‘Carajita is the favourite mare in the Velodia Road races – you didn’t know?’ Carajita is part of the noosphere, too. One more reggae and I’ll finally find my way in, I think, and I laugh. ‘Just something I thought of,’ I say by way of explanation, and sip what’s left of my beer. I see colourful bubbles floating through the landscape, the silhouettes of the people all around us: profoundly serious, even intimidating, yet incorrigibly joyful.

‘Hey, I have something to tell you,’ Jaime cuts in when we reach the cooler, still packed with beers.

‘Four, please,’ I say in English to the woman on duty. ‘Oh? What is it?’

‘Actually I want to show you something. I live right over there – come with me for a second? It’s worth it.’ His voice is serious, not suggestive at all. I’m clearly older than he is, with his fine features and soft voice. The din of the picop will bring us back to the blockade eventually.

‘OK, let’s go,’ I say, accepting the beers.

We walk up an unblocked alleyway between houses painted orange and green. Several dogs come out to greet him. He opens a gate onto a staircase: he lives on the second floor, in flats outfitted for students, he says. There’s the bicycle, light, magenta. ‘Nairo’, I say, and he laughs. I can’t help but glance at his legs; I wonder if he’s such a good cyclist after all. We step into the flat – ‘My neighbour lives on this side, the one who forgot her keys,’ he adds. The atmosphere is still and silent inside the large living room. I can see a breadfruit branch through an open window. I sit down on the small sofa and remember to take out my monitor again. The beer has kept me fairly stable, and I can still feel the faint fog of the weed.

‘Just a second,’ he says, walking down the hall and into one of the bedrooms.

He reappears holding a thick book with a blue and white cover. Is he seriously going to show me a book at this time of night? I wipe my forehead.

‘One day I went to the shop by the uni and Josephine asked me about you.’ I instantly think of her voice, the gap in her teeth, and perk up. ‘We ended up talking about your family names.’ He pauses, then sits down in a plastic chair by the sofa. ‘One day I was looking something up in this book about crises and conflicts in Central America and the Western Caribbean and I thought of you.’ He stops for a moment and moves right next to me. The book is open to a section marked with a little red Post-it. ‘I found something here you might find interesting.’

‘I’m not sure if I’m in any shape to read, but I’ll try…’