I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

perhaps like the others I needed to create an illusion to enable me to cope with the misery.

I’d stopped seeing the women as enemies since I’d been giving them what I could: the time.

I remembered no other world than that of the prison, I was the least afraid.

this was the first time that I’d ever found myself alone. No woman could see me, and I couldn’t see any of them. I found that very disturbing.

‘If you stop, I’ll say to myself that half an hour later we might have found something, and I’ll die angry. I want to keep going until my last breath.’

always surrounded by others, I hadn’t been able to become intimately acquainted with my own body.

their vulnerability, their trust, the love you feel for them, the anxiety, being ready to lay down your life to save them, and it’s unbearable to imagine a child’s pain.’