“You’ve never lived with a man, much less a son.”

Rânia said no more.

Now Zana had no husband to help her, and Domingas’s withdrawal left her even more abandoned. Talib’s daughters came to see her; Nahda held Zana’s hands and Zahia chatted, trying to distract her. Zana’s wandering gaze disconcerted visitors. On the morning when Cid Tannus and Talib appeared, she said, with no warning, that it wasn’t right, it wasn’t right that one brother should steer clear of the other. “You must find my son; you must bring Omar back to my house. Do it for Halim’s sake.”

Talib, who was more intimate with the family, took a long look at the only plate on the table set for lunch. Omar’s plate, glass, and cutlery hadn’t been removed from the head of the table. As he went out, the widower said: “God shuts one door and opens another.”

One day, when she woke up weeping, Zana ordered Rânia to take everything out of the safe, everything, all the old papers Halim had kept. She called a carter and four men to lift it; they were to take the steel box away, and throw the accursed safe into the jungle. It was the memory of her son in chains.