We continued for months, and from then on it was from mass grave to mass grave. We despaired of ever reaching a town. Our expectations had changed: we hoped to find, one day, an open cage. We even decided to leave traces of our visit, to let the others—if there were any—know. In front of the door of each cabin we cleared the ground and drew a big cross, made out of stones. Anthea explained to me that it was the sign of Christianity, the religion of our ancestors, and that a very long time ago, it had been the emblem of the persecuted. No one feared the reappearance of the guards any more, we had no idea what had become of them, but we were certain that they were no longer there. We also made an arrow to show which direction we intended to take.

‘But supposing there are others wandering around like us? The cross and the arrow are so obvious that they may well use the same symbols, since they too have only stones to write with! We need a signature,’ declared Dorothy, ‘otherwise, we might come across our own signs and not recognise them.’

They didn’t know what to choose. In the previous world, people used to sign their own names, but forty names written in the dust? Thirty-nine, in fact, because we’d never known what my name was, and the women called me the child. What should we choose? A circle? A triangle? Two parallel lines? In the end, Anthea suggested a cross with a circle above it.

‘That will let them know that we’re women. What else do we need?’

‘There might be other women,’ said Greta. ‘Let’s add something, and, since we don’t know anything, not where we are, or why, or where we’re going, let’s add a question mark.’

This took us an entire day each time. Several of us returned to the bunker where the men were and drew big symbols on the ground. Our bunker and the first bunker of dead women were not marked, but many others were—not all, because I didn’t carry on writing the signature on the ground once I was alone. I’d given up believing that any living beings would come.

We walked for two years, advancing in small stages, and then we decided we’d have to stop: Dorothy was growing frail. She was aware of it, but hadn’t wanted to say anything. We could see that she was becoming slower and slower. Attempting to get up one morning, she stumbled and at once it was clear that she couldn’t stand up. Anthea put her ear to her chest: her heart was beating very feebly. We decided to wait until she was better, but after two days, she grew agitated.

‘There’s no point waiting,’ she said. ‘I’m old, I must be over seventy-five, my heart won’t get any stronger. We must go on.’