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

by Doris Lessing

  ‘You know what’s under here,’ said Griot. ‘Water. The walls everywhere are mouldy with damp.’

  Ali said, ‘This is a sort of cell—like a square marsh bubble.’

  ‘How did they make it?’ exclaimed Dann in a fever of despair. ‘How did they? We don’t know. We don’t know anything.’

  Tamar was resting her ear against the not-glass. ‘It’s still singing,’ she said.

  ‘Griot, you’ve got explosives. The ones you use to make roads along the cliffs.’

  ‘It will destroy the books as well as the bubble.’

  ‘Not all of them. We don’t have a choice, Griot. If we just go, all this will disappear into the marshes. This way, we might perhaps save something.’

  Griot went out and returned with sticks of explosive and fitted them in places around the walls at the bottom and at the top. He attached a long cord.

  They went out, with the end of the cord, which Griot lit.

  First, the thud of an explosion, then a bell-like ringing.

  They ran in. The walls had split in two places, cleanly, and stood like shining leaves of solidified water. Air was hissing into the space. Water was trickling in from the sides of the room.

  ‘Quick,’ shouted Dann. He slid into the cell, or bubble, and grabbed at the books that were being held to the walls by hands of—what? Some kind of metal and strong glue. Now he, and Griot and Tamar and Ali, grabbed handfuls of the books from the walls and from the well-like middle, and handed them out to the waiting runners. They were dropping the books anyhow in front of the scribes and linguists at the tables and running back for more.

  They were all working as fast as they could, but now water was rushing in to the centre of the shattered not-glass. Dann grabbed at the last of the books that were still dry, and leaped back as a jet of water shot up.

  ‘That’s it,’ shouted Griot. ‘General, we must run for it.’

  Dann set down his final armful of books. The scribes were trying to sort the books into languages they knew, but the frail old things were falling apart. As each was opened, it began to crumble. Dann, desperate, grief-stricken, grabbed up book after book and saw it disintegrate in his hands. Fragments of paper bronzed and darkened as the air took it.

  ‘And there goes the wisdom of a hundred civilisations,’ said Dann. ‘Look, there it goes. Going, going, gone.’

  Dann was moving from table to table, hoping perhaps that at this one or that the books were still whole. He gently opened one after another, and watched it die, while odd words or lines of words sprang up clear and strong, like lines of writing being consumed by fire. Then he reached for another.

  He was weeping. All the scholars working there in the hall were desperate, some crying, some trying to catch the fragments of paper as they blew about.

  Dann stood watching, Tamar behind him, and then from the direction of the secret room there came a noise like a clang, that gurgled into silence. The not-glass cell had spoken its last. From its direction crept a trickle of water.

  ‘It’s time we all left,’ said Griot.

  All along the hall the scribes were scribbling down odd phrases, even words, as the books fell into dust in their hands.

  …truths to be self evident…

  Un vieux faun de terre cuite…

  …be in England…

  …Rose, thou art sick…

  …all the oceans…

  …rise from the dead to say the sun is shining…

  …into a summer’s day…

  …Helen…

  Western wind, when…

  The Pleiades…

  …and I lie here alone…

  …and all roads lead to…

  ‘Dann, sir, what has been made can be made again,’ said Griot.

  ‘And again, and again, and again,’ said Dann.

  He sat at his table and Ali’s, and watched the people all down the hall scurrying and scrabbling over the bits of browning paper.

  ‘It’s the again and again, Griot. I can never understand why you don’t see it.’

  Griot sat down near Dann. ‘Sir, you make things so hard for yourself.’

  Tamar sat down too. In her hand was a bit of crumbling paper. She was crying. She said, ‘When I get to Tundra I won’t ever cry again. Never.’

  A soldier appeared. ‘General, sir, the snow dog’s coming; he wouldn’t stay, sir.’

  The great white beast came crawling towards them, panting, but instead of putting his head on Tamar’s knee, or Dann’s, he went past them to the cushions, rolled on his side and lay still.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Ali. ‘Let him rest.’

  ‘Ruff, Ruff,’ whispered Tamar. The snow dog flopped his tail once, twice, and lay with his eyes open, panting.

