The Word Outside the Hall Is Simpler Than the One Inside: Thirst

Inside the hall they said "allocation," "abstraction rights," "trans-basin equity." Outside, on the same Geneva morning, the word was shorter. The standpipe two blocks from the Concordat's doors opened at six, and by the time the ministers were arguing over their first framework the queue had already turned over twice — canisters filled, hauled up stairwells, emptied, carried back down. "I don't know the formulas," said Tomas Berg, forty, waiting with a hand-cart of empty jugs for a household of nine. "I know the tap runs two hours and I have to be here for one of them." Relief workers from Hearth Relief International moved along the line handing out rehydration salts and thin shade. They have seen this queue in a hundred cities; the novelty this week is only that it stands in the shadow of the building meant to solve it. A young mother near the front summarized the session more crisply than any communiqué will manage. "They are deciding how much," she said. "We already know it is not enough." The ministers broke for lunch. The queue did not.