Дорис Лессинг – The Marriages Between Zones 3, 4 and 5 (страница 5)
‘Is there nothing you can tell us?’ asked Al·Ith.
He smirked at the women, one after another, and then his head fell forward.
‘Al·Ith,’ said a girl who had been sitting, letting her tears run, ‘Al·Ith, what are you going to do with such men?’
‘Perhaps Ben Ata won’t be so bad,’ said another.
‘This man is the commander of all the armies,’ said Al·Ith, and could not prevent herself shuddering.
Their horror and shock made itself felt in Jarnti, and he would have punished them if he could. He did manage to raise his head and glare, but he was shaking and weak.
‘He is going to have to get back to the camp at the foothills,’ said Al·Ith.
Two of the young men glanced at each other, and then rose. They grasped Jarnti under the armpits, hauled him to his feet, and began walking him up and down. He staggered and protested, but complied, in the end, for his brain, clear all this time, told him it was necessary.
This scene is known as ‘Jarnti’s Walk,’ and gives much opportunity for humour to our artists and tellers.
‘I don’t see that there is anything we can do?’ asked Al·Ith of the others. ‘If this is an old disease, nothing is known of it in our medicine. If it is a new disease, our doctors will shortly come to terms with it. But if it is a malady of the heart, then the Providers will know what to do.’
A silence.
‘Have already known what to do,’ she said, smiling, though not pleasantly. ‘Please tell everyone on the plain that I came here tonight and we talked, and what we thought together.’
We will, they said. Then they all rose to their feet, and went with her through the herds. A young girl called three horses, who came and stood willingly, waiting, while the young man put Jarnti on one, and Al·Ith mounted another, and the girl herself got on a third. The animals crowded around Al·Ith on her horse, and called to her as the three rode past.
Out on the plain, headed back towards the camp, the grasses were now standing up grey in a dim light, and the eastern sky was aflame.
Jarnti had come awake, and was sitting straight and soldierly on his horse.
‘Madam,’ he asked, ‘how do you people talk to your animals?’
‘Do you not talk to yours?’
‘No.’
‘You stay with them. You watch them. You put your hands on them and feel how they feel. You look into their eyes. You listen to the tones of their cries and their calling to each other. You make sure that when they begin to understand that you understand them, you do not miss the first tones of what they say to you. For if you do not hear, then they will not trouble to try again. Soon you will feel what they are feeling, and you will know what they are thinking, even if they do not tell you themselves.’
Jarnti said nothing for a while. They had now left the herds behind.
‘Of course we watch them and take notice of how they look, if they are ill or something like that.’
‘There are none among you who know how to feel with your animals?’
‘Some of us are good with animals, yes.’
Al·Ith did not seem inclined to say any more.
‘Perhaps we are too impatient,’ said Jarnti.
Neither Al·Ith nor the girl said anything to this. They trotted on towards the foothills. Now the great peaks of the high lands were pink and shining from the wild morning sky.
‘Madam,’ he said, blustering, because he did not know how to be on an equality with her, or with anyone, ‘when you are with us, can you teach some of the soldiers who are in charge of the horses this way of yours?’
She was silent. Then: ‘Do you know that I am never called anything but Al·Ith? Do you understand that I have never been called Madam, or anything like it before?’
Now he was silent.
‘Well, will you?’ he asked gruffly.
‘I will if I can,’ she said at last.
He was struggling with himself to express gratitude, pleasure. Nothing came out.
They were more than halfway between the herds and the camp.
Jarnti put his heels into his horse suddenly, and it neighed and bucked. Then it stood still.
The two women stopped too.
‘Did you want to go on ahead?’ asked the girl.
He was sullen.
‘He won’t carry you now,’ she said, and slid off her horse. Jarnti got down from his. ‘Now get on mine.’ He did so. She soothed the bewildered horse he had kicked, and mounted it.
He had an ashamed, embarrassed look. He went red.
‘I’m afraid you will have to put up with us,’ said Al·Ith at last.
When they were in sight of the camp, she jumped down from her horse. It at once turned and began cantering back towards the herds. Jarnti got off his. And this one too cantered back. He was standing looking in admiration at the lovely girl on her horse, who was turning around to go.
‘If you ever come to Zone Four,’ he shouted at her, ‘let me know.’
She gave a long look of commiseration at Al·Ith, and remarked, ‘Luckily for me I am not a queen.’ And she sped off across the plain with the two other horses neighing and tossing up their heels on either side of her.
Al·Ith and Jarnti walked towards the camp with the sunrise at their backs.
Long before they reached the camp, the smell of burning meat was strong on the air.
Al·Ith did not say anything, but her face spoke.
‘Do you not kill animals?’ he asked, unwillingly but forced to by his curiosity.
‘Only if it is essential. There are plenty of other foods.’
‘Like those horrible berries of yours,’ he said, trying to be good-humoured.
In the camp they had killed a deer. Jarnti did not eat any of it.
As soon as the meal was over, the horses were saddled, all but Al·Ith’s. She stood watching the beasts adjust their mouths and their teeth uncomfortably as the bit went in.
She vaulted onto her horse, and whispered to it. Jarnti watched her, uneasy.
‘What did you say to it?’ he asked.
‘That I am his friend.’
And again she led the way forward, into the east, back across the plain.
They rode to one side of the herds they had been with in the night, but far enough off to see them as a darkness on the plain.
Jarnti was riding just behind Al·Ith.
Now he was remembering the conversation around the fire last night, the tone of it, the ease of it. He yearned for it — or something in it, for he had never known that quality of easy intimacy. Except, he was saying to himself, with a girl, sometimes, after a good screw.
He said, almost wistfully, to Al·Ith, ‘Can you feel that the animals out there are sad?’ For she was looking continually towards them, and her face was concerned.
‘Can’t you?’ she asked.
He saw she was weeping, steadily, as she rode.
He was furious. He was irritated. He felt altogether excluded from something he had a right to.
Behind them clattered the company of soldiers.