‘You’d better put your watch right,’ laughed Anthea.
‘How do I know where to start?’
‘We’ll watch the sunset this evening. Take that as your starting point and tell us how many hours have gone by at sunset tomorrow. From one sunset to another is a whole day, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dorothy. ‘Doesn’t it depend on the time of year?’
They launched into a confused argument that went completely over my head. The days got longer in summer, shorter in winter, but from one sunset to another was always twenty-four hours, wasn’t it? None of them was completely sure, not even Anthea who was the cleverest. I soon stopped listening to them. Anyway, sooner or later, night would falclass="underline" where were we going to spend it?
Of course, there was no question of going back and sleeping in the prison, and the thought of staying close to the cabin wasn’t very appealing. I’d watched the sun’s progress, and I had the impression that we had a few hours before us until dark. I suggested going down to fetch food and blankets, and then moving away. But in which direction? What if the guards came back? How could we predict where they’d come from when there was no sign of any road? Besides, how had they left? Anthea said there were no beds in the rooms. This provoked a fresh torrent of questions, but Dorothy sensed the impending chaos and reminded the women of what she considered the fundamental question: if we agreed to move away, we had to decide which way to go. So how should we decide? Anthea pointed south: in that direction there was a slight dip in the ground that could conceal us.
The women worried a great deal about the return of the guards, but they never came back. It took a long time for them to shake off their fear, and I couldn’t really understand why they weren’t reassured sooner. The guards had disappeared in moments, leaving no trace, as if they’d evaporated. They’d appeared from nowhere and now they had gone back there and I was less surprised than the others, who had lived in a world where things used to make sense. But I had known only the absurd, and I think that made me profoundly different from them, as I gradually began to realise. We were free.
In fact, we’d merely moved to a new prison.
Anthea and I made several trips down to fetch everything we needed. The women waited for us outside the cabin and relieved us of our load, then we went straight back down again. The third time, they grabbed us, pleased and excited.
‘Come and see! Come and see! Look what we’ve made!’
A few paces from where we’d sat to eat was a clump of bushes, not very thick, but fairly high. They’d uprooted the bushes in the centre, scratching their hands, and thrown blankets over the sides. We’d brought up two shovels which they’d used to dig a hole. I didn’t understand.
‘This is the toilet,’ they announced triumphantly.
‘We’re human again,’ declared Dorothy. ‘We can do our business in private, sheltered from view.’
I was used to the toilet in the prison, and I didn’t immediately understand Anthea’s delight. There were tears in her eyes. She went over to the makeshift construction, stopped, smiled and asked:
‘Is anyone in there?’
They all laughed.
‘No, it’s free, you can go.’
‘This way,’ said one of the women, raising a blanket to reveal the entrance.
Anthea went in, lowered the blanket behind her and stood there for a moment. When she reappeared, she told me it was my turn.
The women’s complaints about having to defecate in public had taught me a lot, and finally I appreciated the importance of the occasion. I sensed I was being invited to participate in the life of the past, in that world they spoke of together and which I now saw they no longer intended to exclude me from, even though I already knew that I’d never be able to enter it. And so I walked towards the little area staked out by blankets while they watched me with bated breath. I could see they were giving me something very precious, and my lack of enthusiasm bothered me. I drew aside the coarse, stiff fabric, went through and let it fall back into place. At once I had a curious impression of strangeness. My heart thumped, I felt light-headed. I glanced around: I could only see the thorny branches and the folds of the brown-coloured blankets that created a screen between the others and myself. I shivered. But I soon understood: this was the first time that I’d ever found myself alone. No woman could see me, and I couldn’t see any of them. I found that very disturbing. I stood there at a loss, contemplating my situation. I discovered physical solitude, something so ordinary for all the others, but which I had never experienced. It immediately appealed to me.
Luckily.
I used the hole, but I felt uneasy because I had to stand with my legs apart, my body half bent over, in an unfamiliar position which I found extremely uncomfortable. I was glad no one could see me in such a pose, whereas I’d never been embarrassed at defecating in front of the other women, happily perched on the toilet seat. Afterwards, I picked up the shovel to cover my faeces as instructed, but I was troubled by the lack of water to wash with and I hoped I hadn’t soiled myself. Then I came out. Later, Anthea taught me how to use a handful of leaves.
Greta and Frances overcame their aversion to going back down into the bunker and accompanied us on several trips while the women prepared the bundles. Each of us had knotted the corners of her blanket to make a sort of bag to hold cans of food, meat and various things we thought would come in handy. We set off. The three big pots full of water were each carried by two women and we took turns, changing over often to ensure the water bearers didn’t get tired and trip up, spilling the lot. It took us more than an hour to prepare. When we left, the sun seemed to be three-quarters of the way across the sky, and we hoped we’d have time to reach the slight dip before dark.
Anthea and I and the two women who’d helped us were very tired. We’d gone up and down the stairs more than ten times, after years when we hadn’t walked more than ten metres in a straight line, and even then, in measured steps, because running wasn’t allowed. The others realised, and helped carry some of our load. When Dorothy noticed I was stumbling, she asked if someone would carry my bundle. Afterwards, that never happened to me again, I soon became the strongest, probably because I was the youngest. In any case, I was the one who found it easiest to become acclimatised, probably because I hadn’t known anything else and wasn’t riddled with regrets.
We were wearing open sandals which impeded our progress because small stones found their way through the holes, hurting our feet and making us limp. Some women tried to go barefoot, but saw that they might graze themselves. It was Laura who had the idea of tearing strips of fabric from her dress and wrapping them round her feet. Soon we had all followed her example.
At the top of the hill, we stopped to look back. Nothing stirred in that vast, arid landscape. We set off again, glancing back frequently, and, as soon as the cabin was out of sight, we wanted to stop, but Greta, who had particularly sharp eyes, said she reckoned there was water down below because she thought she could see the reflections shimmering among the bushes. I’d walked with my nose to the ground, constantly trying not to injure myself despite the makeshift socks. I looked up, but even though I was later to realise I had excellent eyesight, I had no idea what a river running through shrubs might look like. The prospect of water boosted our morale and we decided to go on. Greta hadn’t been mistaken, and, half an hour later, we set down our bundles, removed our dresses and ran towards the cool, shallow water.
I loved my first bath so much that I thought I’d never want to get out. I lay on the bed of the stream, my hair floating in the water, for a long time. I’d have fallen asleep if I hadn’t begun to feel cold after a while.