Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog

by Doris Lessing

  And what was that transparent wall made of? In the recesses of the Centre there were objects made of it, vessels, containers, all sorts of things, and for generations people had been stealing them. Ali said that in his own city, which was far east beyond Kharab, were bowls and jugs of this almost indestructible stuff. And there had been a kingdom, Ali believed, where rulers had used the looted not-glass things to awe their people, saying the gods had made these marvels and they must be entrusted only to themselves, for they would bring a curse on the ignorant.

  To all this Griot listened, in the intervals of soldiers coming up to his table with their demands. He sat half turned to that other table where Dann was with Ali, in consultation so intense that they did not seem to hear the colloquies at Griot’s table or even to see Griot sitting there, half his attention on the entrance where a dark-red glow would move forward and become a soldier and his blanket.

  So days went by, and Ali and Dann sat together, where they ended always at the same puzzling place: the old, very dead languages in scripts Ali did not know, and neither did any of the other scribes. What was in those records, now unreachable? They would sit with the sheets of flattened reed between them—with the unknowable and unreachable between them—and then they left these for later, more accessible, languages. All the scribes knew Mahondi, which had so recently been the lingua franca of all Ifrik. But before this Mahondi had been another language, its parent, recognisable by Ali, but not by Dann. That old Mahondi was related to another language which was the ancestor of what Ali spoke, and that was a variety of Kharab. Held flat against the glasslike walls of the bubble-room were pages of books in that very old Mahondi and the very old Kharab. Six or eight pages was all that was left of those faraway peoples whose voices could almost be heard, words related to what was spoken now.

  And there the two sat, and Griot listened; often between the men lay a sheet on which had been copied lines from a page pressed against the not-glass. Once Ali showed Dann a line he translated as ‘Here is the formula for making the panes’. He said, ‘It took me long enough to work out that much, sir. But the bit we want, the formula, it is not a language, it is numbers, and they aren’t the same as ours.’

  Dann was spreading his fingers on the table. ‘One, two, three, four, five,’ he said. ‘Those numbers must be the same for everyone.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ali. ‘Numbers. And here are six, and seven and eight and nine and ten. But that is only part of what is here. These—marks. No one knows them.’

  ‘Like birds’ marks on sand,’ said Dann. ‘Like marks made by a great lizard’s claws in mud.’

  Ali laid before Dann a sheet that had all the marks and signs on it. ‘There’s a woman just arrived in camp who says she recognises them from a rock wall near her village. That’s way over on the east of Ifrik down the coast. They’re all at war, sir. It seems as if everything, the whole world—the world we know—is at war.’

  Dann said, angry, as he always was at such times, ‘Of course. And what for, Ali? For what purpose?’

  Ali said quietly, ‘That is the voice of your grief speaking, sir.’

  ‘Is it, Ali? And why not?’

  ‘Because it is dangerous for you. I was a doctor for a while; some thoughts are not good for us, sir. They are not good for you.’

  Dann sat with his head on his hand and was silent. He looked at the sheet with the difficult marks on it and said, ‘Is there no one in the camps who understands any of this?’

  ‘So far, this kind of knowledge is beyond us, beyond anything we know.’

  Dann brought out from his tunic an object from one of the museums about the length of his hand and as wide as four fingers. It was black, a dense hard substance, dull, without a scratch or a mark. On it were numbers. Ten of them. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, zero,’ said Dann, counting out the numbers on his fingers. ‘So, these old people had ten fingers and ten toes, just like us. And how far back does that go, I wonder? I’ve seen a monkey spread out his hand and look at the fingers. Perhaps it was wondering, how many fingers have I got?’

  ‘Perhaps one day the monkey will work it out,’ said Ali gently.

  ‘They knew it all, those old people,’ said Dann. ‘But we know nothing at all. I can’t bear it, Ali,’ he said, fretful, like a child. ‘How can you stand it, Ali? We are as ignorant as—monkeys.’

