I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

  I was confronted with the human past, in a place that had been designed for the pleasure of the person who would live there. It was completely different from the bunkers. I had only known the prisons, the instruments that served basic needs, the whips and straw mattresses that had to be piled up so we could move around. But this secret underground place was a home.

  I have never changed anything in the way this room is arranged; each time I use an object, I put it back in exactly the same place. There were three chairs on either side of the table on which stood a lamp with a beautiful ochre lampshade, and a large clear glass dish. Away from the table, there were three armchairs around another, lower table, and a big bed with a colourful bedspread on which several cushions were casually scattered. When I was able to look around, I saw, on my right, what must have been the kitchen, with a sink, hotplates and a cupboard containing saucepans and white china plates with a blue floral pattern. One of the taps provided hot water, and the other cold. To the left of the sink was a door unlike anything I’d ever seen, a single wooden door painted white, which opened into a much smaller room, with a toilet, a washbasin and a bathtub.

  When I’d inspected everything, I sat down on one of the chairs, and then in an armchair. I began to laugh. It had taken more than two hours for my amazement and emotion to turn to joy.

  There was so much to investigate and taking it all in was so thrilling that I hadn’t yet realised that one of the ornaments on the wall was a shelf laden with books. My head started spinning again, and I stood staring across the room at them for ages. I had read and reread my gardening manual and knew it by heart. I could feel my eyes widening before this gift, and, to get over the shock, I began to count: there were nineteen books, eight of which were very fat, about three fingers wide. I went over to them: their titles were printed on the spines. At first, I was so intimidated that I tried to decipher them from a distance and thought I’d forgotten how to read. I raised my hand and took one – it felt surprisingly heavy – then I sat down and stood it up on its edge. On it was written: Elementary Treatise on Astronautics. I opened it. The pages were full of words and strange signs among which I recognised the few symbols that Anthea had taught me: plus, minus, multiply by, divide by and equals. I think it was only fatigue that made me wise enough not to go any further that evening. Afterwards, I discovered that some of the others were more in-depth studies on the same subject. I have read them all, every single word. I didn’t understand a thing.

  Do I understand Shakespeare’s plays any better, or the story of Don Quixote de la Mancha, or what is going on in Dostoevsky’s novels? I think not. They all speak of experiences that I have not known. I think I do better with objects – it took me hours to work out how to use a corkscrew and open a bottle of wine, but I managed it. Feelings remain a mystery to me, perhaps because the sensations associated with them are foreign to me, or because they repel me as did physical contact, which seems to be so important in love. Whenever I think of Anthea’s death and the effort it took to hold her in my arms, tears come into my eyes. I try to imagine myself being warm: there’s always a point when the whip cracks. A lot of things the women used to tell me about still puzzle me: I know that there used to be such a thing as money, that everything had to be bought and that they always found it strange to go and stock up from the cold stores without having to pay anyone, but it all remained rather abstract and I can’t really understand why people kill for money like poor old Raskolnikov. True, I have killed, but I did so to relieve my companions’ suffering, and I always had the impression that they were grateful to me. But perhaps I shouldn’t be so certain: my ignorance of human feelings is so vast that they might have hated me without my being aware of it. Nor do I understand why it is humiliating to wear second-hand clothing – I have rarely worn anything else! I loved Rose’s songs and I expect I’d have appreciated music more than literature. If there are recordings in this place and the equipment to play them, I haven’t identified them.

  I realised that five hours had gone by since, up above, I had felt tired and decided to stop, then noticed the mound of stones. I was hungry. I opened one of the cans and ate the contents cold. I assumed that the hotplates were working perfectly, like the lamps, but I’d had enough shocks. I was exhausted and didn’t even want to try them. I unfolded my blanket and laid it on the carpet, putting off using the bed until later. After the whirlwind of emotions, I thought I’d sleep for a long time, but the excitement was too much and after three hours, I woke with a start and was starving again. I went into the kitchen and boiled some water in a pretty little saucepan. The door of the cold store was to the right of the sink, and I was amazed to find a room that was even bigger than the one in the bunkers, crammed to the ceiling with all sorts of meats, but also vegetables and fruit. Each bag had been carefully labelled: there were foods that I’d heard of, but which weren’t to be found in the bunkers, like chicken, venison and roebuck, powdered eggs, tomatoes, parsley, cheese and hundreds of other delicacies which I’ve since become familiar with. And bread, which delighted me especially. I decided to have a party, with a chicken which I sprinkled with herbs, tomatoes, potato croquettes and strawberry jam spread on bread and butter. I put everything out to defrost in the kitchen. Later, I found out how to use a sort of oven in which you can reheat food in a few seconds, but that time, I had to wait several hours. I was so busy that the time flew by. I ran a scalding bath and for the first time I experienced the luxury that the women had so missed. Later, it became something quite mundane and it was only on my return from expeditions that I rediscovered the magic of immersing myself in deliciously hot water in which I liked to fall asleep. There were bars of soap. Of course, everything was new to me and required long periods of thought: the soap bar had me baffled. I was amazed by its scent, which was so unusual for me who had known no other smells than those of the grasses, the few wild flowers and the earth after the rain. I tasted it and pulled a face, it was certainly not something to eat, then I recalled things the women had told me and I rubbed it on my hands, but that was no use, because I hadn’t realised that you had to wet them first. In the end, I got there and I used soap to wash my hair. When it was dry, I was amazed to find my hair so light and flowing, framing my face so graciously.

