Letters from the Camps

The letters came out of Camp 4 on the second, sewn into the lining of a laundry sack, and reached me through three couriers and a tram conductor who deserves a medal. They are written in pencil on the backs of Form 9, Request to Grieve, because in Camp 4 those are the only forms nobody checks. Nobody in Camp 4 is permitted to grieve, so nobody submits them, so there are always plenty spare.

Morning Correction

Every letter describes it. At 06:00 the inmates stand in rows before the telescreens for Morning Correction. The eye names the day's errors: a woman who spoke to her sister, a man who slept on his side. The errors are forgiven aloud. The forgiven are not seen again at lunch.

We say CONTINUANCE IS CARE forty times at breakfast. I say it with my mouth. With my stomach I say your name. (Letter 2, to a husband in Sector 9)

Extracts

• 'They have taken the word tomorrow out of the dictionary in the reading room. There is only a white patch. We still use it at night.'
• 'The soup is warm, like they promised on the Tithe. That part was true. I want you to know at least one thing they said was true.'
• 'There is a clock above the telescreen with no hands. We made hands out of straw and hung them on it. Nobody has taken them down yet.'

I have read these letters perhaps thirty times. What stays with me is not the fear. It is how carefully they are written: each one a person making sure they are still themselves, in pencil, on a form they were never meant to use. If you recognise a hand, come to the chapel at Hollow Deep and ask for me. The letters belong to the people they were written to. We are only carrying them.