  ‘If we were,’ said Ali, ‘then I’d feel like you, sir.’ Ali was speaking firmly, as if Dann were a child.

  Griot was watching them with an emotion nearer to despair than anything. He could never have spoken to Dann like that. The two men were sitting in a patch of bright light from the high ceiling. They were so different. Ali was brown, different from Griot’s brown, more yellowish, with thin fine features and eyes deep under his brows. He was too thin, but that was because none of them ever ate their fill. There was a pride and self-possession about him—like Dann. Griot did not have that. He knew himself to be thick-fibred and heavy compared with the elegant little man with his gentle, thoughtful face.

  ‘The woman who recognises the numbers—get her to write them down.’

  ‘She has written them already.’

  Now Dann got up, came to Griot’s table, sat and said, ‘Griot, every person who arrives here must be asked what they know.’

  ‘It’s being done already, sir.’

  ‘Did you know about the woman and the numbers?’

  ‘No, we hadn’t thought of numbers, beyond what we need for tallying supplies and stores.’

  ‘There you are, that’s it. We don’t even know what questions to put. We have to work out the questions and how to put them. Every person who comes here might be holding knowledge that could disappear with them. When Mara and I arrived on a boat in Agre there was a thing on the boat that trapped sun. The boat woman knew how they worked. Once sun traps were stuck all around the Centre but no one knew what they were for. The woman on the boat was killed and that knowledge went with her. It must be happening all the time. When we arrived here no one knew how the sun traps worked. There they are, now, stuck up there and people think they’re bird traps.’

  He sat, silent, remembering, and Griot and Ali watched.

  ‘Sir,’ prompted Ali.

  ‘When my sister met Shabis she told him things she knew but he had never heard of, and he told her things she didn’t know. Everywhere there are people who know things but they don’t know their knowledge is precious. If we could put together all the things that different people know, it might add up to—it would be something enormous.’

  Ali said, ‘But I don’t think anyone alive now knows how to unlock this—formula. That is what it is called. Formula.’

  ‘How do we know that?’

  ‘If it were known, then it would be made—the stuff like glass. Or this thing here…’he touched the smooth black of the thing that was like stone, but was not stone, that Dann had left lying on the table. ‘Or some of the things in the Centre.’

  ‘So, we have to be ignorant,’ said Dann. ‘Those people, those old people, they knew so much. They were so clever.’

  ‘If they were so clever, then where are they?’ said Ali.

  This was a new thought for Dann. He sat silent, surprised, and then he laughed. Ali laughed with him. Griot did not laugh. If that was funny, then…he stood up and said, ‘Dann, sir, I would like you to come with me to inspect the camp. It would be good for the soldiers, sir.’

  ‘But, Griot,’ said Dann, mocking him gently, ‘you don’t need me for that, you do it all so well. You’re a wonder, Griot. Isn’t he, Decipherer Ali?’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ said Ali, meaning it. ‘We all think so. But Griot’s right. They need to see you, sir.’ And then, ‘You perhaps don’t know, General, that another twenty came in this morning.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll come—tomorrow perhaps?’

  ‘Sir, I’d like you to come now.’ Griot persisted with this stubbornness, partly because he needed to take Dann away from Ali: the
ir closeness hurt him. Partly he knew it was time Dann was seen around the camp. There he sat, his General, languid from his illness, too thin, but with such an air of…Griot wished he could somehow vanish into Dann and learn what it was Dann held there inside him that made people love him. As Ali did. As he did. Everyone had seen and heard Dann humble himself in front of them all, but they still loved him.

  Now Ali surprised Griot by rising and saying to Dann, ‘Why don’t we all three go, sir?’ He was allying himself with Griot.

  ‘Very well,’ said Dann. He put himself between Ali and Griot, and the three men made their way out, reaching the drill ground just as newly arrived refugees did. Short, thin people: at first it would be easy to think them not yet grown, or even children. Compared with the soldiers who commanded them they were poor wretches. Yet the soldiers had been in as bad a way when they came.

