I didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t bring myself to talk now.

“Daddy? Where is the most water? In the world or in the oceans?”

“The oceans are also a part of the world,” I said.

“And is it water when it’s salty?”

“Yes, it’s still water.”

“Are there oceans that aren’t salty?”

“Do you remember when we went up into the mountains?” I asked.

“The mountains?”

“Do you remember you swam in a lake up there?”

“In my yellow bathing suit?”

“Yes.”

“I went swimming in the yellow bathing suit even though it was too small for me.”

“That was the time, yes.”

“But it wasn’t too small. I was the one who had grown too big.”

“Yes . . . The water you went swimming in then, it wasn’t salty.”

“Did we drink it?”

“No, but we could have drunk it.”

“Why didn’t we drink it?”

“I don’t know. I imagine because we’d brought bottled water.”

“Why?”

“Well . . .”

“Daddy, can we go there? To the lake?”

“It’s no longer possible.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“The drought?”

“Yes.”

“And there’s no lake like that here without salt? Fresh water?”

“No. Maybe there were lakes here. But now they’ve dried up.”

“Too bad.”

“Yes.”

“How many freshwater lakes are there?”

“A lot.”

“More than ten?”

“More than ten.”

“More than a hundred?”

“More than a million. There are even lakes under the ground.”

“Under the ground? That we walk on?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not true. You can’t walk on water.”

“Yes, you can. It’s called groundwater.”

“And we walk on it?”

“In some places there’s a lot. In South America, for example, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the Guarani reservoir is located underground.”

“We walk on it. Like Jesus.”

“We walk on the ground, but the water is beneath us, between layers of soil and stone, so it’s not exactly like Jesus.”

“But almost.”

“There’s groundwater everywhere. It’s under us now too.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“But why can’t we just dig for it?”

“It’s too deep. And the water is mixed with soil and stones.”

“Can’t we try?”

“People did try a long time ago.”

“But what about that place in America, then?”

“South America. There you can dig for it. And it’s enormous. It extends all the way under Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.”

“Paraguay, Uruguay?”

“It’s much bigger than all of France. . . . There’s enough water for the whole world to survive on.”

“Wow.”

“For two hundred years.”

“Wow!”

“Yes. Wow.”

“Who owns it?”

“I don’t know. . . . I guess it’s the people who own the land on top of it.”

“But somebody owns it?”

“I believe so.”

“How can somebody own water?”