I drew a breath and tried to speak normally. “Lou ingested some water yesterday, from a rainwater tank in a garden.”

At first he didn’t reply. Then he said slowly, “It’s usually fine. It was bad luck, what happened to my daughter.”

“Bad luck?”

“She didn’t have much strength left.”

“But Lou . . . she’s so thin.”

I lay my hand on her forehead.

“Do you think she’s very warm?” I asked.

“I haven’t touched her,” he said. “Just been sitting here.”

“Feel her forehead. Please.”

He stroked her face with his good hand.

“She’s warm.”

“Right?”

“But I’ve seen worse.”

“Really?”

“Don’t think her temperature is even thirty-nine degrees Celsius.”

“No?”

“38.5, tops.”

“But she won’t drink anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Almost nothing.”

“It’s going to be all right.”

He looked at me and smiled as if I were a little boy. It made me feel like a child. I was a boy. He was the same age as my father. He could have been my father. I almost wished that he was my father.

“You said you’re from Perpignan?” I asked.

“Yes . . .”

“Where are you headed, then?” I asked.

“I was headed here.”

“Same here,” I said. “We were headed here.”

“And then?” he asked.

“I don’t know. We’re waiting for someone. For my wife. And my son, he’s just a baby. His name is August and he’s one year old.”

“You’re fortunate,” he said. “You have someone to wait for.”

The entire day passed, with Francis mostly staying nearby. We took turns sitting with Lou. She didn’t get better. A few times I got some water into her. It always came straight up again.

She spoke very little. With every passing hour it became more difficult getting through to her.

Several times I went to the first-aid clinic. But it was still closed. I asked a security guard. He didn’t know anything, hadn’t seen the doctors for several days.

And there was still no toilet paper.

In the afternoon Francis was gone for a long time. I started wondering whether he had given up on us and had worked up some anger by the time he came back. But the anger melted away when I saw what he’d found.

A soda. A can of sugary soda. I couldn’t remember the last time Lou had had something like that.

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“She needs sugar and fluids,” he said. “And salt.”

He held out a small bag of kitchen salt. “Before you give her the soda, pour this in it.”

He gave me the salt and the can of soda. I sat there holding the can in my hand, taking in the sensation of the smooth metal against my fingers.

The list of ingredients included additives—artificial sweeteners, with neither fruit nor berries.

But the sugar was the most important thing after all. And the salt.