I was taken aback by my thoughts. Suddenly, the secret that was being denied me and the one I didn’t want to share seemed to be of little worth compared with that of the guards: what were we doing here, and why were we being kept alive?

I went over to Anthea who had always been the least hostile towards me. She smiled at me.

‘Well, have you come to tell me your secret?’

I gave an irritable shrug.

‘Don’t be as stupid as the others,’ I said. ‘Look at them. They’re pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first. What are we doing here?’

Anthea looked wary. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We can’t talk about that either! You spend your time kidding yourself that you know things, and you’re using me, who doesn’t know a thing, to convince yourself of your superiority! No one has any idea why we are being so carefully guarded and you’re afraid to think about it.’

‘Don’t always talk about us as a group.’

‘Well, let’s talk about you. Answer me with your own thoughts. If you have any.’

We’re not allowed to hit one another, but if we talk calmly and don’t allow our expressions to betray anger, we can exchange cutting words.

‘What’s the use of talking about it? It won’t make any difference.’

‘There you go again with your stupidity! As if talking only served to make things happen. Talking is existing. Look: they know that, they talk for hours on end about nothing.’

‘But will talking teach us anything about what we’re doing here? You have no more idea than I or any of the rest of us do.’

‘True, but I’ll know what you think, you’ll know what I think, and perhaps that will spark off a new idea, and then we’ll feel as if we’re behaving like human beings rather than robots.’

She put down the piece of fabric she was sewing with plaited hairs and folded her hands on her knees.

‘Is that what you’re doing, when you sit alone with your eyes closed, thinking about us?’

‘I do as I please. Don’t try and force my secret out of me, I’m not some featherbrain who can be tricked so easily.’

She laughed.

‘You’d have been very bright! You’d have had a great future, you would!’

‘We have no future any more. All we can do is entertain ourselves by conversing.’

‘You make fun of the discussion over the vegetables, and yet what you suggest is just as pointless.’

I began to laugh. It was most enjoyable having someone as intelligent as myself to talk to.

‘I find the subject more interesting. Do we know why they locked us up?’

‘No.’

‘Or where the others are?’

‘If there is a reason, we don’t know what it is. Since we’re here, and we’re being kept alive, we think there must be others alive somewhere, but there’s no evidence, and that’s just as well. No one has the slightest idea what’s behind all this. There isn’t the slightest clue. They rounded up the adults—you’re almost certainly here by accident. At first—well, not really at first, because there’s a period that remains hazy in everybody’s minds—but after that, from the time when our memories became clearer, we know we used to think all the time. They could have killed you—but they don’t kill—or taken you away, sent you elsewhere, if there are other prisons like this one, but then your arrival would have brought news, and the one thing we are certain of is that they don’t want us to know anything. We came to the conclusion that they left you here because any decision can be analysed, and that their lack of decision indicated the only thing they wanted us to know, which is that we must know nothing.’