It was at this time that Zana had her first fall and had to have her left arm and collarbone in a cast. Even so, she put Halim’s clothes out on the line, placed his shoes on the floor of the veranda, his braces and stick on the gray sofa. She did this on sunny days, and in the evening took it all in again, and sat at the table, at the right of the head, where her son had his lunch. At night, she would call Domingas; I took fright and went running to the living room, to find her standing near to the oratory, her chaplet in her right hand.

Rânia could no longer bear seeing her mother living in the company of ghosts. She felt cornered at the mere thought of Rochiram’s threat, and suspected that sooner or later she would have to sell the house to pay the debt. She wanted to live far away from there, and from the racket of the center of Manaus. When there was heavy rain, there was total chaos at the Escadaria harbor and in the Rua dos Bares. While I got up onto the roof to cover it with a tarpaulin, Rânia tried to save the goods in the storeroom. On the pavement, people who had just come in from upriver ate the leftovers from the Adolpho Lisboa Market. She gave them a few coins to keep away from the shop, but others came back and slept nearby. Sometimes, in the middle of a downpour, one of her old suitors came in, left his wet footmarks on the floor, and went out again, humiliated by Rânia’s disdain. At night he would again knock at the front door, ask for her to come down, start up a serenade in a drunken voice, then come back next day to the store, sober, on a false errand, asking to buy the most expensive cloth, spellbound by Rânia’s large eyes. Other men saw her working alone and thought it would be easy to seduce her. She let them buy, spend their money, and then smiled at the next customer. When I was in the shop, these undesirables disappeared.

Then she went, leaving the house and her room. Every morning, on her way to the Rua dos Bares, she came to visit her mother. She said to her: “The bungalow’s really pretty, mama. Yours is the most spacious room, there’s a little garden for the animals, the plants, and a little veranda to put up your hammock …”

Now Zana and I were alone, I in the room at the back, she in the upstairs bedroom. I could read and study more at my leisure, because she had given up keeping the house in order. Visitors were few and far between, and didn’t stay long, put off by sudden gestures, or by her silence. When Estelita Reinoso came into the room to crow, Zana didn’t wait for her neighbor to sit down, she immediately started up: “That pushy niece of yours was always prowling around my house after my sons.”