The woman guess they have been locked in their dungeon/bunker for maybe 12 or more years they cannot remember why they were brought there, and have no information at all about their present situation and can only remember very little of their former lives. Even to asses the time in the years they have been there is hard to establish. They have been convinced for some time that they are not following a daily cycle of 24 hours.
The child counts her heartbeats, using Anthea's approximate calculation that there should be about 72 or so in a minute - in her former life Anthea was a nurse. She confides in the only woman she likes, Anthea and together they start to work out how to measure the time passing. She starts to apply logic to their situation. Her stunted, but slowly maturing body, has caused her awareness and her brain to question and search for answers. There is no way to punish the child into her usual obedience. And the child has reasoned there is no need for her to explain anything - she says so, and watches the astonishment on the woman's face. One woman approaches her, Annabel, who demands to know why she is alone, sulking different. The child is angry and rebels against the women with whom she feels she can share nothing - they withhold the secret of men from her. They live in an iron-barred cage in a bunker, patrolled around the clock by three guards on changing shifts. There is nothing flashy, extraneous or dramatical - although there are disturbing and emotional events.įrom the beginning our narrator is different, because she is the only child held as a prisoner with 39 women. I always respond well to intellect driven narratives. I particularly liked the beginning which follows the developing mind of our narrator, the child, and later the unnamed woman. For me the straightforward sentences reflect accurately the ability of our narrator, who writes this story at the end of her life.
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