Mary’s father read to everyone by the yellowy glow of a tired lightbulb. He chose a story they all enjoyed and knew almost by heart about a lucky young woodcutter’s son who once gave a cup of water to a thirsty old lady who passed by his garden. The old lady appeared to be poor and scraggly and perhaps a little bit strange, but it turned out that she was a magical person and kept on granting the woodcutter wishes and making him have adventures and introducing him to knights in armour and wizards. The woodcutter found all this a bit alarming and wasn’t always pleased to wake up in a crystal mountain with a task to carry out, or to be sent off on a quest to find something impossible, but he was polite and just carried on anyway. In the end, while he was voyaging between peculiar islands in a talking boat, he met a very kind and lovely stonemason who ended up being his wife, so mostly he was glad that he had given the old lady a drink when she needed it.
Mary’s father decided to read out the passage where the woman on the island puts down her chisel and confesses her undying love. While he did this, Mary’s mother nudged her once or twice, and it was clear to the snake that both Mary’s parents were trying to suggest that she might herself have found someone she liked as much as a stonemason might love a woodcutter. Mary kept rather quiet about all this, but she did giggle now and then and squeeze the snake’s tail slightly too hard when a sentence involving a first kiss was recited.
When the electricity was turned off at nine p.m., because of the rationing, everyone said goodnight and kissed and wished everyone sweet dreams and then got ready to sleep. Mother used the bathroom first and then Father and then Mary.
Once she had turned out her light and slipped into bed, Lanmo settled on her pillow in a contented coil as he had wanted to for so long, his eyes glowing gently. He asked her, ‘Mary, can you tell me about love?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mary and blushed so that the snake could feel it in the darkness. This was perhaps the only lie she ever told the snake, although probably we can forgive her, because very few humans understand all there is to know about love and maybe she didn’t want to say something wrong and mislead her friend.
‘Mary, for many, many centuries I have travelled in every land of the earth and I have met many, many humans. At one time I did my work amongst them without troubling myself to know or understand them. This was partly because they seem very complicated and strange creatures and partly because they do not last very long. Since I met you I have paid them more attention and I have been able to recognise the taste of love in a great number of them. Some of them love places and some of them love things and some of them love themselves and some of them love other people. You taste of the love of other people.’
‘Well, I love you. You are my friend. And you are here.’
The snake tasted the air and coughed in a way that indicated he was a little bit impatient and would like Mary to be plain with him. ‘That has a nice taste,’ he said. ‘It tastes of fresh mice and the steam from ironing clean clothes and of sunshine.’ He looked at her very deeply with his intelligent red eyes. ‘But you also taste of the love which is for one particular person whom you want to kiss a great deal. That taste is flavoured with honeysuckle and pepper.’
‘Oh . . .’ Mary hugged herself and smiled in a way that made the room brighter. ‘That boy you said I should talk to who was called Paul . . . He and I like bats and cats and we enjoy floating and boating and we listen to the stars together while we lie on the riverbank where the grass is soft and . . .’
‘Yes?’ said the snake, feeling a bit jealous.
‘He is a wonderful person. Not wonderful because he is magic like you, but wonderful because he is Paul.’
‘Am I not wonderful because I am Lanmo?’
‘Of course you are,’ said Mary, but then she rushed on to a long description of Paul’s hair and how he walked and the funny and clever things he said, and although Lanmo tried very hard to be glad for her because she was so full-up-to-the-top with joy, he did also get quite bored. Eventually, he fell asleep.
It was almost time for the sun to rise when Lanmo woke. In fact, he had been woken by Mary’s voice finally trailing off into silence. This was not because she had run out of good things to say about Paul, it was simply because she had eventually become too tired to be quite so heartily in love and so her body had insisted that she drift away into a dream about exploring fascinating caves full of jewels and seams of silver and gold and stalactites lollopping down from the vaulted roofs and stalagmites lollopping upwards. Paul was not with her in her dream and this was the beginning of her realising that loving him might mean she would not become a famous adventurer after all. Not unless he also liked adventures. Somehow, she had never managed to mention her plans for being an explorer to Paul. This was because they were very important to her and she didn’t want Paul to laugh at them, or snort down his nose the way he snorted down his nose when they talked about the silly people who couldn’t hear the stars and the silly people who liked lying on carpets and sofas when they could lie on the soft grass instead and feel it tickle and inhale its scent.
While Mary dreamed, the snake sleeked as fast as love to the home of a Great Man Who Loved the People. It was perched on the edge of a cliff with long, high windows that looked out over the ocean and got a perfect view of the storms and the sunsets and passing pods of whales and dolphins. The Great Man Who Loved the People would sometimes open his windows and walk out onto his balcony and stand with his nose pointed into the flattering breeze, wearing his very plain suit that showed he was humble and his very ordinary shoes that showed he was trustworthy and his mildly patterned tie that showed he was sensitive and artistic but not too wild. He felt it was only fair to allow the ocean to look up at a man as wonderful as he was and to be glad as a result. He was sure the whales and dolphins would also find their lives improved by knowing he was there. And now and then he would declaim phrases across the waves to see if they sounded sufficiently inspiring and magnificent. All this was done on behalf of the people, of course, because he was always very humble and mindful of the people.
On this early, early morning, the Great Man Who Loved the People had been unable to sleep. Yesterday he had received a communication from one of his generals telling him that the war he was conducting on behalf of the people had killed eighty per cent of the enemies of the people. There was only one enemy city left standing, the City of Thoth. It was filled with women and children and the elderly. The general had written to say that the City of Thoth had surrendered and that the war could be over soon, which was good because seventy-five per cent of the Great Man Who Loved the People’s people had died fighting it. Everyone wanted a rest now. The Great Man Who Loved the People had thought all night about what would be the most merciful and wise thing to do under these circumstances because he had a soft and refined heart and was tender towards the elderly and always kissed women and children in respectful and popular ways as an expression of love for his people. After much consideration, he had called an official messenger and given him a letter for the general.
The letter read:
Dear General and Commander-in-Chief of Our Magnificent Forces,
As your humble and loving leader I thank you for your brave service on behalf of the people. I thank you also for your news of the war. The City of Thoth, you say, contains the elderly who are left amongst our enemies. The elderly, as you will know, remember much and contain a great deal of wisdom. If the memory and the wisdom of our enemies remain, then they may rise again and defeat us. Therefore the elderly must be killed. The women of our enemies also remain alive there. They may give birth to a new generation of enemies and may harbour feminine resentments about our treatment of their people. Therefore the women must be killed. The children left alive in the city may grow up to be enemies more vengeful than those we already have and may bear further children and eventually fill the world with deadly foes. Therefore the children must be killed. Twenty-five per cent of my beloved people still remain alive. They have not nobly sacrificed themselves in my defence of their way of life. They have not already wiped the dangerous and threatening City of Thoth from the face of the earth. This means they must be traitors. Therefore the remainder of my people must be killed. Once your men have carried out these necessary measures for the defence of my people, you must explain to them that because they had not already killed the traitors hidden in our glorious country (and the evil citizens of the City of Thoth) they are traitors. Therefore they must kill each other and then themselves. You, my loyal and brave commander, have asked me to end the Great War on Behalf of the People. This means you are not true to the wonderful aims of our Great War on Behalf of the People. You are a traitor. Therefore, once you are sure that everyone else is dead, you must kill yourself.