First, everything shook and there was a deep rumbling sound like thunder and the church bells began to ring erratically. The bath spilled its water and the furniture walked the room. Vases, lamps, pictures were upended and smashed into pieces on the floor.

Then a pause, a moment: not a sound, only the tinkling of glass, the chandelier above Elisabeth’s head. There was a sensation of everything being sucked into a hole, of everything rushing silently down, through the floor, down into a drain.

She went to the window, moving as though through some kind of thickness, the air condensed into matter. And then there was another cracking, dry, terrific booming sound and the building started to shake violently again. Elisabeth saw a wave pass through everything outside, as though the city had become liquid. She saw the ground tear open and split apart and the buildings of Caracas toppled over and collapsed, fell into gaping crevices. Great clouds of dust burst into the air; it was hard to see any distance. There was yelling and screaming in the streets.

And in that instant, the balcony fell from Elisabeth’s room, and then the entire facade of the building dropped away. She saw people falling through the air, women, children, dogs and cats. The bath tipped completely now and the water rushed out across the floor, swept over Elisabeth’s bare feet and ankles. She looked down and the shock that had taken hold of her broke. She ran for the door and onto the landing and began down the twisted, splintered staircase, no mind to anything but getting out, getting out.

WOURALI DREAMS

Girodet was frustrated and grew angry. He struck Krüger across the face with the back of his hand, split the skin over the cheekbone, which instantly began to bleed, cut by the ring on Girodet’s finger.

And still the man remained delirious and unreachable.

‘He won’t agree,’ Girodet said.

‘He doesn’t understand,’ Christophe Bergerard said. ‘He’s in a fever.’

‘Damnation!’

‘There’s nothing to be done.’

Girodet stood up. ‘He’ll still add numbers to our ledger,’ he said. ‘If not insight to our cause.’

Bergerard nodded, looking down at the man, who was at their mercy. ‘Hopefully he’ll stay alive long enough,’ he said.

Josephine watched through the window. She waited until the doctor and Bergerard were gone, then came in and kneeled down beside Krüger.

She pressed some of the gummy wourali paste she’d made into the cut across his cheek. It only ever worked if it entered the bloodstream.

‘Sleep,’ she said. ‘Dream.’

Snakes’ teeth (labarri, counacouchi), vines, dried roots, ants, Indian peppers. She’d learned the recipe from her brother, Mr Hendrik, who’d learned it from the forest Indians in Surinam.

‘There be no more living to suffer, man,’ Josephine said, smearing the paste. ‘Let bad heart go.’