I went out on deck. From there I could see the entire sky. My eyes stung. The sun burned. It was as if it had grown. As if it grew every day, threatening to swallow the world.

I turned around and discovered that somebody was standing on the bank of the canal.

Marguerite.

Maybe she’d been there for a long time. Looking at the boat, looking at me. Waiting.

There was a suitcase on wheels on the dry grass behind her. It had probably been expensive once, but now it was dusty and dirty.

A suitcase? Had she managed to hang on to it, in the midst of everything? Had she dragged it with her the whole way? The whole way here, but also all the way from her previous life?

“Can I come up?” she asked me. Her voice was almost casual.

I didn’t reply.

Lou crawled out of the saloon and smiled. “Hi, Marguerite.”

“Hi, Lou,” Marguerite said. “Is it okay if I come up?”

“Yes!”

“No,” I said. “I’ll come down.”

“Me too,” Lou said.

“You stay here,” I said.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Fortunately, she did as she was told.

As I climbed down, I noticed that I was shaking. Because Marguerite was alive, good God, she was alive.

“Come,” I said. I walked toward the forest without looking back. But I could hear her following me.

When we’d reached a spot where Lou couldn’t see us, we stood facing each other. Only one meter between us, I wished the distance had been greater.

Her face, her eyes. Even thinner, emaciated now. And so dry and dirty, with traces of filth on her cheeks.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said softly.

I was unable to reply.

“I don’t know what to do, David.”

“. . .”

“I have nowhere to go.”

“. . .”

“Almost no food.”

“. . .”

“David . . . David . . . The camp no longer exists.” And then she collapsed, right in front of me. Her knees suddenly buckled, her entire body, that erect silhouette, dropped to its knees abruptly in front of me.

And she begged. “Water. Please.”

Her eyes were shiny. She was on the verge of tears. No. On the verge of weeping. Women like her don’t cry, they weep.

It was like looking at a picture. A photograph. As if she were a photograph.

Don’t cry, Marguerite, I thought. Don’t waste any more fluids than you have to. We have nothing, we can’t share. I have Lou, I have only her and I can’t give water to anyone else.

“You must leave,” I simply said. “You must leave.”

But she didn’t get to her feet.

“You must leave.” I turned away.

“David, wait,” she said.

I couldn’t keep myself from stopping. Couldn’t help looking at her.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “How . . . ?”

“Lou and I are getting out of here.”

“But how?”