I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

  Obviously, I have no way of knowing how old I was. The others had been adult for a long time whereas I appeared to be prepubescent. But my development stopped there: I started to get hair under my arms and on my pubes, my breasts grew a little, and then everything came to a halt. I never had a period. The women told me I was lucky, that I wouldn’t have the bother of bleeding and the precautions to be taken so as not to stain the mattresses. I’d be spared the tedious monthly task of washing out the rags they had to jam between their legs as best they could, by squeezing together their thigh muscles, since they had nothing to hold them in place, and I wouldn’t have to suffer stomach cramps like so many adolescent girls. But I didn’t believe them: they nearly all menstruated, and how can you feel privileged not to have something that everyone else has? I felt they were deceiving me.

  Back then, I wasn’t curious about things, and it didn’t occur to me to ask what the point of periods was. Perhaps I was naturally quiet, in any case, the response my rare questions did receive wasn’t exactly encouraging. More often than not, the women would sigh and look away, saying ‘What use would it be for you to know if we told you?’, which made me feel I was disturbing or upsetting them. I had no idea, and I didn’t press the matter. It wasn’t until much later that Anthea explained to me about periods. She told me that none of the women had much education; they were factory workers, typists or shop assistants – words that had never meant very much to me, and that they weren’t much better informed than I was. All the same, when I did find out, I felt they hadn’t really made an effort to teach me. I was furious. Anthea said that I wasn’t entirely wrong and tried to explain their reasons. I may come back to this later, if I remember, but at the time I want to write about, I was livid. I felt I was being scorned, as if I was incapable of understanding the answers to the few questions I asked, and I resolved not to take any further interest in the women.

  I was surly all the time, but I was unaware of it, because I didn’t know the words for describing moods. The women bustled about, busying themselves with the few day-to-day activities but never inviting me to join them. I would crouch down and watch whatever there was to see. On reflection, that was almost nothing. They’d be sitting chatting, or, twice a day, they’d prepare the meal. Gradually, I turned my attention to the guards who paced up and down continually outside our cage. They were always in threes, a few paces apart, observing us, and we generally pretended to ignore their presence, but I grew inquisitive. I noticed that one of them was different: taller, slimmer and, as I realised after a while, younger. That fascinated me. In their more cheerful moments, the women would talk of men and love. They’d giggle and tease me when I asked what was so funny. I went over everything I knew: kisses, which were given on the mouth, embraces, making eyes at someone, playing footsie, which I didn’t understand at all, and then came seventh heaven – my goodness! Given that I’d never seen any sky at all and had no idea what the first heaven or any of the others in between were, I didn’t dwell on it. They would also complain about the brutality. It hurt, men didn’t care about women, they got them pregnant and then walked out, saying, ‘How do I know it’s mine?’ Sometimes the women would declare that it was no great loss, and at others they would start to cry. But I was destined to remain a virgin. One day, I screwed up the courage to put aside my anger and question Dorothy, the least intimidating of the two elderly women.

  ‘You poor thing!’

  And, after a few sighs, she came out with the usual reply:

  ‘What point is there in your knowing, since it can’t happen to you?’

  ‘Because I want to know!’ I raged, suddenly grasping why it was so important to me.

  She couldn’t understand why someone would want knowledge that would be of no use to them, and I couldn’t get anything out of her. It was certain that I would die untouched, and I wanted to satisfy my curiosity at least. Why were they all so determined to keep silent? I tried to console myself with the thought that it was no secret anyway, because they all shared it. Was it to give it an additional sparkle that they refused to tell me, to give it the lustre of a rare gem? By remaining silent, they were creating a girl who didn’t know and who would regard them as the custodians of a treasure. Did they only keep me in ignorance so they could pretend they weren’t entirely powerless? They sometimes claimed it was out of modesty, but I could see perfectly well that, among themselves, they had no modesty. They whispered and tittered and were lewd. I would never make love, they would never make love again: perhaps that made us equal and they were trying to console themselves by depriving me of the only thing they could.

