‘Yes, I’ll never get out,’ he replies. ‘I was allowed to go out now and again a long time ago, but it never happens now.’

Stig stares at him, at this cringing, disturbed person. The air here is nauseating because everything is neglected. It is difficult to understand what all this is about. It is torture to move, and he does not try to do so. He merely twists himself over into a better position on the bench. Everything goes black, but then it passes.

The prisoner asks, ‘Are you in pain?’

‘Yes,’ answers Stig brusquely, ‘I am in pain.’

It seems as if he has no desire to talk about it, doesn’t want to give any information. But the prisoner does not notice.

‘Where is the pain, then?’ he asks, concentrating on the need to give sympathy. The ability to do so leaps up out of the layer of dust.

‘Don’t know,’ says Stig unwillingly. ‘I’ve been in there for interrogation. Haven’t you been there too?’

His face has hardened.

The prisoner tries to answer. A thought appears but it is so indistinct that he goes astray inside it.

‘I remember so little about it,’ he admits.

‘Is that possible?’

‘Yes. I remember so little about it.’

‘What have you done, since you’re in here?’

The prisoner wants to answer, since Stig desires it. But he fares no better than the last time.

‘I remember so little about it. I’ve been here a long time. Somebody else was with me before. But not since. Now there’s only the swine.’

‘The swine?’

Yes!’

Extraordinary that anyone should not know who the swine is! Such a large part of existence.

‘The fellow who comes here with food and clean clothes!’ he exclaims, almost insulted that he should have to explain.

‘I see,’ says Stig. ‘About how long have you been here in this room?’

‘Don’t know. It trickles away through a hole in my head, or so it seems to me. No, I don’t know. Last night I thought it was my son, but the swine said I hadn’t been here that long. Not long, he said.’

‘Will you tell me your name?’ asks Stig cautiously. ‘I know about a good many of us. Yet I don’t know anything about you. What is your name?’

‘My name?’

The prisoner is about to tell him. But then he makes the terrible discovery that he is stuck. He has thrown it away. It is here too, so close that he has it on the tip of his tongue, but he cannot get it out. He has forgotten it. The swine has never called him by name, as far as he can remember. And so it has been lost, like so much else.

‘I…I –’ he begins, and gets no further.

Stig tries to dismiss it as quickly as he can.

‘You can tell me about that later. It doesn’t matter now.’

But the forgotten man cannot let it pass so lightly. It is as if he has been brought up sharply because he sees he has come to the edge of an abyss. He has only just managed to avoid falling over. That’s how it feels to have thrown away your name. If he doesn’t find it quickly he will be swallowed up by the chasm. Wait a moment!