A water ouzel, the water ouzel, several water ouzels, all the water ouzels.

“It’s just water,” Mommy screamed. “But it can be converted into electricity, it can create jobs. It can bring life to the village.”

“You’re just thinking about the hotel,” Daddy shouted.

“The hotel is what we live on. Have you forgotten that? Not your underpaid journal articles.”

“But this is the River Breio!”

“It’s just water.”

Water, I wrote. One water, the water, several waters, all the waters.

No. All the water.

Nobody heard me typing, how quickly I was typing suddenly, how adept I became at finding the letters.

Chapter Eight

David

We passed the fence. I led Lou out onto the highway. A light wind was blowing there. I wanted to walk briskly, taking huge strides, but Lou held me back. How tightly she hung on there, to one of my hands, while her other hand was neglected. She should have had someone’s hand to hold there as well. The only sound was that of her shuffling child’s feet.

“Can you walk a little faster?” I asked.

“Yes.”

But she walked just as slowly, dragging her feet, not saying a word.

Before she would have protested. Howled. Screamed.

“It would be better if you said something,” I said.

“Like what?”

“You think walking here is boring, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You hate walking.”

“No, I don’t.”

And then she really tried to walk faster. She trotted beside me.

“Take it easy,” I said.

Suddenly I felt pretty lousy.

“We’re just going for a little walk, right?” I said. “Just for something to do. A short walk.”

“How far?”

“One minute.”

She didn’t know how to tell time, had no idea that if she counted slowly to sixty the minute would have passed, that one minute is nothing at all. Sometimes I was surprised at how easy it was to fool her, which made me feel even worse. Not because I fooled her, but because of how easy it was.

I just couldn’t bear to go back to that sweaty, claustrophobic camp. Here out on the road we were at least in movement. We could pretend we had a goal. But there was nothing to walk toward, nothing on which to focus your gaze. Just one little, forest-covered mound was sticking up in the landscape—a ridge was perhaps the word. Really, it was no more than a bump amid all the flatness.

A displaced bump.

“Has a minute passed?” Lou asked after a while.

“Soon.”

“I taste like salt,” she said, placing the tip of her tongue against her upper lip.

“Salt’s good,” I said.

I missed the salt. I missed the mountains and the ocean. Here the air was dry. Earthy, almost sandy. It got into your nose. The air wasn’t fresh, while at home the smell of salt water was everywhere.

Salt purifies. Preserves things. You can put food in salt and it will be preserved forever. You can pour salt water on cuts and yes, it hurts, but salt is clean, one of the cleanest things in the world.