  Often, in the evening, before falling asleep, I would think about the young guard. I drew on the little I’d been able to guess: in another life, he’d have come and sat beside me, he’d have asked me to dance and told me his name. I’d have had a name which I’d have told him, and we’d have talked. Then, if we were attracted to each other, we’d have walked hand in hand. Maybe I wouldn’t have found him interesting: he was the only one of our six jailers who wasn’t old and decrepit, and I was probably indulgent because I’d never met any other young men. I tried to imagine our conversation, in a past that I hadn’t known: Will it be fine again tomorrow? Have you seen next door’s kittens? I hear your aunt’s going on holiday … but I’d never seen kittens and I had absolutely no idea what fine weather might be, which put an end to my reverie. Then I’d think about kissing, imagining the guard’s mouth as precisely as I could. It was quite wide, with well-defined, thinnish lips – I didn’t like the full lips that some of the women had. I pictured my lips drawing close to his: there was probably something else I needed to know, because I felt nothing in particular.

  But then, one evening, instead of falling asleep from the boredom of trying to imagine a kiss that would never happen, I suddenly remembered that the women had spoken of interrogations, saying they were surprised that there’d never been any. I embellished the little they’d said: I imagined the guards coming to fetch one of the women, taking her away screaming and terrified. Sometimes, the woman was never seen again, sometimes she’d be flung back among us in the morning, covered in burns, injured, moaning, and would not always survive. I thought: ‘Ha! If there were interrogations, he’d come and get me and I’d leave this room where I’ve always lived. He’d drag me along unknown corridors, and then something would happen!’

  My mind worked incredibly fast: the boy was propelling me along with seeming dedication to his job, but, once we rounded the corner and were out of sight, he stopped, turned to me, smiled and said: ‘Don’t be afraid.’ And then he took me in his arms and an immense sensation surged through me, an overwhelming eruption, an extraordinary burst of light exploding inside me. I couldn’t breathe – and then I breathed again, because it was desperately brief.

  After that, my mood changed. I no longer tried to persuade the women to tell me their secrets; I had my own. The eruption proved difficult to achieve. I had to tell myself stories that became increasingly long and complicated but, to my utter dismay, I never experienced that explosion twice in a row, whereas I wished it could have lasted for hours. I wanted to feel that sensation all the time, day and night, swaying deliciously, like the rare patches of grass on the plains caressed by the gentle breeze that blew for days at a time, but which I didn’t see until much later.

  I now devoted all my time to the task of producing the eruption. I had to invent exceptional circumstances where we found ourselves alone, or at least isolated in the midst of the others, face-to-face, and then, after much agony, I had the exquisite surprise of finding his arms around me. My imagination developed. I had to exercise rigorous discipline, because I couldn’t dream up the same story twice: surprise was crucial, as I realised after trying several times to relive the exquisite gesture that had transported me, without feeling the slightest stirring. This was extremely difficult because I was simultaneously the inventor of the story, the narrator and the listener awaiting the shock of the unexpec
ted. Thinking back, I’m amazed I managed to overcome so many obstacles! Imagine how fast my imagination had to work to prevent me from knowing what would happen so that I’d be caught unawares! The first time I imagined the interrogation, I’d never made up stories before, I didn’t even know it was possible. I was completely swept along by it, marvelling both at such a new activity and at the story itself. Then I soon became adept at it, like a sort of narrative engineer. I could tell if it had begun badly or if it was heading towards an impasse, and could even go back to the beginning to change the course of events. I went so far as to create characters who reappeared regularly, who changed from one story to another, and who became old friends. I was delighted with them, and it is only now that I’m able to read books that I can see they were rather limited.

