I climbed out of the sleeping bag as quietly as I could, pulled on my T-shirt and shorts, slipped on my sandals, and went out into the morning. It was a clear day, and the sun was already up, soft and new like a freshly peeled egg. The air smelled green and yellow and deep, fertile brown. In the daylight the farmhouse was smaller than I remembered, only one story high, made from dark wood with a steep roof of old brown tiles. It looked both ancient and fragile, as if it had stood in this place forever but might easily be crushed. Just outside it, the farmer’s daughter was feeding a group of chickens. She was about fifteen, with a bright, heart-shaped face and a timid, childlike smile, and she was wearing a headscarf. She greeted me and invited us to breakfast.

“We’re in the kitchen,” she said. “Come and bring your friend.”

I went back to the barn and found you up, pulling your trousers over your tight, white briefs.

“Hey,” I said, aware of my forced voice.

You zipped up and turned around. “Hey.” You looked almost shy, ran a hand through your hair.

“Hungry?” I asked.

“Starving.”

We walked out of the barn and into the house. There was a dark corridor that smelled of must and soot and earth. Nothing seemed to be moving. A few beams of light revealed a world of dust specks floating in the air, and on the wall Jesus hung on a cross, muscles and ribs defined, naked but for his loincloth. We looked at each other for a moment, quizzically, suddenly close again in the dark. Down the creaking corridor we found the kitchen on the right, where the young girl stood by the stove over a pot of steaming milk. She’d taken off her headscarf, and her long dark-blond hair fell all the way down her back.

“Come and have a seat,” said an old woman by the table in the corner. “You must be hungry.”

We sat on wooden chairs that creaked under our weight. Everything felt as if it had been covered in dust, worn out by generations of use. The plates were chipped and glued back together, the motifs on the cups faded. Faint, pearly light came from a small window.

The old woman looked us over shrewdly, curiously. “My husband is out,” she said. “Help yourself.” It dawned on me that she wasn’t so old after all and that she wasn’t the girl’s grandmother, but her mother.

We started to eat. There were cucumbers and radishes, a pot of honey, and a hunk of bread. The daughter came over from the stove and poured the hot milk into our cups.

“So you’re students,” the mother said.

“Yes, ma’am,” you said through a bite of radish, looking more at ease than I felt. “Just finished our studies.”