Even in the guards’ quarters: I don’t think I’d ever formulated that so clearly. Those words kept haunting me and were beginning to annoy me, when at last an idea began to form: we had understood that the guards didn’t want to give us any clues as to the reasons for our captivity and our being kept alive, but we’d always assumed that they knew. What if they were as much in the dark as we were? What if they were forced to do a job that they weren’t permitted to understand? What if by putting the same things in all the bunkers, those in charge wanted to keep all information from them as well as from us? I was electrified by this theory, I could feel my footsteps dancing and I began to laugh. I was perfectly aware that I had only added another question to all the others, but it was a new one, and, in the absurd world in which I lived, and still live, that was happiness.
I would be the sole proprietor of this land, I’d said to Anthea shortly before she died. But I knew that the stones and the cold stores would constitute a paltry treasure. I’d set out with the intention of discovering things – possibly the power plant the women had always talked about, the place from which the orders that governed our lives were issued – anything that was new. To think that the guards knew nothing was a new idea, and to me nothing seemed more precious. I would have liked to celebrate. Since I lived as I pleased, walking, eating and sleeping when I felt like it, I couldn’t invent anything special, but that evening, I lit the fire and grilled my meat with a light heart. I promised myself sweet dreams that night. I don’t know if I had them. Every night, I had plenty of company, and, on waking, I always had the vague recollection that I’d been laughing and playing with women and men, but I never managed to remember anything more specific. That always surprises me because when I am awake, I forget nothing.
Having realised that, in fact, the guards were also victims, I was prepared for the strange encounter that awaited me. I’d been walking for a year, always in the direction of the rising sun. The landscape had changed a little, the long undulations had become hills, and I never climbed them without hope. The rivers were deeper and it was possible to swim in them, which gave me immense pleasure, and I saw new types of tree in the denser woods. I carefully examined the bushes, because I remembered that the women had spoken of wild berries – strawberries, blackberries and raspberries – which all tasted delicious, but I never saw anything that resembled their descriptions. Once, I came across what I thought must be mushrooms, but I didn’t pick them because they’d said that they might be poisonous. It was on leaving one of these woods that I was struck by the lie of the land.
A long valley stretched out ahead, covered with the usual scrawny vegetation and loose stones, but I could immediately make out a strip that looked different: the grass was even sparser, there were virtually no stones. It formed a straight trail to the next hilltop. The women had spoken of roads: could this be one? I went down towards it, deciding of course to follow it, even if it wasn’t heading eastwards, since I’d only chosen this direction to avoid going round in circles. I walked for a day and a half before reaching the summit of a long, low hill. As soon as I looked down, I saw the bus.
I say bus, but of course, initially, I didn’t know what I was looking at. First of all, it was half an hour away and all I could make out was a rectangular shape in the middle of the plain; and then, naturally, I’d never seen a bus. All I had to go on was what the women had told me, and none of them had given me precise descriptions of things that they took for granted. I only knew that it was a vehicle that could carry a lot of people.
My heart was racing as I ran down so fast that I was at the bottom in ten minutes. I stumbled a couple of times, because I couldn’t take my eyes off my goaclass="underline" a huge rusty structure which was ten paces long and twice my height, standing on wheels that were mostly broken, with windows all around. As soon as I was halfway down, I could see the figures sitting in the bus, and I nearly stopped dead in my tracks, but I quickly got a grip on myself. I ran up to it, dropped my rucksack and stood rooted to the spot, trying to take in what I saw. I recognised a door with a handle, and I tried to turn it, but it came off in my hand. The panes were broken, I tugged at the frame, the door opened and immediately dropped off its hinges. I hauled myself up what remained of the steps and entered the bus.
Over the years, the corpses in the bunkers had mummified; these had become skeletons, dressed in the all-too-familiar uniform, equipped with their weapons and strange masks which hid their facial bones. They were sitting naturally, as if death had struck very suddenly and they’d slipped, without being in the least aware of their last heartbeat, into that final immobility where, for years, nothing had disturbed them. The driver was in his seat, his hands still gripping the wheel. On entering the bus, I’d raised a light cloud of dust which settled around me as I stood there dumbstruck. I mechanically did what I’d been doing for years and which had become the very structure of my mind: I began to count. I enumerated twenty-two passengers on the twenty-four seats, sitting in pairs on either side of a central gangway. So there were twenty-three bodies. Each one had a kit bag, either on his knees, or on the floor between his feet. Incredulously I made a careful check: there was no sign of panic, nothing suggested that they’d been forewarned of any danger. The bus had stopped in the middle of the plain and they had all died on the spot.
I stood looking around me for a long time, allowing my wild curiosity to satisfy itself at its own pace. I already knew that it would remain frustrated – I could count myself lucky if this bizarre world that I inhabited was kind enough to add a few more questions to my list of unanswered ones. It was five o’clock and the sun had begun its descent before I was stirred into action.
My interest was primarily in the kit bags: I had explored more than a hundred bunkers but I’d never seen these bags made of coarse, stiff cloth, with straps and metal buckles. I picked one up. Impatience got the better of me while I was taking it outside, I was tense and my heart was pounding. I tried to calm down, telling myself that I wouldn’t find anything extraordinary, but I didn’t believe that, and my fingers trembled as I undid the knots.
On top was a carefully folded garment, of a kind I’d never seen. It had long sleeves, a stiff collar and a belt, and it wasn’t cut from a fabric I’d ever seen before, but from a thick, fairly supple material with creases, pockets, flat seams – the word came back to me at once – and padded parts. I was used to light cotton that fluttered in the slightest breeze and I thought this must be uncomfortable to wear. It was probably a jacket, a garment the women had mentioned but which the men had never worn in the bunker.