“It’s never quiet. It splashes. Gushes. Drips. Pours. The days pass. We fall asleep and wake up to the sound of rain on the rooftop. We have to raise our voices when we talk to drown out the noise of millions of drops constantly hitting the house, the ground, the trees.”

She curled up beside me.

“It’s pouring down,” I continued. “The rain connects everything. The air is full of water. And the canal changes. The drops hit the bottom, penetrating dry leaves, breaking up the hard soil.”

“And what are we going to do every morning?” she asked. “Say what we’re going to do every morning.”

“Every morning,” I said, “we run down to the canal. We stand on the bank and look at how much the water has risen in the course of the night. And we see what happens to the boat.”

“Yes?”

“Soon the water level reaches the hull. The keel is submerged. The water keeps rising. Until the boat is no longer aground. Till we have to moor it to the canal bank.”

“And I catch hold of the line.”

“You catch the mooring line when I throw it and you tie it tightly to a big tree.”

“With a lot of knots.”

“Yes.”

“So the boat doesn’t sail away.”

“And then, one morning, we find the cradle floating on the surface of the water. Gravity no longer holds the boat in place.”

“Gravity?”

“The force that keeps us on the ground. That makes things fall down, not up. And when that happens, when the boat is floating, then it’s ready for us.”

“Then we get on board.”

“We pack our things and get on board.”

“All three of us.”

“And I start the engine.”

“No, I start the engine.”

“You start the engine.”

“Then we sail away.”

“The boat glides slowly through the canals. We pass through the sluices. Toward Bordeaux. Toward the coast.”

“And I get to steer.”

“You get to steer. We’re not in a hurry. We watch the landscape around us, how it changes. How everything has turned green. The water has infused all the grayness with color. The ground is no longer dusty, but safe, solid. The trees are no longer black, they are sprouting leaves. And then we notice something new in the air. You’re sitting on deck when I first become sure. I walk over to you, and Marguerite takes the tiller. I sit down with you. Pull you toward me.”

I put my arm around her, felt her living, fragile body against mine, heard her breathing—a child’s eager and slightly irregular breathing.

“Keep going,” she whispered.