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I sat looking at her for a long time, then I lay her on the bench and crossed her hands on her chest, carefully placing her palms downwards. I didn’t have to close her almost blind eyes, which had shut of their own accord. There was no reason to delay. I picked up the shovel and went to dig behind the big house, where the others were already buried. It was a very clear night, as always when the sky was cloudless, even though there was no moon. I didn’t need to dig a very deep hole since there were no animals to come and unearth the bodies, and I wouldn’t bother to leave a mound or sign indicating that the remains of a human being lay there. I would remember, and there was no one else to tell. The grave was ready in an hour. I had to carry Laura there. I’d thought about it while I was digging. I was alone and even though she’d lost weight, I doubted whether I would be able to carry her. I found the thought of putting her on the trolley repulsive: it was too short and her legs would swing grotesquely, whereas I wanted to transport her in a dignified manner. I was in a real quandary, and it was only when I went back to her that the idea came to me, when I caught sight of the big table that I’d made such a long time ago. I would balance it on the trolley, then I’d place Laura on it, carefully shrouded in the best blanket. It was very difficult, and I suspected that years of a sedentary existence had sapped my physical strength. It took all my determination. Night had long since fallen when I was ready to accompany Laura to her grave. I went to pick a few wild flowers to scatter around her face, as the women had done. She was pale, and at peace, looking no more dead than when her heart was still beating and she had lost interest in staying alive.
I began to push the trolley. I had to stop frequently, to remove stones and sweep the ground, it was a slow funeral procession, this burial of a woman by the last remaining woman. I stopped, leaned over and straightened up again. I remembered the descriptions of pilgrimages I’d listened to, of those people who went around churches on their knees, begging forgiveness for their sins. I’d never really understood what that was all about, but I sensed I was participating in a very ancient ritual belonging to that planet from which I’d come but which was so foreign to me.
‘There,’ I said to Laura’s corpse when we arrived. ‘It’s almost over.’
I picked her up as gently as I could and it bothered me less than touching a living person. She seemed terribly heavy and I found it very difficult to lay her down without jolting her, but I managed it. I didn’t want to cover her with earth, crush the peaceful face and the white hair which I’d carefully smoothed. I slid the big table to the ground and pulled off the legs, then placed the top on the grave. I levelled the earth all around and stepped back: it was a fine, clean rectangular tomb. The rain, rare as it was, would doubtless bleach the wood, but it would stay put and Laura could quietly turn to dust.
I went to bed. After all that effort, I thought I’d sleep like a log, but I was too excited by the idea of my departure. At around three o’clock in the morning, unable to wait a moment longer, I got up, rekindled the fire to heat some water, and began packing. When there had been thirty or forty of us, we always had to take into account the old women, who walked slowly and couldn’t carry much, but I was strong and I decided to take three weeks’ worth of supplies, which was more than enough to last me until I came to another bunker. Over the years, we’d found six metal gourds, which I filled with water, because rivers were few and far between. It was sometimes several days’ walk from one to the next. Anthea had told me that meat gave you strength and I had seen, when burying Laura, that I need to build up my stamina again. The cans didn’t contain enough, so I decided to go and get some from the cold store and boil it for a long time so that it would keep.
We’d settled five kilometres from a men’s prison and had, as usual, closed the main door – a humble ceremony which we never failed to accomplish. When I’d taken out my supplies of meat, I wanted to have a last look at my dead companions of the last ten years. With time, the stench had gone, because the air conditioning was still working. As we went from bunker to bunker, I’d grown used to the sight of now mummified bodies piled haphazardly. However, one caught my eye. He was sitting apart from the others, a long way from the locked door. Had he wanted to cut himself off from the frenzied group that had attacked the lock until their very last breath, or had he died last, after dealing the final blow to those who could stand it no longer but were unable to stop living, as I had so often done? He had folded a mattress behind him and two on either side, so he was sitting up very straight, his body firmly supported. He seemed to me to have died proud, holding his head up high, his big eyes staring at the dark passage, with an air of self-respect and defiance. I walked around the cage and went close to him: despite the little left of his face, I had the impression he must have been handsome, the dark beard and withered skin didn’t mask the beauty of his features. His fists were clenched, resting side by side on his knees, perhaps this was how warriors of the past died, weapon in hand, looking their fate in the eyes. His torso was half clothed in a torn tunic, I could see the powerful bones of a shoulder that must have been strong. I felt a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious. I sighed and left.
I climbed back up slowly, because I felt a strange nostalgia calling me back. I would never go down into this bunker again. Oh! I would see a hundred others, there were so many of them, but in this one where I had so often come for supplies, I’d never taken the trouble to look at the withered corpses, and now one of them affected me. I hadn’t noticed him among his companions, and when I finally did see him, I was about to leave. In another life, I might have met him. He wasn’t very old, he could have been a friend of my father’s, or my father himself, since I had definitely had a father. Or even a lover. But all I knew of him was his intention to die with dignity, sitting erect, apart from the others, away from the pushing and shoving, the fears and cries in which the others were enmeshed. He was a loner, like me, a proud man, and I was leaving, knowing nothing of him other than his final plan. But that at least he had achieved. He’d wanted to face his destiny to the last, and someone knew it. As long as I lived, my memory of him would live too, there would be a witness to his pride and solitude. I stopped, hesitated for a moment, then went back down to gaze at him for a long time. There was nothing new to be discovered on his parchment face. I felt a profound sadness. I told myself that that was perhaps how, in the time of the humans, people said goodbye to the body of a cherished lover, by trying to engrave them in their memory. I knew nothing about him, but I knew nothing about myself, except that, one day, I too would die and that, like him, I would prop myself up and remain upright, looking straight ahead until the last, and, when death triumphed over my gaze, I would be like a proud monument raised with hatred in the face of silence.