I watched Domingas losing heart, less and less attentive now to the daily rhythm of the house, indifferent to the orchids she had always sprayed with such care, and the birds she used to watch in the tops of the trees and the palm fronds, later making carvings of them. Her hands could hardly manage to remove strips from the hard wood, and she couldn’t even find the energy to plait palm fibers. The last animals she had carved were like little unfinished beings, fossils from other epochs. She didn’t look as old as other housemaids, already done for in their early fifties. I asked her to rest, but she only lay down at night; she would slump into her hammock, and only wanted me to be there. She no longer opened the old book Halim had given her, thick, with a loose cover and illustrations of animals and plants whose names she knew by heart: Tupi words she had repeated for Yaqub in the nights when the two of them stayed alone in her damp room.

Our conversations became less frequent, and when she had time off, she sat on the ground or lay in her hammock, motionless. Only once, at nightfall, she began to hum one of the songs she’d heard in her childhood, there on the river Jurubaxi, before she lived in the Manaus orphanage. I’d thought her mouth was sealed, but no: she loosened her tongue and sang, in nheengatu, the short refrains of a monotonous melody. When I was a child, I went to sleep to the sound of that voice, a lullaby echoing through my nights.

One Sunday afternoon, my mother asked me to go for a walk with her to the Praça da Matriz. Nearby, berthed in the Manaus Harbor, the big freighters dwarfed the boats and canoes, hiding the forest on the horizon. In the center of the square, the multitude of birds that used to delight the children were no longer there. The aviary that had fascinated me so much was silent. Sitting on the steps of the church, Indians and migrants from the interior of the state were begging. Domingas exchanged some words with an Indian woman, and I didn’t understand the conversation; the two of them crossed themselves when the bells struck six. My mother said goodbye to the woman, went alone into the church, and prayed. Then we went into the Manaus Harbor, and to the end of the walkway. The floating harbor was busy, with its stevedores, cranes, and forklift trucks. Someone recognized us and waved. It was Calisto, one of the people from the slum. Barefoot, wearing only shorts, he was waiting for orders to unload boxes of electronic goods. I didn’t know he worked at the harbor on Sundays. Calisto had escaped from Estelita Reinoso’s claws, but now he had another burden to bear.