The End of the Ocean

Chapter 10 DAVID

It was not until we approached the camp that Lou calmed down. Drawn-out sniffles, but no tears.

Summoning my resolve, I attempted once again to distract her from the splinter in her hand.

“Dolphins are really smart, you know,” I said.

She didn’t reply, but I could tell from her eyes that she was interested. “A lot of people claim they are just as smart as people,” I said.

“Smarter than the sailor, at least,” Lou said and sniffled one last time.

“The sailor?”

“You, Daddy!”

“Yes, smarter than the sailor.”

She walked in silence for a while. I could see that a question was brewing inside her.

“Where do dolphins come from?” she said then. “Do they lay eggs like birds? Huge, blue eggs?”

“No. They give birth to living babies,” I said.

“Just like people?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

She slowed her steps, looking disappointed. “But huge, blue eggs would have been nice,” I hastened to say.

She nodded. “Yes. That would have been nicer.”

The sun disappeared behind the trees. It would be dark soon.

I walked faster.

“How big are dolphins’ children?” she asked.

“Um…”

“How do they swim?”

“They kind of slide forward.”

“But how? How do they move? Do they flap, like birds do?”

“No, they just slide.”

“But how?”

“They wiggle their tails, like other fish.”

“Like wiggling your bum?”

“Yes.”

I kept trying to answer the best I could. I didn’t do especially well.

She should have had a teacher. Should have gone to school. But no class instruction was offered at the camp. I was all she had. And I didn’t know anything.

Nonetheless, we agreed to try to find out something about the swimming business. How they actually moved through the water.

Dolphins. I had been interested in them, too, when I was little, I remembered. There’s something about dolphins, it’s hard not to like them. Maybe because they smile.

“One day I’m going to swim with dolphins for real,” Lou said.

“Mm,” I said.

Then I came up with something about dolphins, something I had read once. That it wasn’t good to swim with them. That people who jump in with the dolphins to swim with them actually disturb them, agitate them, keep them from searching for food for themselves and their young. But I didn’t say that to Lou.

It was almost dark when we reached the camp. I was able to borrow a pair of tweezers and pulled Lou’s splinter out without any difficulty. She didn’t cry. Then we went to eat. Francis was sitting outside the mess hall holding his food bowl in his good hand. The bowl was completely empty.

“You have to hurry,” he said. “If you are going to get food for the youngster. They are running short today.”

My stomach growled loudly when we walked in and I smelled food. I was so hungry that I felt dizzy. I snatched up a bowl of brown stew and a few pieces of bread. And a glass of milk. We received one with every meal. But there wasn’t enough, there was never enough. We would have to go to bed right away—the only thing that helped was to try to sleep off the hunger.

I poured half of the milk into an empty glass and held the glasses side by side.

“Are they the same?” I asked Lou.

She leaned over to look.

“Maybe a little more in that one.”

She pointed at the one on the left.

I poured a couple of drops out of the glass on the right.

“Like that?”

She nodded.

“Then you can choose,” I said.

“But they’re the same.”

“Whoever divides can’t choose. That’s the rule.”

“OK.”

She took the glass on the left. I took hold of the other.

“Do you know why you are given milk?” somebody suddenly said from behind us.

We turned around.

“Hi!” Lou said.

“Hi,” Marguerite said and nodded to her.

She had also just received her meal and held a bowl only a quarter full in her hands.

“Do you want to sit with us?” Lou said.

I scooted over a bit on the bench to make room for her.

But Marguerite didn’t move.

“You know that the milk is for the children?” she said.

I looked at the glass I had in my hand.

“No. I didn’t know that. Obviously.”

“That’s why you only received one glass. The rest of us don’t get any.”

“I see.”

I put my glass down on the table and quickly slid it over to Lou.

“Are they both for me?” she asked.

I nodded. Felt how the blood rushed to my face.

“The milk is for the children,” I repeated softly.

“But I don’t mind sharing,” Lou said.

“Thank you,” I said. “But it is apparently for you.”

I stared over at Marguerite as I said it.

She held her head tilted to one side, studying me, as if I were a stupid little man-child.

“Happy now?” I wanted to say, but stopped myself. It was better to keep my mouth shut.

“I don’t need two,” Lou said, and pushed the glass towards me again.

And I wanted milk, I did. No doubt it was cold, would cool my throat, my stomach. The only thing we received that was cold. So I took it. Quickly.

“You’re nice, Lou,” I said.

Marguerite emitted a tiny sound. I didn’t care. My daughter knew how to share, had learned to share. That meant something, anyway.

I took a sip of the milk. Waited for the coldness, but it had already had time to become lukewarm.

We’ve used up all the cold, I thought.

It was Marguerite’s fault. She poked her nose in without knowing anything about us.

August was only a year old. Lou had never really experienced having a sibling. A baby in the house didn’t count. A baby didn’t argue about sweets, a baby didn’t want to have the biggest piece of cake. All the same, or perhaps for that very reason, she was good at sharing.

“Have a seat,” Lou said to Marguerite.

“She probably wants to eat in peace,” I said to Lou.

“Why’s that?” Lou said to Marguerite.

Who sat down.

Or more precisely… took her seat. On the bench beside Lou, an appropriate distance away from her, like she wasn’t really with us.

Silence. I didn’t want to be the first one to speak…

But it was very quiet.

Perhaps I should say something.

She didn’t.

But none of the questions I was accustomed to asking—how’s it going, how about this weather, have you had a nice day—was 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 said.

“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 and tried 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 like she had all the answers, like she was the one who knew how things were at every single refugee camp in southern Europe.

For a while we were silent and finally Lou piped up.

“We found a boat.”

“A boat?” Marguerite said.

“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 and looked at Lou. “Even if it’s only a game.”

And Lou told her. About the boat, about the pirates, the dolphins and the shrewd 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.

There they sat, the two of them, on the bench across from me, laughing at me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

But afterwards, when we went our separate ways, Marguerite reached her hand out to Lou, towards her head, like she was going to ruffle her hair. She held it there stiffly, suspended aloft for a second, before pulling it back, and instead just gave the child a slight pat on the shoulder.

That was something, I thought. That, and that she had laughed.