Free The Cleft by Doris Lessing

imagine here is the flickering fast coupling of birds,which we all may see when we go to our farms and estates as the warm weather comes.
    Astre watched, her arms folded across her chest. She shook her head when one of the Squirts seemed to invite her to do as Maire was doing. She was bleeding still, after giving birth, and soon went to the river to see if there was riverweed she could use. Yes, there was, nothing like the seaweed the Clefts used, and she made herself a bandage. The boys watched, and when they saw the blood running seemed to understand.
    The doe again fed the baby and then went off into the forest, while the baby cried. Crying for its mother : so Astre understood, and did not know if she was weeping for herself or for all the little babies (who were probably here, all around her) once left without mothers, or even mothers’ milk.
    At evening the great eagle, who had been watching all this with its yellow eyes, took off back up to his nest at the top of the mountain.
    It was warm, a mild night. The girls were fed fish from the river, and river water from the big shells. They lay near the tree trunk and watched while the community of lads (and some older ones, mutilated badly, though the girls could not judge this) went into the reed shelters for the night, which shone brightly in the moonlight, frightening both girls, though Maire had seen the shelters before. They slept, close by eachother. In the night lads came from the shelters to see if the girls were still there, and because of their caution, looking into the trees, looking around, the girls understood the shelters were for a purpose.
    And the doe? The babe? They were there, hidden in bushes. And if some wild animal did come down from the trees, these two creatures would not have much hope of survival.
    When the girls woke, everyone was out of the shelters, now shining in sunlight, and the babe was lying near the doe who was lying down and stretched out to feed it. Again fish and water were brought to the girls, and – what they had scarcely tasted before – fruit from the forest.
    We have accounts of the visit of the two girls, Maire and Astre, from the male records – ours – and from the Clefts’ histories. They do not disagree, and both insist that what the boys wanted now were lessons how to speak. Listening to the Clefts, they had learned of their clumsiness.
    Both sides were learning fast from the other, particularly as the more they learned, the more they knew how much there was for them to know.
    The girls looked inside the shelters and found a filthy mess of bones, fruit rinds, discarded weed bandages. They tore branches from the trees and used them as brooms. This was in itself remarkable since there were no trees near the Clefts’ shore. The rubbishwas swept into a big pile and added to it were the bones and bits of flesh from the place where fish was brought to the eagles. This pile was swept to the river’s edge, then into the cleansing flow.
    The males caught fish, cut it up with knives made from shells, looked for fruit in the trees, made sure the girls, and the baby when it cried, were fed. They brought fresh grass for the doe, and petted the doe and the baby.
    The girls watched everything, just as the boys watched them. They copulated all the time, as if this was what the girls had come for. Astre too, as her birth flow stopped.
    Astre and Maire sat on the log, with the boys around them, and they spoke sentences, slowly, carefully, easy to hear and repeat. It was already evident that two languages were developing, one being learned from these new arrivals, and one high and childish, which was how the very first community of boys had to speak. They spoke like children, even as little children, and how they did dislike what they heard from each other. Maire and Astre had to be there, to teach them language, teach them how to keep their shelters clean – and to mate with them when their tubes grew alert