“I’ll tell you a story.” She twisted a knob, and a cloud of steam escaped from her machine. “Where I grew up, each election brought some fresh scandal and violence. With each turn, a new figure would appear to promise, ‘It will be different now.’ And then they would collude with the old guard to ensure things stayed the same.

“For many generations, our kind accepted this because it was balanced with the beauty of our home. It was the plants and animals of our community that made life livable; politics was a farce we laughed at. You can’t understand the riches we had around us. There were fruit orchards. There were peanuts, the best passion fruit, and tamarind and guava. Everyone had a garden. Even the poorest had lushness within claw’s reach.”

Pamella purred in fruit reverie.

“But little by little coffee began to replace the other crops. At first, we hardly noticed, but then the coffee owners began to want more. They wanted everything. Our whole community moved, but the landowners also wanted the place we moved to. This process continued until we wound up pushed to the coast.”

“Is that when you came here?” Alfonzo asked.

“No, no. First the comedy had to get worse. There was a scandal. The president was lining his bank accounts with coffee money. And despite all the land deals, the treasury was a hollow shell. I remember how angry my father was. He was a citizen, he fumed. He was a respectable lemur who obeyed the law, but this was too much. He went out onto the streets to join the animal masses. They stampeded to the presidential palace to protest against coffee. A snap election was called. We rejoiced. The opposition party gained a wave of followers when they promised—they swore on their mothers’ bones—that a vote for them was a vote against coffee.”

“What happened?”

“The opposition won. We believed that this time we, the regular animals, had won. The coffee growers were compelled to leave. My mother dared to suggest that we might return to our home territory. The new party seemed to be keeping their word until they quietly began to roll out a new plan. The coffee lands would be replanted with tea. The economy would run on tea, which they assured us was much healthier and more patriotic. ‘Tea is not coffee,’ the new president beamed from the TV sets, and no one could say he was lying.”

Alfonzo couldn’t breathe right. The coffee-shop air smelled of yeast, pipe tobacco, and malt. It smelled of owners’ houses and pickers’ shacks. It smelled of chocolate and dung and matted earth and scented candles.

“But then what was the point? Didn’t you feel hopeless?” Alfonzo asked.