The coincidence that had made the siren go off at the precise moment when the guard was putting his key in the lock had been unique. Sometimes I marvel at my fate: I had been the only child among the women, and we were the prisoners who had escaped with our lives. For a few years.

This new control over my route dispelled my melancholy mood. After all, I had made one discovery, so why had I allowed it to make me depressed? There would be more.

I made another discovery.

It was at the end of the day. I was tired and was looking for a patch of ground that would be a good place to stop. It had rained for several nights, but that evening the sky was cloudless, so I could rely on dry weather, which was a relief because I hadn’t been able to light a fire and had eaten my canned food cold and congealed. In other words, I needed a thick grove where I’d find plenty of wood to cut, with as few brambles as possible. I looked carefully about me, but with a specific objective, which nearly caused me to miss the mound of stones. I’d almost gone past it when the feeling of something unusual made me stop. I turned round and saw the mound that stood out so sharply against the monotony of the plain. There were never piles! It was two metres wide and reached almost to my knees. I’d never encountered anything like it—at most, I’d seen a few large stones close to each other, but what I found here couldn’t be natural. I took off my rucksack, put it slowly down on the ground and caught my breath.

I was almost afraid to start moving the stones. I had to rouse myself. The stones were fairly large and I could only pick up one at a time. I realised that I was likely to graze my palms, so I tore off a strip from the blanket and wrapped it around my hands, which slowed me down, but in a way, I found it a relief. I was terribly afraid of being disappointed and finding, after all that effort, nothing but a few shade-loving insects. The pile was artificial, there was absolutely no doubt about that. If it concealed nothing, I would have to ask myself why someone had made it and all I’d have gained would be a new question, that worthless treasure which was beginning to weary me. This world was like a jigsaw puzzle, I only had a few pieces which didn’t fit together. Once, Anthea had explained that game to me and it sounded as though I’d have enjoyed it.

I concentrated on removing the stones evenly from the top of the pile to avoid a rock slide. It was slow work and it took me more than an hour to reach the last layer of stones, which were much smaller and in the shape of a circle. I took the shovel I used every evening to level the ground and began to scrape the earth carefully. I was on my knees, like the pilgrims of the past, and certainly trembling like one. The shovel soon struck a metal surface.