. ‘That means you’ll be on your guard.’
‘I will try.’
‘And now, Mara, we should stop, and you can think about everything and we can talk again.’
‘And play the What Did You See game?’
‘As often as you like. I would enjoy that, after all this time. And we must play it with Dann, because there aren’t schools here and the children are taught nothing at all.’ She got up. ‘It is midday now. This afternoon everyone in the village will go over that ridge to the river, because there will still be new water there from the flood, and we will fill our containers. I’m going to take you and Dann so they can all see you. And remember, you are my grandchildren.’ And she embraced Mara, a good, hard hug, and she said, ‘I wish you were. I’m going to think of you as my granddaughter, Mara. You’re a good girl. No, don’t cry now; you can have a good cry tonight, but if we start crying now we won’t stop. And I’m going to wake Dann, or he’ll not sleep tonight. And I’ve got something new for you to eat.’
She took a big yellow root from a jar and sliced it fine. She put the slices in three bowls, poured water over them and went to fetch Dann.
Mara tasted the water the sliced root was in. It was very sweet and fresh, and Mara did not find it easy to remember her manners and sit quiet, waiting for Dann. He came to sit on Mara’s lap, and sucked his thumb until Daima told him to stop.
They ate up the root and drank the fresh water. Dann wanted more, but Daima said the roots in the jar were all she had until she could go out and hunt for more in the earth.
Daima then gave Mara a big jug and Dann a small one, and she herself lifted up four big cans that had set across their tops pieces of wood to hold them by, tied two by two with loops of rope. She pushed the door and it slid along in its groove, and the light and heat came in. Mara’s eyes hurt, and she saw Dann screw up his eyes and try to turn his face aside, so that he was squinting to see. Then Mara was outside the house, holding Dann’s hand, and her eyes stopped dazzling and she was able to see. There was a crowd of Rock People, all looking at her and at Dann. Mara made herself stand still and look back, hoping they did not see she was frightened. Now she was close to them for the first time in her life, she could see their dull greyish skin and their pale eyes, like sick eyes, and their pale frizzy hair, which stood out around their heads like grass or like bushes. And they were so big. Everything about them seemed to Mara unhealthy and unnatural, but she knew they were not sick but strong people. She had often seen them carrying heavy loads along the roads. A girl was in one of the People’s tunics. It was torn and dirty, but it had been a soft yellow colour once. She was splitting it because she was so big.
Daima was saying, ‘These are my grandchildren. They have come to live with me. This is Mara, and this is Dann.’
Everyone was staring at these two thin, bony little children, with their short black hair that should be shining and smooth but was stiff with dirt.
A man said, ‘Yes, we know about the fighting in Rustam.’ Then he said to Mara, ‘Where are your parents, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mara. Her lips were trembling, and she stood biting them, while he grinned at her, showing big yellow teeth.
‘This is Kulik,’ Daima said. ‘He is the head man here.’
‘Don’t you curtsy to your betters?’ said Kulik.
‘Curtsy?’ said Mara, who had never heard the word.
‘I suppose she expects us to curtsy to her,’ said a woman.
Then another woman came out of the crowd and said to Daima, ‘Come on, the water’s going fast.’
‘This is Rabat,’ said Daima to the children. ‘She lives in this house here, just next to us – remember? I told you about her.’
Rabat said, ‘Pleased to meet you. I remember your parents when they were little, like you.’
Now all the crowd was moving off, and going to where the ridge was and, beyond it, the river. Everyone carried jars and jugs and cans.
Rabat was just in front of Mara, who could see the big buttocks, like hard cushions, moving under the brown stuff, and sweat dripping down fat arms. Rabat smelled strong, a sour, warm smell, and her pale hair glistened as though it had fat on it – but no, it was sweat. And then Mara saw that the brown garments everyone wore seemed different. It was the strong light that was doing it: making the brown silvery, or even whitish, and on one or two people even black; but the colour changed all the time, so that it was as if all these people were wearing shadows that slipped and slid around them. Looking down at her own tunic, Mara saw that it was brown; but when she lifted her arm the sleeve fell down in a pale shimmer that had black in its folds.
Meanwhile Rabat had fallen back to Daima and was saying, very low, ‘Last evening four soldiers came asking for you. I was on my way back from the river and saw them first. They asked if you had children with you and I said no, there were no children. Then they asked where all the people were and I said at the river. I didn’t say you were at home, though I knew you were there with the children. I was afraid they would go to the river and ask, but they were tired. I’d say they were on their last legs. One said they should stay the night in the village, and I was going to tell them we had the drought sickness here, but the others said they should hurry on. They nearly came to blows over it. I’d say they might have killed each other by now. They were quarrelling with every word. It seemed to me they didn’t really want to be bothered with the children at all, they wanted to take the opportunity to run up north.’
‘I am indebted to you,’ said Daima to Rabat, in a deliberate way that Mara could see meant something special.
Rabat nodded: yes, you are. Then she bent down to Mara and said with a big, false smile, ‘And how are your father and mother?’
Mara’s mind was working fast, and it took only a moment to see that Rabat was not talking about her real parents. ‘They were well,’ she said, ‘but now I don’t know.’
‘Poor little thing,’ said Rabat, with the same big, sweet smile. ‘And this is little Dann. How are your father and mother, dear?’ Dann was stumbling on, his feet catching in the grass tussocks and tangles, and he was concentrating so hard on this Mara was afraid he would forget and say, That’s not my name, and Daima was afraid of it too. ‘I don’t know where they are,’ he said. ‘They went away.’ And the tears began running down his dirty face.
Again Mara could not help seeing herself and Dann as all the others must: these two thin, dusty little children, different from everyone here except for Daima.
They were now going up the rise between dry trees whose leaves, Mara knew, would feel, if she took them between her fingers, so crisp and light they would crumble – not like the leaves of the plants in the house at home,
