But he said nothing like that. He waited doggedly, as patiently as could be. Then she suggested they open a small shop in the Rua dos Bares, between the port and the church. It was a busy, crowded area, with people coming and going day and night. They’d shut the restaurant, because all those customers with their obscene anecdotes, stories of shipwrecks and magical creatures reminded Zana of her father. Halim agreed. He complied with everything, so long as all his acts of submission ended in the hammock or in bed, or even on the living-room carpet.

At the time they were opening the shop, a nun, a Little Sister of Jesus, offered them an orphan, already christened, who could read and write. Domingas, a lovely young native girl, grew up at the back of the house where there were two rooms, separated by palms and other trees.

“She was a tiny, shriveled-up little girl, with her head full of lice and Christian prayers,” Halim remembered. “She went barefoot, and asked us to give her our blessing. She seemed a well-mannered girl with a good temperament: not withdrawn or forward. For a while, she gave us a lot of work, but Zana liked her. The two of them prayed together, one with the prayers she’d learned in Biblos, the other with the ones learned in the nuns’ orphanage, here in Manaus.” Halim smiled when he told me about his wife’s closeness to the Indian girl. “What religion can do,” he said. “It can bring opposites together, the earth and heaven, the maid and the mistress.”

It was a little miracle, very convenient for the family and future generations, I thought. Domingas was useful; and she only stopped being useful when she died, as I saw her die, almost as shriveled-up as when she came to the house—for all I know, into the world. She was frightened by the racket her master and mistress made when they made love, and shocked that Zana, such a devout person, gave herself to Halim with such frenzy.

“It seems like all the filth in their bodies comes out,” Domingas said to me, one afternoon when she was rinsing their sheets in the washtub.

With time, she got used to the two shameless, entwined bodies, with no set time or place for their encounters. On Sunday mornings, Zana resisted Halim’s advances and ran to the church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios. But when she got back home, with her soul purified and the taste of the Host on her palate, Halim lifted her over the threshold and carried her upstairs, with her arms around his neck. On his way up, he left his slippers and bathrobe on the staircase, along with her shoes, stockings, petticoat, and dress, so they were almost naked by the time they reached the bedroom perfumed with white orchids.