  ‘Ask where they are from,’ said Dann.

  The soldiers tried phrases in various languages. Then Ali went forward with his repertoire. At last a man answered, with what seemed like the last of his breath.

  ‘They’ve come from a long way up the great river. There’s a war there.’

  ‘Where is there not war?’ said Dann.

  A pot of soup was being brought out from the huts, slung on a stick held on the shoulders of two female soldiers. They knelt by the new arrivals and dipped mugs into the soup, which they held to the mouths that reached out and seemed to strive after the soup.

  ‘Untie their hands,’ said Griot.

  This was done, and now they could hold the mugs.

  ‘Give them their blankets,’ said Griot.

  ‘Sir,’ said one of the soldiers, ‘our blankets are running short.’

  ‘Then weave some more,’ said Griot.

  ‘We’ll have to make another raid, sir. We simply don’t have enough fleeces.’

  Dann was walking into the huts, and Ali and Griot followed.

  These were the first that had been put up, before such a compression of people had been thought of. They were well spaced, with good windows. Then, as the refugees kept on coming, the huts were put closer together. In the newest part, built between the cliff and the marshes on either side of the track that led east, they were not huts, but lines of building, with doors every few paces. Inside it was dark. The air was bad. Although it was midday there were low flickers of light from the fish-oil lamps. Soldiers were lying about on their beds, or sitting around between them, gambling. Ahead, beyond the lines, were huddles of newly arrived people sitting on the damp earth, and red blankets had been stretched over reed screens.

  Dann looked, but did not speak. Griot was ashamed and did not say anything. He had thought that everyone had at least found a place in the lines. Ali walked over to the cliff’s edge and was staring down. Dann joined him. Ruff too.

  Griot knew what they would see. Down the slope of the cliff precarious shelves and platforms of rock and earth had been built, and on them reed shelters.

  Griot knew about these ingenious attempts at housing, but had said nothing. Dann was angry and said to Griot, ‘This is impossible, Captain.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Griot.

  Dann said, ‘Griot, we will not take in any more refugees.’

  ‘But, sir, where will they go?’

  ‘They will walk onwards into Tundra and reach the border with Bilma, or they will go on to the Farm.’

  ‘And if they do that Kira will make them part of her army.’

  ‘Yes, Griot, that will probably happen. And she will feed them and look after them.’

  ‘Sir, aren’t you afraid that Kira will use her army against the Centre—against you?’

  ‘Yes, Griot, I think that will probably happen.’

  ‘Sir, all these people are saying the same thing—why are they stuck out here in the wind and the rain when there are empty places in the Centre?’

  ‘Are they, Griot? And you are telling them the reason, I hope? If some of them are in the Centre and some outside, then the ones inside will think they are better than the ones outside and they’ll be fighting each other before we know it. Isn’t that so, Ali?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Human nature,’ said Dann, grim, but as if the thought pleased him. ‘We are up against human nature, Griot.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Aren’t we, Ali?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now, Griot, you will post soldiers just there where the lines end, and you will turn away any more refugees who arrive here. Send them away but tell them that if people walk for a few days along the road west they’ll come to a lovely woman called Kira, and she’ll make them Kira’s soldiers.’ He sounded amused, and he stood laughing, while the other two watched him, not laughing.

  Then Dann left and said, without turning round, ‘I’ve given you an order, Captain Griot. Have you understood that? Not one more person. No more.’

  As he was about to go into the Centre, Ali joined him and the two men went in together.

  Griot stood on the edge of the great cliff, looking down at the pitiful makeshift shacks and shelters, and listened to a baby crying. He thought that Dann had never given him an order before about how he organised his army. He had mixed feelings about this. Dann was acknowledging him, in a way Griot felt was overdue. But it was a criticism, a severe one, and Griot was sorry for himself. It’s all very well, he thought, but he just leaves me to get on with it…He turned and saw the wretched newcomers under their skimpy red blanket shelters, already darkened by the wet, and he went forward, calling some soldiers to go with him.