  I nearly forgot! Of course, one of the most wonderful discoveries was the mirror. I had never seen myself. Anthea had told me I was pretty, but that meant nothing to me, and still didn’t. Even so, I was fascinated and spent hours gazing at myself. I didn’t know my expressions; I learned what my smile looked like, and my serious or worried look, and I stared at them thinking: ‘That’s me.’

  Even now, I like to look in the mirror. Over the years, I’ve followed the progress of the wrinkles furrowing my brow. My cheeks have grown thinner and my lips have become pale, but it’s all me and I feel a sort of fondness for the reflection in the mirror. I must have been fourteen or fifteen when we got out, and Laura had died twenty-three years later. I’d walked for two years before arriving here, in this place which I call my home: so then I was just over forty. That was twenty-two years ago. I suppose I am an old woman, but I still love looking at my face. I don’t know if it’s beautiful or ugly, but it is the only human face I ever see. I smile at it and receive a friendly smile back.

  I opened the cupboards in the bathroom and found a pile of towels, but nothing else. I presumed they were awaiting the baggage of the occupant who’d never arrived. There was nothing put there in advance, which was a pity as it would have told me something about him.

  Then I went back into the kitchen, made some white coffee and put some egg powder in water to make an omelette according to the instructions on the packet. Then, I pulled back the bed covers and slept with my head on a pillow for the first time in my life. I liked that very much.

  The next day, I began my inventory of the corridor. It contained various tools and a number of objects whose use I never did fathom. I suppose they’re electrical gadgets, perhaps assembled, perhaps in
parts. The women had talked of radios, televisions, telephones, motorcycles and cars, and the books on astronautics made me wonder whether it was laboratory equipment that had not found its destined use. There were no written instructions except for the defrosting oven in the kitchen, thanks to which I was able to learn to use it. I prowled around the equipment in the corridor for ages, picking it up and putting it back, because I knew full well that my determination wouldn’t make up for the information I lacked. I still go and look at it sometimes. After all, I didn’t really know how to read when I found the gardening manual, but I managed to decipher it. I can count well, I can add and subtract easily, but I still find multiplication and division difficult. According to Anthea, that’s because I didn’t learn my multiplication tables until I was quite old, and you need to learn them when you’re very young for them to be etched in your mind. Other than that, I know nothing, and the objects in the corridor come from a sophisticated technological civilisation of which I haven’t the least idea. The women had taught me what they knew, which was little – they’d forgotten a lot and, besides, they lacked the implements to show me things. So, I know that people used to knit, and we could have made knitting needles by smoothing very straight twigs, but we didn’t have any wool. I sew when I find thread, which isn’t often. There was none in the house. With time, I completely wore out my trousers and shirts, but I found a nice piece of fabric in a bunker and I’m wearing tunics again.

  The most precious thing I found in the bunker is paper. There were several reams, and a box of pencils. That was how I was at last able to learn to write. The books helped me, even the ones on astronautics. Admittedly, I didn’t understand the mathematics, but they contained many lengthy chapters of explanations in which I studied the ways of saying things, the spelling and the grammar. I spent a lot of time studying the incomprehensible diagrams which went with the text. I copied them and that taught me to draw accurately, keeping the proportions right, so that I was able to map my excursions.