  ‘He is afraid we are going to leave him behind,’ said Dann. ‘Aren’t you, Ruff?’

  The animal flapped his tail and lay still.

  ‘Griot, how are we going to take him?’

  ‘They are making a little carriage for him. We will carry him in it through the marshes, and then we’ll fit on some wheels. If there’s one thing there’s plenty of in the centre, it’s old wheels.’

  ‘Ingenious, Griot,’ said Dann. ‘There you are. No need for the treasures of the Centre. Griot’s going to do as well.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Griot, quite serious, ‘that’s what I think, too.’

  There came a thunderous knock on the outer gate and a sentry walked in, immediately followed by Kira and a fat pouting child.

  A high, imperious voice: ‘Out of my way!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Dann to the sentry. He was badly affected: that voice…that sweet, enticing, conniving voice. He was afraid of it.

  There at the entrance stood a large woman with a mass of black hair, black dramatic eyes, and flashing jewellery that tinkled on her plump arms and ankles. The child Rhea was as highly coloured as her mother, with earrings, a gold band holding her black curls, and many rings on her fat fingers.

  Kira was staring at Dann. ‘Well,’ she pronounced, ‘you don’t look up to much, Dann.’ Behind her stepped a platoon of female soldiers with their black blankets draped and held with brooches made out of the claws of crabs. She signalled that they must close up around her, but Griot said, ‘Wait a minute. You must send your soldiers round to the western entrance. You know where it is.’

  He was speaking for Dann, because he could see Dann was not able to. He was breathing hard, fists clenched, a look of dread; but then his face cleared. Dann took a deep breath and shook himself free. That voice, with its singing sweetness—it had a hard edge to it, like an out-of-tune chord. There was in it the hint of a whine. Dann was free: she was no longer able to dominate him.

  ‘How dare you?’ began Kira. ‘Griot, how dare…’

  Dann said, ‘Kira, do as you are ordered.’

  His voice, calm and in control, stopped her.

  ‘You and the child may come in, but your soldiers must go to join Joss and his troops.’

  She pouted and dismissed her soldiers with what she intended to seem a commanding gesture. The hand was shaking.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Dann. ‘Sit down, Rhea.’

  The two sat, arranging their clothes, shaking out their voluminous curls; Kira at least was buying time.

  Rhea now piped up, ‘You needn’t think you’re my father, because you aren’t.’

  Kira gave her a look which was clearly a rebuke or reminder. Hard to read it: it was now evident that she was ill, or…her eyes were too bright, glassy, and the pupils were large. Her glances were moist and unsure.

  ‘Poppy,’ breathed Tamar, who was squeezed as close to Dann as she could.

  And Rhea? She, too, was on poppy, and it had been no mean dose.

  ‘Don’t think I’m pleased to see you, Tamar,’ said Rhea, in the same laboured, over-prepared way as her last pronouncement. She and her mother had rehearsed sentences, but now it seemed she had brought them out at the wrong time, and this was what Kira’s glances meant
: reproof.

  Now Kira displayed her garment, which was long, and yellow, striped broadly with black. A Sahar robe.

  ‘Do you see what I am wearing?’ Kira said to Dann.

  ‘Yes, I do—as I was meant to,’ said Dann.

  ‘I think this Sahar gown looks better on me than it did on Mara, don’t you agree?’ And she lifted her arm, to show off the pattern of the stripes. ‘Mara was a lanky, lolling thing,’ she said, and her sweet voice dripped dislike. ‘I’m prettier than Mara, I always was,’ she announced.

  Dann said nothing: he was too angry to speak.

  Griot said, ‘Do you see those lines of soldiers, Kira? They are there for a reason.’

  ‘I see them,’ said Kira, focusing with difficulty. The sun had emerged from between labouring dark clouds and a strong yellow light, striking low, was hurting her eyes.

  The snow dog, shifting his position, groaned. He was watching Kira and the child, prepared to attack if necessary—and if he could.

  Ali got up and stood behind Tamar’s chair, and he had his dagger in his hand.

