But he didn’t talk about the duel. He let the stories do the rounds, ignoring new versions in which he or his enemy were reborn as heroes or cowards. Azaz, when he was dead, was resurrected more than once, described as courageous and unbeatable. It didn’t worry Halim. The worst thing, Domingas told me, was after the fight, when he got home and saw his wife clinging to Omar’s waist, saying, “For the love of God, Omar, leave your brother in peace,” and saw Yaqub cornered, on his knees under the stairs, listening to his brother’s threats: he was an intruder, he sucked up to the priests, he couldn’t even speak Portuguese properly, and deserved a good sock on the jaw. Halim saw the scene, swung his steel chain, and shouted: “Now it’s your turn … That’s right, two big boys against their father, let’s see if you’re men.”

Omar went quiet when he saw his father’s back and shoulders bleeding, covered with slits and gashes from Azaz’s knife. Frightened, Zana let go of Omar, and begged Halim to calm down; then, trembling, she asked again and again who had wounded him, and he replied, “A slanderer … who went around saying I had children with lots of Indian girls. Now I think about it, it wouldn’t worry me if I did have half a dozen kids running around out there.” He went over to Omar and told him: “Go up to your room and don’t dare put your foot outside the door unless I tell you.” Yaqub waited for his brother to go upstairs, crawled out of his hiding place, and then ran to Domingas’s room. Halim lay facedown on the drawing-room floor and felt for the knife marks.

“Domingas,” shouted Zana, “leave your baby with Yaqub and come and help me.”

My mother, at the kitchen door, shuddered when she saw so much blood. Halim spent the night groaning, and for some weeks was the most spoiled person in the family, Domingas told me. Zana looked after him, bandaging his back and shoulders, pouring an infusion of crajiru onto the wounds before she put the dressings on. She was afraid of him getting an infection, and he said: “No, the knife was perfectly clean, the filth was only in Azaz’s mouth, and the garbage he spread around …”

Even after he was better he complained of the pain, the itching on his back, and the twinges in his shoulders. Zana saw through the ruse:

“Children with Indian girls? What’s all this then?”

“Look at the marks on my back and shoulders,” he said. “If it wasn’t a lie, do you think I’d have confronted a giant like that, with a knife in his hand?”