  I decided that this bunker would be my home base. I asked myself hundreds of questions about its purpose. It wasn’t marked by a cabin, but by a mound of stones that could easily be overlooked, and I wondered whether they were meant to conceal it or mark it. It contained more provisions than I’d ever seen in the prisons, and I’d be able to live there for ever. It seemed to me that it was a luxurious place, but obviously I didn’t have a clear idea of luxury. In the ceiling, there are the same air-conditioning grates as in the other bunkers and, when I keep absolutely quiet, I can hear the same soft hum that indicates that everything is working. The bed is very big, several people could sleep in it, and there’s room for six people to sit around the table. In the kitchen there are four dozen glasses and several different kinds of plate. Does one person need all that? I am really sorry that there are no clothes, for not only would it have been useful to find some, but I could also have learned a lot from them. The books only taught me to write. Was this the home of a leader or an outlaw’s hideout? I am certainly too ignorant to interpret things that would probably have been blindingly clear to the women with whom I’d lived, for they at least had seen the world.

  Then I gave up asking pointless questions. I examined everything, but I knew no more about the absent owner of my home than I had done on my arrival. I no longer think about him. Whatever his plans had been, he failed and his domain was now mine. Neither he nor I can do anything about that.

  After two months, I set off exploring again. I made more than fifty expeditions, either walking in straight lines or in concentric semicircles. I found nothing but locked prisons. Perhaps there were other places like the one where I’d made my home, but I didn’t see them, even though I never forgot to inspect the ground, patiently looking for another mound of stones. I have understood nothing about the world in which I live. I have criss-crossed it in every direction but I haven’t discovered its boundaries.

  On my last trip, I was standing on top of a hill, before me stretched a long walk down and a new plain and I could see a cabin in the distance. Suddenly, I was overcome with despondency. I told myself another staircase, the guards’ room, the cage and forty emaciated corpses. I sat down and the realisation dawned on me that I’d had enough. For the twenty or so years that I’d been alone, hope had buoyed me up, and suddenly, it had deserted me. I had imagined, a thousand times, a bunker where the cage would be open, where the prisoners, intoxicated with joy could have escaped. They’d have found the sky, the plain, they’d have trembled, dreamed of towns, of rescuers, but would, like us, have discovered this same hollow freedom. It was as if I could see them before me, looking at me and demanding an explanation: is this what you have to offer us? Leave us alone, we’re better off dead than desperate. I bowed my head and set off home.

  Yet, I set about writing this account: apparently, even if I no longer have the strength or the heart to go off exploring again, my hope, which waned briefly, has not really expired. The bunker I didn’t enter might have been the one, or the next one, or another one to the west that time I went east. Who knows whether, one day, a very old man or a very old woman might arrive here, see the raised cover, be amazed, hope, and start descending the spiral staircase? That person will find these sheets of paper piled on the big wooden table and read them, and someone will at last receive a message from another person. Perhaps, at this very moment, as I end my days exhausted, a human being is walking across the plain as I did, going from bunker to bunker, a rucksack on their back, determinedly seeking an answer to the thousands of questions consuming them. I know that I can’t wait much longer, that I will soon have to deal myself the death blow that my companions so often requested, because the pain is becoming increasingly relentless.

  From time to time, at night, I go upstairs and sit outside. I listen. Recently, I resolved to try and shout at the top of my voice: ‘Hello! Is anybody there?’ My voice was croaky and weak, but I still listened. I heard only the soft rustle of the grass in the breeze. Another time, I collected lots of branches and made a fire that could be seen from a long way off. I kept it going all night, although my common sense told me that there was no one. But it also told me that there are so many bunkers and that probably, most probably, there was another one where the siren had gone off when the door was open, and why should they all be dead? The night goes by, I think of my life, the girl in a rage who taunted the young guard, angry at the present – as if I had a future – or easily climbing the hundred stairs, caught in the web of illusions in the middle of the boundless desolate plain, under a sky that is nearly always grey, or such a pale blue that it seems to be dying. But a sky does not die, it is I who am dying, who was already dying in the bunker – and I tell myself that I am alone in this land that no longer has any jailers, or prisoners, unaware of what I came here to do, the mistress of silence, owner of bunkers and corpses. I tell myself that I have walked for thousands of hours and that soon I will take my last ten steps to go and put these sheets of paper on the table and come back to lie down on my deathbed, an emaciated old woman whose eyes, which no hand will close, will always be looking towards the door. I have spent my whole life doing I don’t know what, but it hasn’t made me happy. I have a few drops of blood left, that is the only libation I can offer destiny, which has chosen me. Then I see the pale winter dawn break and I go back down to sleep, if the pain allows me any respite, on the big bed where there is room for several people.