DORIS LESSING
17
then again and again. I was thinking of Them and their small soft Females
with their long black hair and now these Females seemed hard and large
and ugly with their rough reddish hair.
I saw if I wanted I could stay with them and be their Male, but my
heart said no. But we played with their infants for a while while the
Females watched us. They are always nervous when we hold their young.
Yet we never hurt them. We stayed there while the snows went away in
their valley and then there were leaves on the trees and we went wander–
ing through the forests eating the leaves and the caterpillars and the eggs
in the nests. And all the time I thought of Them, of Them, I thought all
the time only of Them and I knew I was sick, or sickening, for my heart
hurt so much. One early morning when my brothers were still asleep in a
nest of branches high in a tree I slid down and ran off around the curve of
the mountain and then ran and ran and then I came down into the green
and Their place. They were all out of their huts and making another
piece of earth ready to put seeds into. When They saw me They shouted.
I thought it was anger and They would hurt me and I ran away a little
and then I looked back and saw They were pleased and shaking Their
hands at me. The children were jumping up and down and shouting and
hitting their hands together. I slowly went back to Them. I stood there
some way from Them the way I did the first time and looked for the
Female with the long hair and then I saw her. She had an infant.
It
did
not look very different from our infants. Ours do not have very much
hair when they are born, but they are pinker and more wrinkled than
Their infants. She was with her Male. She came forward and gave me
some food, and I saw he did not like this. I wanted to hold her infant, and
tried to take it, but he pulled her back. My heart hurt and I was making
the noises an infant makes when it is not pleased. She saw this and while
he kept his hand on her arm she held out the infant so I could see it. Its
eyes were black and shining and it was smooth and pale and very small
and on its head was a soft black flufflike a new bird.
Then They showed me what they wanted me to do. They were car–
rying away stones from the earth. Some were big stones. I began carrying
the big stones to the side of the cleared earth. We were piling them
there. Now I saw where the stones came from they used to make the big
safe place for their four-legged animals with the long hair on their necks.
But they weren't in the safe place now, they were out eating the new
grass under the trees.
I worked there with Them all day. When the sun was high They
gave me food. I sat near Them and ate. When the dark came I tried to go
with the Female I liked and her infant but her Male said no. My heart
hurt. Some youngsters let me into their hut and I sat against the wall and
looked at their fire and thought how easy our winters would be if we had
