One day, his mother did feel shame at one particular scene. Talib’s two daughters, Zahia and Nahda, unexpectedly came into the house and straightaway began laughing. Nervously, they covered their faces with their hands. We heard the laughter and the clinking of the gold bracelets shaking on the girls’ arms. Zana appeared in the room, and before she asked what they were laughing about, looked into the garden: her son, naked, was wound around the trunk of the rubber tree, and slowly, artistically scratching its trunk. Was he trying to extract milk from the ancient tree? When he saw his mother observing him, he moved away from the tree, put his hands between his legs, and felt his groin. He began to groan, making a terrible face. Zahia and Nahda stopped laughing, staring in amazement. They retreated. He was howling, roaring like a madman, pressing his hands to his thighs. Zana shouted for Domingas, and the two of them went to the trunk; my mother immediately knew what the reason for the howls was. Omar was suffering. He gritted his teeth to piss, bit his lips, and began scratching the tree trunk again. “His ramêmi is full of pus,” said Domingas. Zana was shocked: “What did you say? Are you mad?” My mother shook her head: “You don’t know … It’s not the first time he’s caught that illness.” Zana didn’t believe it. At night, the artful gardener escaped over the back fence … This time it was really serious, galloping gonorrhea as we called it. The two of them took Omar to the bathroom, gave him medicine, and wrapped his ramêmi in gauze. He had to go to the doctor, and put up with a couple of injections in his buttock. He came back from the pharmacy walking with a limp, like a parrot. At home, the treatment was no more pleasant. Zana waited for Halim to go out, Domingas boiled water with crajiru leaves, and Omar crouched down beside the basin to get his mother’s treatment. He gripped his groin, twisted and turned, gnashed his teeth, spilled the infusion, and tried to run away. Zana picked up a clean towel and began the application again. In the end, he began to get some relief. We knew when he pissed because of the howls he let out during the night. It was terrible. “Who did this to you?” Zana wanted to know. He didn’t answer. He begged silence from his mother with a suffering look. He was an angel. He wasn’t going to spit on the whores. He stayed there weeding and gathering dead leaves. When he woke everyone with his shouts, Halim was frightened: “What’s happened this time?” Zana calmed him with her lies: “Our son’s got a headache, leave him be, the pain’ll pass.”

“A headache? Snarling like a mad dog?”