Free Mara and Dann by Doris Lessing

then?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Mara. Her lips were trembling, and she stood biting them, while he grinned at her, showing big yellow teeth.
    â€˜This is Kulik,’ Daima said. ‘He is the head man here.’
    â€˜Don’t you curtsy to your betters?’ said Kulik.
    â€˜Curtsy?’ said Mara, who had never heard the word.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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, likehard 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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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 othersmust: 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, soft and thick