  ‘What a mess you are in,’ said Kira, looking at the drifts of brittle browning paper over the floor.

  ‘That’, said Dann, ‘is all that is left of the sand libraries of thousands of years. Preserved for us—and now, all gone.’

  ‘No loss,’ said Kira. ‘We don’t care about all that. What I wanted to say, Dann, was this. I, and Joss and Rhea, will stay here in the Centre, and get together everything usable before we move on to Tundra.’

  ‘You’re welcome to it,’ said Dann.

  Kira seemed to swell with anger. Rage sparked off her glistening locks, her jewels, her shining nails, her puffy pink lips.

  ‘And I can tell you we’ll make better use of the Centre than you do.’

  The snow dog lifted his head, and growled, responding to her rage.

  ‘Why do you have that dirty animal in here? Our snow dogs are trained as soldiers.’

  ‘He’s not dirty,’ said Tamar. Ali put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I have a snow puppy,’ said Rhea, ‘but my slave looks after it.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Dann, ‘I hear you have slaves now. I hope you are treating them as well as we were treated, when we were slaves.’

  ‘How dare you!’ said Kira. ‘What lies!’

  ‘What lies!’ echoed Rhea. Her eyes were glazing.

  Now they were looking at her, this stout, proud child, the copy of her mother. Dann’s daughter did not have much of him in her. The eyes, perhaps, a bit, the length of her hands—but they were too fat. It was Tamar who was Dann’s child. Kira said spitefully to her, ‘And I suppose you know your father is dead?’

  Tamar cried out, ‘No!’ and Dann put his arm round her and said, ‘Kira, you are lying. A messenger came this morning. Shabis was well down towards Charad when he sent the message.’

  Now there began a great business of tossing locks, pouting puffy lips, flashing looks. But the whole show was off key, discordant, and the two of them, Kira and Rhea, were like dolls that had been wound up and were running down.

  ‘Kira,’ said Dann, ‘my advice to you is you should go and lie down. Find Joss and lie down. You aren’t well.’

  ‘I’ve been travelling,’ said Kira lugubriously.

  ‘Then sleep it off,’ said Dann. He stood up.

  Kira tried to stand, sat down. Dann clapped his hands and a soldier appeared. ‘Take the ladies out and to the western gate.’

  Kira managed to get herself to her feet. ‘I’m going this way,’ she said, directing herself to go through the lines of soldiers.

  ‘No, you aren’t,’ said Dann. ‘They have orders to kill anyone from the black blankets who try their lines. You will go round.’

  The two, mother and daughter, began an unsteady progress to the main gate. They moved with the over-caution of people who are drunk—but they weren’t drunk.

  The outer door banged shut.

  ‘And now’, said Griot, ‘it’s time we left.’

  ‘Yes, I heard, Griot. Right. I’m ready.’

  ‘Two days,’ said Griot.

  ‘But what are we to pack, Griot? Everything I own has always fitted into a bundle I can carry.’

  ‘Do I have a bundle?’ asked Tamar.

  ‘I’ll show you how to make one out of half a blanket,’ said Dann.

  ‘When we are in Tundra, will I have a room, like I do now?’

  ‘Yes, I am sure you will.’

  ‘And will I be near you?’

  ‘Tamar, don’t be afraid, we’ll all be there.’

  ‘And Ruff? will he be in your room or mine?’

  Ali said, ‘You should let him choose.’

  That night, as the light left the sky, Griot set off into the western part of the Centre, with some soldiers, two on either side. They all wore red blankets. Two snow dogs went with them. They were likeable enough creatures, but when Griot looked for the loving intelligence he was used to in Ruff’s eyes, it was not there.

  Griot and his guards went through the double line of soldiers, telling them to be vigilant.

  They were all used to seeing the Centre at night, dark, its towers and roofs and turrets and parapets standing out against skies that changed with the moon, but now as they moved through the courts and intervening spaces a flicker of fire showed in a corner, or even high up, in an angle of a roof, or at a ruinous window. Griot was not trying to avoid observation. He did not want to run into Kira, but thought it unlikely. She had found a great chair, like a throne, and she sat in one of the emptying museums. There, she and Joss were holding court, and feasted. Griot wanted to make the point that the Centre, until he chose to leave it, was Dann’s, and that Kira was there on sufferance. More than that, he wanted to test something: how he stood with Kira’s army.

