The Cleft by Doris Lessing Read Free Book Online Page A

walk to the place that she could see down there … Just asnot so very long ago the Clefts had – for no reason they could conjecture – begun to give birth to these Monsters, so now a Cleft was doing what not once one of them had done before: left her kind, driven by something that was no part of old Cleft nature.
    She walked further, down the side of the mountain, and stopped. What were those strange pointed shapes down there? She thought at first they were alive, a kind of creature. They were the reed shelters the Squirts had evolved, a kind of reed that grew thick in the marsh that was the mouth of a river not far from here. The reeds were pale, and shone in the sunlight, and she saw that in their entrances sat Squirts, at their ease.
    She made herself go forward, but slowly, but did not know how to signal that she did not mean harm. These were the creatures the Clefts had tormented and tortured and even mutilated. She herself had taken part in the work. They had seen her now, and were crowding together, facing her; she could see their faces turned upwards, staring, frightened.
    She went on down. Two enormous eagles were sitting apart from the crowding Squirts, and they were as tall as she was. Each was teasing at a great fish. As she watched, a boy came out of the river with a fish, which he deposited in front of the eagles, and he saw her and ran to his fellows.
    They were not threatening her, but now they were smiling nervously, uncertain, as she was. She stood there in front of them, not knowing what to do, and they stood looking at her.
    She was staring at their fronts, where the protuberances were. They did not seem so horrible now. She had seen baby Monsters, with their enormous swellings: out of proportion to the rest of them, as she realised.
    She saw that some of the older ones were deformed, unlike the others, and did not at once know that these were the Cleft victims, grown and for ever disfigured.
    A tree trunk had been dragged by them, or had fallen – and her tiredness, for it had been a long way for a Cleft, made her subside on it to rest. As she sat there, slowly they came crowding up, staring, and it was at her middle, which was naked, because this was halfway between full moon and full moon, and no blood flowed then.
    She could see everything of their differences from her; they could see little of hers from them.
    One, grown, sat by her on the trunk, staring always at her face, her breasts, the large loose lolling breasts, at her middle. Driven as she was, she put out a hand to touch his protuberance, the terrifying thing that for all her life had been horrible to her, and at once it rose up into her hand and she felt it throb and pulse. What had driven her here was an imperative, and in amoment she and this alien were together, and his tube was inside her and behaved as its name suggested.
    They stared at each other, serious – and separated.
    They resumed sitting near each other, looking. She curiously handled his new flaccid tube; and he was feeling and probing her.
    Parents interested enough in their children’s development to drop in on nursery games will be able to say what was happening now: they will have seen it all.
    Naked, because of an imminent bath, or change of clothes, the two little children are standing looking at each other. This is not of course the first time brother and sister have seen each other nude, but for some reason both have been alerted to the other’s differences.
    â€˜Why have you got that thing ,’ somewhat petulantly enquires the girl – but we have to imagine that what the tones of their voices suggest refers to far in the future adulthood.
    â€˜Because I am a boy,’ announces the child, and what he is saying dictates a whole series of postures. He thrusts out his pelvis, and makes some jerky movements which he seems to associate with some game. He holds the tip of his penis down and releases it in a springing gesture. All the