Shreds of frayed clouds congealed into a dark, menacing mass, covering the light with thickets of moisture. It had rained sloppily while I slept, and all the cars parked along the road were still dripping. The other boy, whose ears did not seem any dirtier than the rest, was not amused. His ears had so much dirt, the eldest boy said, that you could grow wheat in them and make bread. He could hear my snoring through the car window, he said, but not his friend and lieutenant, pointing to a younger boy, because his ears were filthy.

The eldest boy, no more than eleven, clad in a multiyarned sweater, explained that I was snoring loudly. I got out of the car, asking them in Arabic if there was something wrong or if they found me generally amusing. I stretched my arms, used the car’s roof as support, which made the children laugh louder. I had a text from Emma explaining that she thought it would be best to let me sleep, that I should come to the camp when I woke up and call her. I’d slept for hours, my head leaning against the rear window. The kids stepped back from the car as soon as I turned, all of them giggling. And indeed it was a child who woke me-or rather five of them-four boys and a little girl, all in clothes that had seen better days if they’d ever had a good one. I heard strange knocking noises, as if I were in an aquarium with some child knocking on the glass, my head echoing back. I dreamt of my mother, of my father, of sitting before them as an adult, all of us underwater in the Mediterranean, something like that, everything fleeting and hollow. I fell asleep before she finished her sentence. It would be at least half an hour before we reached Moria. Talking to me through the rearview mirror, Emma suggested that I close my eyes for a bit. In the back seat, I suddenly felt exhausted and sluggish. Emma’s rental Honda was much more comfortable. Luckily, we’d decided not to take my Opel that morning. Sumaiya and her family rode the bus while Emma, Rodrigo, and I followed in the car.

The wrong end of a telescope