We didn’t find much else. We would happily have made ourselves clothes, but fabric and thread were still hard to come by. We lived a peaceful existence and, eventually, the lovers’ quarrels stopped. The older women were ageing visibly, and they forgot the little passion that had drawn them together. Death made a sudden reappearance: one morning, Bernadette failed to wake up. Like Mary-Jane, she’d been a discreet person, and had remained so right up until her abrupt end, which came completely out of the blue. Then Margaret grew very weak, she lost her memory, could no longer recognise us and was unable to stand. She refused all food except liquids and she became incontinent. Following Anthea’s instructions, I built what she called a rack and we made a hole in the mattress, covered with leaves, which we changed regularly, but even so, there was an unpleasant smell in our house, where her life was drawing to a close. Elizabeth, who’d been her lover at the beginning of our wanderings, came and stayed with us, as if her affection had been revived by Margaret’s predicament. It lasted for two months, then it suddenly worsened, she became distraught, at night she had bad dreams which made her scream. Then she’d find the strength to get up and run outside, or she’d be seized by terrible rages. That was how she died, shrieking curses. All of a sudden, while she was struggling against the women who were trying to help her, she went rigid staring at Elizabeth, flung out her arm as if to hit her and was wracked by a spasm. She drew herself up to her full height and stated very clearly:

‘No, it is out of the question!’

And fell down dead.

We chose a clearing in the middle of the wood as a burial spot, first for Bernadette and then for Margaret. For each of them we made a little monument with a mound of stones and a wooden cross on which we wrote their names. The women carved them as best they could with old knives, after which they burnt in the letters with glowing brands from the fire. The second tomb was dug beside the first, and the women called this place the cemetery. Rose sang. A great sorrow reigned over the village.

Death had begun its work. Who would it single out next time? A vague melancholy set in. I think they were wondering why they were wearing themselves out trying to survive from day to day in this alien land where only the grave awaited them, but they didn’t talk about it. They no longer chatted endlessly about nothing, but came and went in silence, slowly, as if weighed down by inevitability. The days went by, and then the months, and the sense of an imminent disaster was dispelled. I realised the day when Elizabeth, who was now the oldest, said to us laughingly:

‘It’ll be my turn next, and look how active I still am!’