  I needed to invent increasingly complicated stories: I think that deep down something inside me knew what I wanted from them and objected; I had to catch myself off guard. Sometimes I had to keep it up for several hours, to lull my inner audience into a false sense of security so that she’d be entranced by the pleasure of listening, enjoy the story and lower her defences. Then came the magic moment, the boy’s gaze, his hand on my shoulder and the rapture that invaded my entire being. After that, I was able to sleep. Perhaps, in stopping the story, I was disappointing an inner listener who preferred the story to the turbulence, which is why she always spun it out and would happily have deprived me in order to prolong her own pleasure. Sometimes, halfway through, I’d try to argue with her: ‘I’m tired, I want to go to sleep, let me get to the eruption, I’ll carry on tomorrow.’ But it was no use, she wouldn’t let herself be fooled.

  The women noticed that I’d changed. They observed me for a moment, saw me always sitting down, my knees tucked under, my chin resting on my folded arms, and I suppose I had a vacant stare. I was oblivious, because I wasn’t bothered about them any more, and I was surprised when Annabel came to question me.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Thinking,’ I replied.

  That puzzled her. She stayed a little longer, waiting for me to say more, then went to convey my reply to the others. They argued for a while, and Annabel returned.

  ‘What about?’

  The full force of my anger returned.

  ‘When I asked you what people do when they make love, you wouldn’t tell me, and now you expect me to tell you what’s going on inside my head! You keep your secrets, if it makes you happy, but don’t expect me to tell you mine!’

  She frowned and went back to the others. This time, the debate went on longer. I’d never seen them talk at such length and with such seriousness – usually they’d burst out laughing after ten minutes. Apparently I’d provoked something new in their minds. Another woman then stood up and came over to me. It was Dorothy, the eldest and most respected. Even I didn’t hate her. She sat down and stared hard at me. Her presence annoyed me greatly because she was interrupting me at a crucial point in the story, which had been going on for a very long time: I was going to be locked up alone in a cell and had overheard a few words about the relief night guard who I had every reason to believe was the young man. How could I carry on in front of this old woman who was staring silently at me? At least I could try not to lose sight of the situation: I was alone, breathless and scared, and I could hear voices and the clink of weapons in the corridor. I didn’t know what was going on and was frightened by the atmosphere of urgency and turmoil. I tried to suspend the scene in my mind while studying Dorothy who was studying me. I told myself that if the eruption didn’t happen soon, I would have to make some sense out of the situation. But what on earth could I imagine that would feed back into the static world in which we lived, women locked up for so many years that they’d lost all notion of time?

  ‘So, you’ve got a secret,’ said Dorothy at long last.

  I didn’t reply, because it wasn’t a real question. I could tell she was trying to faze me with her heavy stare and her silence. There was a time, before I’d found the inner world where I entertained myself, when I was still inquisitive and docile, when I’d have been intimidated. I’d have wondered what I’d done wrong to deserve this scrutiny, and I’d have feared the punishment. But now I knew I was beyond their reach: punishments were never more than being left out, excluded from futile, flighty conversations about nothing in particular, and that was all I wanted so that I could continue my secret pursuit in peace.

  Since I didn’t react, she frowned.

  ‘I spoke to you. It is only polite to reply.’

  ‘I have nothing to say. They told you I have secrets. You tell me they told you I did. Well, so what?’

  ‘I want to hear them.’

  I began to laugh, as much to my surprise as to anyone else’s. I’d been used to respecting the women’s wishes, especially those of the eldest who had the most authority, but everything had changed because I could no longer see any basis for that authority. I suddenly discovered that they had no power. We were all locked up in the same manner, without knowing why, watched over by jailers who, either out of contempt or because they were obeying orders, didn’t speak to any of us. They never entered the cage. They were always in threes, except when they changed shift, and then we saw six at a time, but they didn’t speak to one another. At mealtimes, one of the big double doors would open, a man would push a trolley along the gap between the cage and the wall, and another unlocked a little hatch through which he passed us the food. They wouldn’t answer our questions and we had long since stopped asking them any. The old women were as helpless as the younger ones. They had seized some imaginary power, a power over nothing, a tacit agreement that created a meaningless hierarchy, because there were no privileges that they could grant or refuse. The fact is that we were on an absolutely equal footing.

