We waited for him until far into the night. My mother and I in our room at the back; Rânia and Zana upstairs, lying down, with the door open, listening for any noise. Two struck, and no sign of Halim. At around three, I heard my mother snore, a sound like a deep whistle or breathing. A tinamou hooted somewhere near; I looked out into the garden, on the ground—there was no sign of the bird. Then I recognized the sound of an ani, and felt melancholy, and a bit dizzy. The thick tops of the trees covered the back of the house. A strange little noise came through the night; it might be a hungry opossum looking for a hen coop or bats eating sweet rose apples. I remember that the words in the book I was reading gradually faded and disappeared. The book, too, was swallowed by the darkness. I nodded over my worktable. About five in the morning (or a little later, because the slum at the back showed signs of waking and the night was beginning to lose its blackness) a noise woke me up. I saw a light in the kitchen, and then a figure. It was a woman. Zana’s right hand appeared, lit by a candle. She came out slowly, holding a bowl, with the lighted candle in her other hand. She crossed the living room, and before she went up, stopped near the stairs. She stopped, turned her head, and gave a dreadful cry. The bowl smashed on the floor, and the candle trembled in her hand. Domingas woke out of her dream and seemed to plunge into a nightmare: her sleepy face turned into a terrified mask. The two of us went towards the room: Halim was there, his arms crossed, sitting on the gray sofa. Zana gave a step towards him, and asked him why he’d gone to sleep on the sofa. Then, shaking less, she managed to illuminate his body and found the courage to ask one more question: why had he come back so late? Then, in an Arabic accent, on her knees, she shouted his name, touching his face now with her two hands. Halim didn’t reply.

He was quiet, as never before.

Silent, forever.

8

8

One October afternoon, some two months before Halim’s death, Omar disappeared. It was hot as hell, and the October sun makes everyone feel lethargic; it produces a morbid, paralyzing sleepiness, like a powerful anesthetic.