I went to bed. After all that effort, I thought I’d sleep like a log, but I was too excited by the idea of my departure. At around three o’clock in the morning, unable to wait a moment longer, I got up, rekindled the fire to heat some water, and began packing. When there had been thirty or forty of us, we always had to take into account the old women, who walked slowly and couldn’t carry much, but I was strong and I decided to take three weeks’ worth of supplies, which was more than enough to last me until I came to another bunker. Over the years, we’d found six metal gourds, which I filled with water, because rivers were few and far between. It was sometimes several days’ walk from one to the next. Anthea had told me that meat gave you strength and I had seen, when burying Laura, that I need to build up my stamina again. The cans didn’t contain enough, so I decided to go and get some from the cold store and boil it for a long time so that it would keep.

We’d settled five kilometres from a men’s prison and had, as usual, closed the main door—a humble ceremony which we never failed to accomplish. When I’d taken out my supplies of meat, I wanted to have a last look at my dead companions of the last ten years. With time, the stench had gone, because the air conditioning was still working. As we went from bunker to bunker, I’d grown used to the sight of now mummified bodies piled haphazardly. However, one caught my eye. He was sitting apart from the others, a long way from the locked door. Had he wanted to cut himself off from the frenzied group that had attacked the lock until their very last breath, or had he died last, after dealing the final blow to those who could stand it no longer but were unable to stop living, as I had so often done? He had folded a mattress behind him and two on either side, so he was sitting up very straight, his body firmly supported. He seemed to me to have died proud, holding his head up high, his big eyes staring at the dark passage, with an air of self-respect and defiance. I walked around the cage and went close to him: despite the little left of his face, I had the impression he must have been handsome, the dark beard and withered skin didn’t mask the beauty of his features. His fists were clenched, resting side by side on his knees, perhaps this was how warriors of the past died, weapon in hand, looking their fate in the eyes. His torso was half clothed in a torn tunic, I could see the powerful bones of a shoulder that must have been strong. I felt a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious. I sighed and left.