  I sat still for a few seconds, registering those familiar facts that suddenly became stunning revelations, and looking Dorothy squarely in the eyes.

  ‘You want to hear my secrets,’ I said, ‘but all you can do is inform me of your wishes.’

  I noted with interest the effect my words had on her: at first, when she saw that I was about to answer, she looked smug, she must have thought she’d won my obedience. Then she listened, and grasped the meaning of what I was saying, but she was so taken aback that she thought she hadn’t understood.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just think about it,’ I said. ‘I mean exactly what I said.’

  ‘You haven’t said anything!’

  ‘I said I wouldn’t tell you my secrets. You told me you wanted them. That’s not telling me anything new, I was already aware of that. You think you only have to tell me you want to know for me to tell you.’

  That was indeed what she thought.

  ‘That is how things should be,’ she insisted.

  ‘Why?’

  She was disconcerted. I saw she wasn’t thinking about my question, she was so shocked that I could have asked it. She’d inherited a tradition to which I did not belong: when an older woman asks a younger woman to reply, the younger one does so. She’d never questioned that, but I, who had grown up in the bunker, had no reason to comply. After a few moments:

  ‘What do you mean, “why”?’

  ‘Why should I answer? Why do you think it goes without saying?’

  Her gaze faltered. She tried to think, but she wasn’t used to doing so. She looked confused and clutched at the first idea that came to her:

  ‘You are insolent,’ she said, relieved to find an explanation for the incomprehensible words I’d just uttered, certain that it would be enough to return to the habitual ways, to convention, to commonplaces.

  ‘You’re a fool,’ I retorted, intoxicated by my new-found certainties. ‘And this conversation is absurd. You think you have power but you’re like the rest of us, reduced to receiving your share of food from enemy hands and with no means of punishing me if I rebel against you. Seeing as they forbid any authority other than theirs, you can neither beat me
nor make me go without. Why should I obey you?’

  This time it was clear that she wasn’t taking in a word I was saying. I think she’d rather have gone deaf. She muttered, fidgeted a little, then signalled to two younger women to come and help her up, even though she could in fact manage unaided. She returned to her usual position at the other end of the cage. The women stared at her intently, without daring to ask any questions. She closed her eyes to give the impression she was thinking, and fell asleep.

  ‘It’s because she’s old,’ said the younger ones. ‘An ordeal like that is too much for a woman of her age.’

  They resumed their chatter and I returned to my story. I was back in the gloomy cell where I was in solitary confinement. I wasn’t injured – the guards were always careful not to resort to blows. I was huddled in a corner, terrified, and my humiliating posture shocked me. Crouched and trembling – was that fitting for someone who’d just confronted one of the most respected women in the cage, looked her in the eyes and told her she was a fool? Dorothy had been lost for words. I felt a delicious shiver. That was, I think, my first intellectual pleasure. In my imaginary cell, I had to stand up, and now, I had to smile and defy them. It was hard to concentrate on the story, I’d enjoyed the minor battle I’d just waged, and I wanted to savour it, but it didn’t cause the eruption because the young guard wasn’t part of it, so I summoned my inner discipline to return to my private world.

  If the women had had any sense, they’d have let matters rest there. It was still possible to pretend that nothing had happened and avoid an unequal battle. I’d realised that I was as strong as they were and that not confiding a secret, which is within everyone’s grasp so long as there is no torture, immediately makes the secret seem infinitely precious. Their knowledge on the subject of love had seemed to me the ultimate object of desire when they’d refused to share it with me. Now, I scorned their pettiness, I told myself that in other times I’d have got what I wanted from the first boy who came along. In asking it of the women, I was granting them a prerogative that they’d never had, and it only underscored my ignorance. But now their curiosity was aroused, it was their turn to feel excluded and scorned. I’d found the eruption to console me: they remained disgruntled and powerless, sustained only by their gnawing exasperation. They began to watch me.