Now they set two sacks side by side on the floor and began packing. First, into hers, went a roll of the torn-up material that she used for the blood flow. She was embarrassed and tried to hurry and hide what she was doing, but he saw and nodded. This comforted her, that he understood what a problem it was for her. She put in next the two delicate dresses, rolled up. Then the three brown ones. Then five yellow roots and her little bag of flour. Into his went, on top of an old cloth that had in it an axe, five roots, his bag of flour, three of the brown tunics. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘Wait.’ Mara went to Daima, stroked the old cheek, which was chilling fast, and stopped herself crying, because tears wasted water. She thought, Daima will lie here and go as dry as a stick, like Rabat, or the scorpions will push the thatch aside and come in. It doesn’t matter. But isn’t that strange? I’ve spent every minute of my time worrying about Daima – what can I give her to eat, to drink, is she ill, is she comfortable? – and now I say, Let the scorpions eat her.
‘Have we got candles?’
She indicated the big floor candles. Among them was one half-burned. Forgetting what it concealed, Daima had set it alight one evening, and it was only when an acrid smell of burning leather reminded them that they put out the flame. Now Mara took up the stump, turned it upside down, dug out the plug at the bottom and pulled out the little bag. She spilled on to the old rough rock a shower of bright, clean, softly gleaming gold coins. Dann picked one up, turned it about, bit it gently.
She could have cried, seeing those pretty, fresh, gold rounds, dropped in there from another world, like the coloured robes – nothing to do with this grim, dusty, rocky, cruel place.
‘I don’t think anyone would want these,’ said Dann. ‘I don’t think anyone uses them now.’ Then he thought and said, ‘But perhaps that’s because I’ve just been … I’ve been with the poor people, Mara. This is what I’ve been using.’
He took from the inside pocket of his slave’s garment a dirty little bag and spilled out on to the rock surface beside the scatter of gold some coins made of a light, dull greyish metal. Mara picked up a handful. They were of no weight at all, and greasy.
‘This is the same metal as the old pots and the cans.’
‘Yes. They’re old. Hundreds of years.’ He showed her a mark on one of them. ‘That means five.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘Five. Who knows what five meant then? Now they’re worth just what we say.’
‘How many of them to one of the gold pieces?’
And now he laughed, finding it really funny. ‘So much …’ He spread his arms. ‘No, enough to fill this whole room … Leave them. They’ll get us into trouble.’
‘No. Our parents … our family, the People, sent them to us. To Daima.’ She scooped them up, counting into the little bag, which was stiff with the candle wax, the pretty, bright little discs of gold, each the size of Dann’s big thumbnail, twice as thick and surprisingly heavy. Fifty of them.
‘Fifty,’ she said; and he said, ‘But keep them hidden.’
And that was how they could have left behind the coins that would save their lives over and over again.
Because of this little fluster and flurry over the gold, which really did seem to steal their minds away, they forgot important things. Matches – that was the worst. Salt. They could easily have chopped a piece off the bottom of a floor candle, but they didn’t think of that until too late. Mara did just remember to take up a digging stick, as they went out, which she had used for years and was as sharp as a big thorn.
What they were both thinking as they left, slinging the carrying pole between them: We have the most important thing, water.
The two stood at the door and looked into the glare and the heat and the dust. Black flecks were floating about. Red flames could be seen beyond the hills. The wind was coming this way. As they thought this, a spurt of flame appeared at the top of the nearest hill and at once ran up a dead white tree and clung there, sending up flares of sparks.
‘If the wind doesn’t change the fire’ll be here in an hour,’ said Dann.
‘It can’t get inside the rock houses.’
‘The thatch will burn over Daima,’ said Dann.
Well, thought Mara, haven’t I just decided it doesn’t matter what happens to dead people? She felt sad, nevertheless, and angry with herself. She thought, If you’re going to feel sad every time someone dies or goes away, then that is all you’ll ever do … But she was wiping the tears away. Dann saw and said nicely, sorry for her, ‘We’d better go if we don’t want to be roasted too.’ A thin line of flames, almost invisible in the sunlight, was creeping towards them in the low, dry, pale grass.
They walked, then ran, though Mara was pleased she had the stick to hold on to, through the rock houses, up the first ridge, down past the already half-empty waterholes, each one clustered with spiders and scorpions and beetles – some dead, some alive – up the next ridge and down to the stream, which was running so low that it was only a string of waterholes with wet places between each.
Dann set down his can, told Mara to do the same, and caught two frogs, killed them with his knife, which he took from under his tunic, and skinned them – all in a moment. She had never seen anything so quick and so skilful. He gave her some pink meat to eat. She had not eaten meat, or could not remember doing so. She watched him chewing up pink shreds and felt her stomach heave, and he said, ‘If you don’t, you’ll starve.’
She forced the meat into her mouth and made herself chew. This hurt, because it was tough and her teeth were loose from starvation. But she did chew, and swallowed, and it stayed down. And now, for the first time in so long she could hardly remember, she needed to empty her bowels. She went off a little way into the grass, squatted, and the stuff poured out. Last time there had only been pellets, like Mishka and Mishkita’s black, round pellets. She was losing water to the earth. This was how people began the drought sickness, wet shit pouring from their backsides.
‘Perhaps I have the drought sickness,’ she shouted to Dann from her place behind tall grasses; but he shouted back, ‘No, you aren’t used to enough water.’
He made her kneel by one of the holes and drink, and drink again. Then he drank. They stayed there, side by side, feet in the water, their flesh soaking up wet. She was feeling her hair with both hands, wishing it away, knowing that if she put it into water the stiff, greasy clumps would not change. He watched. Suddenly he took his knife, said, ‘Bend your head.’ While she was thinking, Oh, he’s going to kill me, she felt the knife blade sliding over the bones of her skull and saw the horrible lumps falling into the sand. She kept quite still for fear of being cut, but he was skilful and there wasn’t a scratch. ‘Look at yourself,’ she heard, and bent close over the water and saw that her head was as smooth and as shiny as a bone or a nut; and she began to cry and said, ‘Oh thank you, thank you.’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ he mocked her gruffly, and she saw that thank-yous had not been part of his life.
She thought that her face, all bones, all hollows, made her smooth head look like a skull, and she again drank, wishing the water to fill out her face, her flesh.
‘We’d