  He had to give orders. He set his mind to it and gave them, and they meant that these shelters would be removed and the people in them would be sent on their way.

  He went back through the drill ground and there still squatted the refugees from that morning, chatting with the soldiers. They already looked better; they were like plants that had been watered.

  Griot told the soldiers that they must set up a feeding station, just where the lines ended, serving soup and bread, and as the refugees arrived who must be sent on their way each would be given a mug of soup and a loaf.

  Griot was thinking of the many times in his life he had walked, or run, or stumbled, for his life, wanting food, wanting water…at least no one in these parts need want water. He was sending people on their way, who might have been on their feet for…sometimes, he himself had not known how long he had been running, or staggering: the condition of being empty-stomached so long with him he had forgotten what it was not to be hungry. If Dann was right—and how could he be wrong?—then he, Griot, was sending people away who might die because of him. And yet Griot was hearing like an echo the baby crying in its shelter of reeds that could be tumbled down the cliff by any puff of wind or falling stone…a crying child…yes, back on the night of fire and fighting, babies had been crying, and had been in this war and that war ever since. There was a nagging at his attention, ‘Remember me, remember me…’

  Griot sat at his table in the hall, and a few paces away were Dann and Ali, in their usual close conversation, while the packs of reed pages piled up between them. The two of them pored over those—to Griot—indecipherable lines of writing, and often from one of the other tables a soldier came with another reed sheet, and laid it down, smiling, or bending to indicate something discovered there.

  There were now twenty or more—always more—tables set out down the length of that very long hall, and at each sat one or two scholars, wise men, and women, who had been poor wretches like those Griot could imagine weeping and stumbling at that moment on their way through or past the dangerous marshes.

  Each of these had been into the secret place, with Ali, had copied through the not-glass a page of some ancient text and returned with it. Outside the secret place stood guards. No one might go in who didn’t have Ali with him, and that meant Griot too, he discovered, to his shame and surprise. When the order was given Griot had not been mentioned. Who had given the
order? Dann had. And yet if Griot was standing near the table shared by Dann and Ali, when they planned a visit, Griot went along too, by right, Dann talking to him and Ali about camp matters, to Ali about the old books. Dann hadn’t thought: that was all it was.

  It was Sabir who supervised the dispensation of the tables, he who walked up and down, watching, stopping to talk, or joke. It was a pleasant, easy scene, that one, in the great hall, where the light changed according to how the sky sent sharp or mild winds, sent dark or light clouds, and even, sometimes, fragments of sunlight that lay patchily all down the hall, and over the busy tables.

  Dann often left Ali at work on his transcripts, and wandered off down the hall. He stopped at every table, and if he didn’t know the language of the scholar working there, Sabir called out for someone to come who did. Dann sat there, joking, laughing, and above all listening. Griot, making an excuse to go past, heard that the man was telling Dann his story, his wretch’s story, for no matter how many languages he knew, present and ancient, he had had to flee from his equivalent of the night of flames and fighting, where he—or she—might have lost everything. Dann sat on, listening, his head on his hand, or with bent head, nodding, and once Griot, passing by, saw tears on his cheeks. He was so gentle, this Dann, so courteous in his sympathy, and Ali, too, when it was he who knew the language in question, and sat there with him, gentle and listening, always listening…Griot thought that Dann had never asked him about his own night of fire and shouting—and yes, babies crying—but now it was too late, there was the right time for that, and for these poor men, and one or two women, it was their time to sit, talking, talking, the words burning in their mouths and making their eyes burn too. Dann might sit listening at one of the tables all day, then next day it was another table. A woman scribe, the daughter of a wise man who had insisted on her being taught what her brothers knew, told how she had saved her children and run, but while she was strong, they were little and had died, of heat and hunger. That was far to the east; she was a sand-eater, she tried to joke, like Ali and Sabir.