And Jerome, with his beautiful, powerful stallion-like body, going without food, without any comforts. Without any money What a family he had belonged to. They had been so wealthy. You had only to mention the name, so well known in the whole country. They spent lavishly, had flashy cars—Citroens, Roils, Mercedes, antique cars.

Raphael, da Vinci and Michaelangelo—Zuleika’s Narrative

Oh, if only my father were here again. Where is he? And my little brother? Everybody says, ‘We don’t know where he is.’ Why was he allowed to disappear? He was being abused by the people he was living with, Aunty Madeleine says. She uses a certain word when she talks of him to others … ‘Those men are paedophiles,’ she says. It’s only Nanna I have now. Where are those parents of mine? I don’t even have their addresses. I can’t reach them in a time of emergency. They too have disappeared.

My mother. My father. How could they allow my brother to get lost, to vanish, never to be found again? And if he were found would he want to return to us? Return to whom? No, there’s no one to return to, only Nanna and myself. Aunty Madeleine says he has plenty of food, drinks and drugs. He has to offer his body too, she says. Aunty Madeleine belongs to the Seventh Day Adventist Church and she’s always trying to help someone. She wanted to save my brother, take him away to Canada. He was on the streets. ‘Selling his backside on the street,’ Aunty Madeleine said. She couldn’t save him because he had disappeared. He’ll never return. Who knows what will happen to him, to my brother. Will I ever see him again? And my other brother, staying with friends. But he hasn’t enough to eat, he goes hungry, I know. My mother comes to visit Nanna. She says ‘Hello’ to me. That’s all. She doesn’t make me feel I am her daughter. She never shows me love. She talks endlessly to Nanna. About her own problems, I suppose. Her new husband is in America. She lives with her new in-laws. She has a child. She doesn’t want them to know that she has a family already. They are supposed to be a very conservative family and would not want to have a daughter-in-law who is divorced or abandoned. She has to conceal everything, her family, us three children, her past.