“Ugly? Right now I’m thinking that it’s dangerous,” Magnus replied.

I lifted my hand, placed it on his back, feeling the warmth under my fingers. He didn’t move, didn’t react, not until I pulled close to him. “Admit it. It’s ugly.”

Then he finally put his arms around me. “Fine, fine, it’s a damnable dam.”

“The entire construction?”

“The entire construction.”

“Finally you’re on my side.”

“Are there sides?”

“You know there are sides.”

“Then I’m on your side.”

I believed him, in spite of everything he’d said, even though he so clearly demonstrated that he was moving away from me. I was perhaps naïve. But I wanted to believe in him, maybe, or else he made it impossible not to, because he squeezed me tightly. I grew warmer, from the sun, from his skin—we were alone up there. There was only us, the sky, the mountain, and thousands of liters of water, and maybe our argument had made the day different from what I’d envisioned, but I still loved him and thought that his words didn’t mean anything. I even tried to forget them, because we had to be able to handle an argument. There was no reason to hold back, I remember thinking, no reason to be careful.

And afterward, when we were lying close together, out of breath and naked, on top of our clothing that was like a patchwork quilt over the prickly heather, I can remember that I thought I was happy.

I was happy when we made our child.

Chapter Twenty: David

Chapter Twenty

David

“Have you turned in already?”

When I saw Lou, I was taken aback. During the past few days she’d had more energy and refused to go to bed early. But now she was lying in bed, curled up on her side, her body forming a C under the sheet and with her face toward the entrance.

The hall was almost empty. The majority of the residents were still sitting outside in the hot evening air. They needed to be outside after hiding from the sun all day long. Only the sound of an elderly couple having a hushed conversation could be heard and the breathing of someone who was already asleep.

I sat down on the edge of Lou’s bed, but then she gave a sudden start and contracted her body into a ball under the sheet she had over her like a blanket.

“Is something wrong?” I tried to whisper, not wanting to disturb the elderly couple.

“No,” she said. She answered far too quickly.

What had happened today? I reviewed it quickly in my mind. I had been to the Red Cross. She hadn’t wanted to come along, saying she preferred to stay with Francis.