I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

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 don’t know what all this may lead to,’ I told her, ‘but that’s what’s so exciting: in our absurd existence, I’ve invented something unexpected.’