The person who recommended the restaurant to the young Halim was Abbas, a friend of his who said he was a poet; he had worked in Acre, by the Bolivian border, and now made a living on the Amazon, traveling between Manaus, Santarém, and Belém. Halim began coming to the Biblos on Saturdays, then started going every morning, partaking of some fish, a stuffed aubergine, or a piece of fried cassava; he would take his flask of arrack from his pocket, drink it, and devour Zana with his eyes. He spent months in this fashion: alone in a corner of the room, excited whenever he saw Galib’s daughter, and following this gazelle with his eyes wherever she went. He stared at her, his face tense, waiting for a miracle that didn’t happen. He went fishing in the lakes and brought tucunarés and slabs of surubim for Galib. The owner of the Biblos thanked him, didn’t charge for lunch, and Halim was full of enthusiasm about this friendship, which still was not enough to get him nearer Zana.

One day, Abbas saw his friend in Rouaix’s, a shop near the Avenida Restaurant, in the center of Manaus. Halim was in the process of buying a French hat from Marie Rouaix, and arranging to pay for it in installments. Abbas got in first and gave his friend a nudge; they left the shop and went to the Café Polar, near the Opera House. They talked. Halim gave vent to his feelings, and Abbas suggested that he give Zana not a hat, but a poem.

“It’s cheaper,” said the poet, “and there are some words that never go out of fashion.”

Abbas wrote a gazal of fifteen couplets, in Arabic, which he himself translated into Portuguese. Halim read the rhyming verses over and over: gloom and moon, dawn and wine, day and way. He put the sheets of paper into an envelope and the next day pretended to leave it by accident on the restaurant table. He went a week without showing his face at the Biblos, and when he went back, Galib gave him the envelope back:

“You left it on the table, and we nearly threw it out. Been fishing?”

He didn’t answer; he opened the envelope and began to read Abbas’s gazals in an undertone. Galib listened attentively, but the noise from the customers drowned Halim’s voice. Zana wasn’t around, and he gave up reading before the end, in discouragement.

“Lovely poems,” Galib said admiringly. “A woman would really feel their caress.”