I filled one of the big cooking pots with water and boiled my washing for a long time on the guards’ cooker. When it looked clean, I took it up and laid it out on the grass to dry in the sun. That took me the whole day.

I set off again. Now that I had a book and could learn to read, I was sorry not to have a pencil or anything else to write with, to make a note of my route. In the evening, before going to sleep, I practised writing letters in the dirt, copying the sentences and words from the book. I had used a lot of them in speech, so I recognised them, and I thought about how to construct those that were not in there. The first one I tried to spell was ‘cabin’: I had ‘ca’ from ‘can’ and ‘bin’ from ‘compost bin’—I just had to put the two together to make ‘cabin’. Then I spelled ‘cage’. The magic ‘e’ made the ‘a’ say its own name, unlike the short ‘a’ in ‘cabin’. I felt very pleased with myself for working this out and it looked as though I remembered everything I’d been taught.

Sometimes, busying myself in this way, I automatically spoke the words I was trying to write and I was astonished at the sound of my voice, which had become cracked and raucous. I was probably forgetting how to talk through lack of practice. That worried me a little, then I shrugged: so what if I completely forgot how to speak? I would never talk to anyone again!

All the same, I felt nostalgic for a moment. That wonderful dream never recurred, and I was sometimes acutely aware that I was alone, and always would be, and that the only pleasure within my grasp was the all-too-rare one of satisfied curiosity.

I continued from bunker to bunker. In so far as there were seasons on this planet where things varied so little, winter returned. The temperature was slightly cooler and it often rained during the night. I slept wrapped in the waterproof sheet and I set out a little later in the morning, as I had to wait for it to dry. I wore trousers and the jacket. While waiting for better weather, when I wasn’t working on my reading, I made myself a dress from the towels. The ground became greener and the streams deeper. I lost the road.

It had become harder and harder to follow. At first, I told myself I must have made a mistake and confused it with the natural formation of the land. Much as I disliked doing so, I retraced my steps. I thought I’d found it again at the top of a hill, and I scanned the countryside carefully. The direction I’d come from seemed to be the right one, so I went back the same way, hoping that I’d only missed it through a lapse of concentration. I waited for the low evening sunlight, which emphasised the contours of the landscape, and I saw the thin ribbon stretching up the hill opposite. At dawn the next day, I was able to make out further clues, but after an hour’s walking, I could no longer see any clear signs. I decided to cover a vast semicircular area with a radius of five thousand steps. For three days, I walked back and forth, and had to resign myself to the fact that the road ended there.