One night, when Omar was enjoying himself at the Veronica, he heard the noise of the girls, and followed the fluttering wings and the clamor as they rushed out to the convertible. He got up, curious: where were they all going, the prettiest of all among them? He saw the scene, then came closer to where the fun was, and admired the convertible. He stuck around, drinking rum from the bottle. He waited for the owner of the Oldsmobile to calm down, and the girls to leave him alone. Then, with a glance, he saw the woman sitting on the back seat. She didn’t get out of the car. Yes, it was the woman Quelé had brought. And she wasn’t from the Veronica: she didn’t look as if she was from the Amazon at all. Tall, and dignified. Her breasts, shoulders, and head hinted at her beauty. She seemed indifferent to the precocious twittering of the other girls, poor and too knowing for their age. Omar, with the bottle of rum in his hand, gazed happily at the woman. With a look like that, he must have seen the red hammock ready and waiting. But she stayed still, with her statuesque head, bronze, with delicate features. Omar was spellbound. Chico Quelé, who was drinking, came up to the car. The two of them talked. Quelé took Omar’s bottle, threw it into the trees, and brought out a bottle of whisky, real nectar. Then the three of them left the Veronica for some nightspot.

Tannus saw the trio on other occasions, always at night, in the convertible. Then, it was just the two of them: the woman and Omar. Not at the Veronica, or any whorehouse or nightclub; he saw them, twice, on the road to the Bolivia bridge. In the ravines around the Cachoeirinha, on three consecutive nights. And, once only, in this bar, sitting at this very table. Omar, perfumed and elegant, talkative and with the look of the besotted lover who’s surrendered everything, heart and soul, and his whole body. She sat quietly, serenely aware of how to receive his attentions. They drank and looked at each other, drank and touched each other, completely absorbed. They looked at the road bordered with shacks that ended at the ravine. Beyond it, the strip of light coming from the floating platforms in the bay of the river Negro. A motorboat passed by, a noise on the river, a light moving in the night. Children from the neighborhood were touching the convertible, marveling at such a wonderful car; like a machine from another world. Stunted, rickety, but still seductive. The Oldsmobile left its tracks; that was the trail the two of them left. The convertible disappeared. Omar and the woman disappeared. It was almost impossible to find them in that world of islands, lakes, and endless rivers.