But none of the questions I was accustomed to asking—How’s it going? How about this weather? Have you had a nice day?—were appropriate, somehow. What do you talk about in a refugee camp? How do you make small talk when your life has gone to hell?

And small talk—that wouldn’t hold any appeal for somebody like Marguerite. She would just laugh at me. No, she would smile, a crooked smile. Best to avoid it.

I put my faith in Lou. She would succeed in lightening the mood. But she was too busy satisfying her hunger. She gulped down her food, even licked the bowl clean.

In the end it was actually Marguerite who broke the silence. “They haven’t received supplies. That’s why there’s so little.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I’ve been at a place like this before. In the mountains. That was the first thing that happened, the supplies stopped arriving.”

“The first thing that happened before what?”

“Before we all left.”

“It will be fine,” I said, hollowly. I didn’t want to have this conversation with her while Lou was listening.

“I haven’t seen a single vehicle come to the camp. Neither yesterday nor today,” Marguerite said.

“You’ve been sitting by the side of the road all day keeping an eye on things?” I said, trying to laugh. “Wasn’t it really hot? Did you sit by the edge of the ditch or something?”

She took a bite of her food and didn’t reply, didn’t even grace me with a glance.

“You’re quite the optimist,” I said.

I regretted the words immediately and hastened to add, “We are fine here. You can tell, can’t you, that this is a decent place?”

As if any of us knew whether this was a decent place. It wasn’t as if she had all the answers, as if she was the one who knew how things were at every refugee camp in southern Europe.

For a while we were silent. Finally Lou piped up. “We found a boat.”

“A boat?” Marguerite asked.

“Not really,” I said. “There was no boat—it was just a game.”

“But there was a boat,” Lou said. “There is a boat. It’s big and blue or black. Is it blue or black, Daddy?”

“Dark blue,” I said. “But it’s just a game.”

“Tell me about it, then,” Marguerite said, looking at Lou. “Even if it’s only a game.”

And Lou told her—about the boat, about the pirates, the dolphins, and the cunning captain.

Marguerite scooted over on the bench, closer to Lou, listened, asked more questions, and Lou explained. They chattered away as if they were old friends.

And Marguerite laughed, she actually laughed, when Lou told her about the stupid sailor.