She died when her younger son was at large. she never saw the changes to the house; death spared her that shock, among others. The Portuguese tiles with the image of the patron saint were removed. And the dignified design of the facade, a harmony of curves and straight lines, was covered by an overblown farrago of styles. The front of the house, which had been perfectly presentable, turned into a horrific mask, and my mental image of the house was soon destroyed.

On the night of the opening of Rochiram House, a display of gadgets imported from Miami and Panama filled the windows. There was a huge party, and in the street a line of black cars disgorged politicians and military chiefs. They say that important people came from Brasilia and other cities, intimates of Rochiram. I didn’t see anyone from our street, not even the Reinosos. Outside, the crowd, openmouthed, watched the silhouettes lifting their glasses to each other in the shining reception rooms. Many of them stayed out in the damp night air, waiting for dawn, and grabbed the leftovers. Manaus was growing fast, and that night was one of the landmarks in the coming jamboree.

In the plans for the remodeling, the architect left a side passage, a little corridor leading to the back of the house. The area left to me, small and backing onto the slum, is this square patch in the garden.

“Your inheritance,” Rânia muttered.

“Good will win out,” we say: is it really true? I later found out that that was the way Yaqub wanted it; he wanted to make my life easier, just as he wanted to ruin his brother’s. He’d written a letter to Zana, revealing that he had been very upset by Domingas’s death; she was the only person to whom he’d confided certain secrets, the only one who’d never left his side during his childhood. There were things the two of them had in common that Zana was determined not to know. He didn’t explain why the plans for the hotel had fallen through; he simply wrote that the best thing would be to sell the house and a good part of the land with it to Rochiram. If this weren’t done, Omar would suffer the consequences.

The letter was addressed to the shop, and Rânia never showed it to her mother. She didn’t know, and never found out if there was an agreement between Yaqub and Rochiram. She did realize that selling the house would save Omar trouble. I witnessed Rânia pressing her mother to sign the letter of sale.

“Are you mad? My house … to a crook? Look what he did to Omar.”

“Sign it, Mama, for the good of your children … to avoid worse things happening. There might be worse still around the corner if you don’t.”