  At the western end he came on a company of troops, lying or squatting by their fires. He raised a commanding hand, as they seemed uncertain whether to attack or to run away, and asked them how they did. He stood there at ease, so they could have a good look at him. Most would know him. First, he was so unlike them, this solid, strong man, with his broad healthy face. Those eyes of his, greenish or grey; people noticed them. Nearly all these people that had come from the east, to beg asylum at the Centre, were refused. But they had been given food and drink to take with them. Griot had stood there, sometimes for hours, sad that he was turning them away, though he had understood Dann’s rightness in giving orders that the army could accommodate no more. He had stood there monitoring what went on, to make sure that each was getting a fair share. They would remember him, associating him with food, with help; and he intended now that they should know him as the Captain Griot they would have heard Kira describe with contempt.

  Many signalled their recognition of him, as he stood there. As he moved past this group and went to another he heard, ‘When we are in Tundra, will you give me the red blanket?’ The red blanket, the red blanket was what he heard as he moved about through the shadowy courts, among the cooking fires.

  By the time he had finished his tour he knew that when Kira’s army did reach Tundra, half of them would be deserting to him. Did he want them? He was taking a good look now, to see what effects drink and poppy had already had on these people. Kira had encouraged drinking and poppy: befuddled men were easier to control, she thought.

  Griot did not want what Kira had spoiled, but there were plenty of unspoiled men and women there. But they were not in Tundra yet; Griot was pretty sure that Kira wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave the Centre. There would be the fish coming up the roads he had built from the Bottom Sea. There were stores of food, and the farms growing grain and food beasts were flourishing. The refugees that came in streams from the east brought their supplies of poppy, and all kinds of goods unknown to the Farm or to the Centre. No, there would be plenty of time for Dann’s army to take control of Tundra before Kira stirred her fat self to follow. That would not be the end of it, he knew. Kira and Joss were not a threat,
one too self-indulgent and soft, one too rough and unskilled; not very clever, Griot judged. But there was Rhea, who when Dann was ruler of Tundra would remember she was his daughter after all. Some time in the future, probably a long time off, that imperious girl would arrive in Tundra, demanding her rights. Well, that was the future. And there was nothing to be done now. Rhea was too well guarded to slide a knife into her—not that Griot would have any reluctance to order that, if he thought it would succeed.

  Griot reached the very end where the west wall stood, crumbling, but still strong. He turned; going round the south wall he saw a building with lights in it. He knocked. Leta appeared. At the sight of Griot she began to weep and flung herself into his arms.

  She would not have done that before, when she was here; this woman had had a battering—from Kira, from Joss—and was all suppliant now.

  Over Leta’s head Griot saw her girls, some Albs, those pale creatures whose hair gleamed in the rushlights, and there were the girls from the River Towns, black and shining and smiling at him.

  ‘Oh, Griot,’ wept Leta. ‘I hoped you’d never know we were here.’

  ‘Don’t cry,’ ordered Griot and Leta tried to stop. ‘Dann will be hurt you didn’t tell him you were here.’

  ‘I am so ashamed,’ said Leta.

  But before she could begin weeping again he said, ‘Leta, stop. Please. I’m going to tell Dann you’ve come. He’d be angry with me if I didn’t. He talks about you. He’s so fond of you. Weren’t you with him on that amazing journey?’

  ‘Part of the journey. But things are different now. You can see for yourself.’

  ‘Are you a prisoner?’

  ‘Yes; we all are.’

  ‘In a couple of days our army is moving to Tundra. All of us are leaving. They are expecting us. If you can be ready, I’ll send some soldiers for you, and Kira can’t stop them.’

  ‘And the girls? My poor girls?’

  Griot could not stop sending fascinated glances at those so different creatures, the white Albs, with the black River Towns girls, all sitting about half naked and bored.

  ‘If you can’t be ready when we leave, get to Tundra somehow and then you can decide what you want to do—you and the girls.’