Most likely no one will come. I shall leave the door open and my story on the table, where it will gradually gather dust. One day, the natural cataclysms that destroy planets will wipe out the plain, the shelter will collapse on top of the little pile of neatly arranged pages, they will be scattered among the debris, never read.
I found out I was ill three months ago. I was on the toilet, passing a motion, when I experienced a new sensation: something warm was trickling down my vagina, that part of my body which had always been so silent that I never thought about its existence. I leaned over the bowl and saw a big black clot, with yellowish filaments. Before I had a chance to panic, I lost a stream of blood, and the pain was so acute that I passed out. When I came to, I was lying on the floor, and it no longer hurt. I got up without too much difficulty, I felt a little giddy, perhaps because of the haemorrhage, but it quickly wore off. I washed, then I cleaned the bloodstained floor, and, remembering what Anthea had taught me, I grilled a piece of red meat to make up for the loss.
The women had talked of the menopause, but I don’t suppose that it affected me, because I’d never reached puberty. However, there’s no reason to suppose that I don’t have a uterus, or ovaries, even if they haven’t developed normally. I was puzzled, then I told myself that there was no point worrying and tried to forget the incident. I’m not adept at this kind of mental activity, and even if I had been, it would not have served me for long. The same thing happened the following day. My symptoms were similar to those of Mary-Jane, who according to Anthea, had a cancer of the sexual organs and went and hanged herself from the bars when she could no longer stand the pain. There was no other alternative, and I wouldn’t receive any different treatment. Anthea had told me that they performed operations, gave morphine. Perhaps there are medicines in the corridor, but I am unable to identify them, and I’ve never found anything that looks like those bottles from which the guards sometimes took white pills when someone had a temperature.
The pain has been excruciating from the beginning, and it is becoming too frequent. I am suffering more than half the time, it takes away all pleasure from life and I’m unable to enjoy the moments of respite because I am so weak. I can no longer climb the stairs in one go and, when I get to the top, I am cold. After a quarter of an hour’s walk, I have to rest. Probably the fact that I no longer eat much doesn’t help, but if I force myself, I feel nauseous. I am nearing my end.
I am all alone. Even though I sometimes dream of a visitor, I have walked backwards and forwards over the plain for too long to believe it possible. No one will come because there are only corpses. How could the father of Prince Hamlet, if he was dead, appear and talk to him? The dead cannot move, they decompose on the spot and are eventually reduced to bones that will crumble at the slightest touch. I have seen hundreds, and none of them has ever come and talked to me in the middle of the night. I would have been so happy if they had! Anthea had tried to explain to me what the Christians meant by God, and the soul. Apparently, people believed firmly in it, it’s even mentioned in the preface to one of the books on astronautics. Sometimes, I used to sit under the sky, on a clear night, and gaze at the stars, saying, in my croaky voice: ‘Lord, if you’re up there somewhere, and you aren’t too busy, come and say a few words to me, because I’m very lonely and it would make me so happy.’ Nothing happened. So I reckon that humanity – which I wonder whether I belong to – really had a very vivid imagination.
I can’t be very old: if I left the bunker at around fifteen, I’m not much over sixty. The women said that, in the other world, life expectancy was more than seventy. But it required medical care. There, I’d have had periods and children, and my useless womb wouldn’t have rotted. I often have haemorrhages, my womb is disintegrating, I know better than to hope that one day it will be reduced to nothing and I’ll regain my health. For some time I have been coughing and I have chest pains: Anthea had told me about metastasis. In any case, it would soon be time to take a hand, but I shan’t wait, I will do it in a little while, because I have almost finished my story and, after the final full stop, there will be nothing to hold me back.
As soon as I realised I was ill, I thought about ways of killing myself. I don’t want to hang myself and dangle mummified on the end of a rope for ever. I want to be lying with dignity, like the man sitting between the folded mattresses; I want to be looking straight ahead of me, but if the pain is too great, I risk something unpleasant. I don’t have either enough time or strength left to go to the bus and retrieve one of the guns that I placed on the tombs, so I sharpened a knife for a long time. If I brush my finger against it, I cut myself. The blade is thin, flat and sturdy. I know where to plunge it so that it goes in straight between two ribs, pierces my heart and stops it. When the pain leaves me in peace, I find it hard to believe that I will do it, when it rampages, my doubts vanish.
I will sit on the bed, and arrange the cushions and blankets rolled up around me so that my body is firmly supported. Everything will be perfectly clean and tidy. I hope there’ll be no blood, which I know is possible. Perhaps nobody will ever come, perhaps one day, an astounded human being, arriving at the foot of the stairs as I did so long ago, will see the dark wood-panelled room, the neatly arranged bed, and an old woman sitting upright, a knife in her heart, looking peaceful.
It is strange that I am dying from a diseased womb, I who have never had periods and who have never known men.
About the Author
Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium in 1929. Her family fled to Casablanca when the Nazis invaded, and only returned home after the war. After studying French literature she started training to be a doctor, but could not complete her training due to contracting tuberculosis. She turned to writing in 1954 and her first work was published in 1958. In 1980 she qualified as a psychoanalyst. Harpman wrote over 15 novels and won numerous literary prizes, including the Prix Médicis for Orlanda. I Who Have Never Known Men was her first novel to be translated into English, and was originally published with the title The Mistress of Silence. Harpman died in 2012.
About the Translator
Ros Schwartz has translated numerous works of fiction and non-fiction from French, including several Georges Simenon titles for Penguin Classics, a new translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and, most recently, Mireille Gansel’s Translation as Transhumance. The recipient of a number of awards, she was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009 and received the Institute of Translation and Interpreting’s John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence in 2017.
ALSO BY JACQUELINE HARPMAN
Orlanda
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