Suzanne tries to make small talk with Julia on the way to work but she is having none of it. Adolf sends them off on separate work assignments. There is more silence when they return in the evening and eat. Afterwards Julia says she is going for a walk. When Suzanne asks if she can come, Julia says she’d rather go by herself.
She goes out to the ramparts and watches the swallows swooping. It is a sunny evening and spring feels like it has finally come out of hiding and won’t be going back. Julia spends a long time sitting on the grass. She tries not to think of anything – is that actually possible? She tries just to become part of the scene – as though she were in a painting. Eventually she becomes aware that the people around her are starting to head back to their barracks. Soon it will be curfew. She gets up to go too.
When she returns, Suzanne is writing in the notebook. She looks up as Julia arrives at the bunk. Her eye sockets are big from hunger and red from crying.
‘Can I tell you what happened?’ she says.
Whatever anger was inside Julia is gone. It seems to have evaporated somewhere out there on the ramparts.
She nods.
‘Want to come up here?’
Suzanne pats the mattress beside her.
Julia climbs up.
‘I feel so stupid,’ says Suzanne. ‘All that talk of weddings and bridesmaids. It’s just as you said. He just wants a girl. Any girl. And once he’s had them, he’s on to the next one.’
‘He’s a dickhead,’ Julia says.
She puts an arm around her friend. ‘Never mind. There are other things that are a lot more important.’
‘I think part of me just wanted to find out what it was like.’
Suzanne looks into Julia’s eyes. ‘You know – before I died. I didn’t want to have died and not experienced it.’
‘You’re not going to die,’ says Julia. ‘Not for many, many years.’
Suzanne smiles a small, sad smile. It’s an unconvinced smile.
‘And so?’ asks Julia.
‘And so?’ echoes Suzanne.
‘And so, what was it like?’
‘What was it like? I’m wondering what all the fuss is about.’
After a long pause, she continues.
‘You know ... what you told me ... about the films you were in. You weren’t making that up, were you?’
‘No,’ Julia says softly. ‘I wasn’t making it up. It’s true.’
She’s not sure where this is leading.
‘So you’ve done it a lot more than me. What’s it been like for you?’
‘Overrated,’ says Julia.
She takes her arm off Suzanne’s shoulder. She looks away.
‘There’s something else I need to tell you, Suzanne,’ Julia says. ‘I don’t know where to start with this really but when I was young ... my father –’
‘I know that,’ Suzanne blurts out.
‘You know? How do you know?’
‘Especially when you told me about the films. It was like everything – the way you are, what happened ... what happened between you and me ... it all made sense. Everything fell into place.’
‘But –’
‘When you met me, you thought I was an innocent in the world.’
Julia is so stunned she can only nod.
‘I was a virgin, Julia. That didn’t necessarily make me innocent. I had a lot of time while I was in that attic to think. To think about the world. To think about evil. I came to realise how blessed I was – that the childhood I had had was not the one that many people have. Once I unlocked that door into the world of evil, I saw it was a bottomless pit – that there was no end to the bad things that people could do. I’m sorry – I’m talking too much. You go on.’
‘Before ... before it happened ... before the first time – I can remember so clearly, I was just a happy little kid. You know, you’re born and of course you don’t remember the first few years but then suddenly you’re aware and you’re in the world. And everything just is. Your parents, the house where you live, your room, the bed you sleep in. Everything. And meals appear and people give you presents and it’s not so much that you take it for granted, although I suppose you do. It’s that it just all seems to be right and it makes up the world. Your world. And every day you do things and there seem to be no restrictions or limits.
‘When you go to school, the first restrictions happen. But even then – you’ve got all that time outside of school. And the holidays. So you put up with school – it’s a bit of an inconvenience. But you still have all that time to live your life and be in the world that seems to be just there for your entertainment. Do you know what I’m talking about? Does this make sense?’
Suzanne nods, her eyes soft, the sides of her mouth turned up in the gentlest of smiles. ‘That’s just what it was like for me.’
‘And so then, he did this to me. It doesn’t matter how or when or how old I was. Just that I was a kid. And it changed everything. Everything.’
Suzanne takes the nearest one of Julia’s hands in both of hers. Julia looks down at her other hand. It seems so alone. Just like her. Just like everything, all her life, she has been alone. She passes the other hand across and Suzanne takes that too, holding them both as though she were cupping a pair of birds.
‘I had thought ... I’m sure every kid thinks it – that I was beautiful. In fact, you don’t really even think it. It’s just another one of those things that you take for granted. It just is. Everyone else is and you are. Sure, people might call you names or do nasty things to you but their faces, their bodies – they’re just part of all the wonderfulness of the world. But after that, after that first time, I knew I wasn’t beautiful. If somebody could do that to me, then how could I be?’
Suzanne squeezes Julia’s hands.
‘And after that I was different from everybody else. I carried around this terrible secret. I used to imagine it like a black goblin on my back. Grinning. Laughing. And the worst part ... you know what the worst part was?’
Suzanne’s eyes ask the question. What? What was the worst part?
‘The worst part was that I knew I was to blame.’
‘No, Julia. No.’
Julia continues. She is starting to feel tears coming. She looks down at the dismal colour of the blanket they are sitting on. She takes her hands out of Suzanne’s.
‘I thought there was something about me...’
She bangs her hands on the mattress.
‘Or something I had done...’
She bangs them again. With each piece of the sentence she bangs them.
‘That had made him do this. I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t even begin to work out what it was. Only that there was something ... something...’
Julia looks up into Suzanne’s face. Julia’s eyes are full of tears so that Suzanne’s face is not at all clear.
‘I still don’t know. I still don’t know what that something was that made him do that to me.’
‘Oh, Julia, come here to me, my sweet girl.’
Suzanne takes Julia in her arms and holds her as the tears finally start to flow freely. Suzanne rocks her gently and whispers to her. ‘My sweet child. My dear, sweet child.’
Julia doesn’t know how long they are like this. Eventually she eases herself away from Suzanne and wipes her eyes with her hands.
‘You know none of this was your fault,’ says Suzanne.
Julia nods a perfunctory nod. She’s stopped crying now.
‘So you can see – those films I made. They made complete sense. It was the only career for somebody like me. If it was all right for him to do it, it was all right for anybody and everybody to do it.’
Julia is finished. She has said everything she wanted to say. She feels like she has vomited. But it has been good vomiting. The vomiting after food poisoning. Something very bad inside her has come out.
For a long time neither of them says anything. But there is nothing awkward about the silence. Rather, Julia feels a great closeness to Suzanne. As if reading her thoughts, Suzanne says, ‘I’m glad you told me.’
‘I’m glad I told you too. It’s been inside me for too long.’
Somebody shouts that lights out will be in fifteen minutes. Tonight, for some reason, the queue for the bathroom isn’t so long. The two girls go to the toilet, wash, and brush their teeth. They return to their bunk and climb back up. Julia notices all these little activities as though they were happening for the first time. It is a strange feeling – as though she has never carried out these rituals a thousand times before.
They climb into bed. The weather is warm enough now that there is no longer any need for winter’s spooning. They lie face to face. They are both smiling. A tiny smile of happiness on Suzanne’s face. Julia feels her own to be weary. The lights go out. They move more closely together until they are embracing. They intertwine their legs.
And this is how they fall asleep.