There was no festival for her. Her father had been found dead by the piassava palms where he had been working. She still remembered his face, the funeral in the little cemetery, on the opposite bank of the Jurubaxi. She never forgot the morning when she left for the orphanage in Manaus, accompanied by a nun from the missions of Santa Isabel do Rio Negro, or the nights she slept in the orphanage, the prayers she had to learn by heart, and woe to anyone who forgot a prayer, or the name of a saint. Two years or so she was there, learning to read and write, praying at dawn and dusk, cleaning the bathrooms and the refectory, sewing and embroidering for the missions’ bazaars. The nights were the unhappiest time; the boarders couldn’t go near the windows, and had to keep quiet, in bed in the dark; at eight Sister Damasceno opened the door, crossed the dormitory, and prowled around the beds, stopping near each girl. The nun loomed up in front of her; she held a ferule in her hand. Sister Damasceno was tall, grim, dressed all in black, and terrified everyone. Domingas shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep, remembering her father and brother. She cried when she remembered her father, the little wooden animals he made for her, the songs he sang for his children. She wept with frustration. She would never see her brother again; she could never go back to Jurubaxi. The nuns wouldn’t let her; nobody could leave the orphanage. The sisters were on guard all the time. She watched the girls from the Normal School walking in the square, free, in groups … flirting. It made her want to escape. Two of the boarders, the oldest, managed to escape early one morning: they climbed over the wall at the back, jumped into Simon Bolivar Alley, and disappeared into the woods. They had courage. Domingas thought about escaping, but the nuns saw, and said God would punish her. The stink of the bathrooms, the smell of disinfectant, and the nuns’ sweaty, greasy clothes: Domingas could bear it no longer. One day Sister Damasceno ordered her to have a real bath, wash her hair with coconut soap, and cut her fingernails and toenails. She had to be clean and sweet-smelling! Domingas put on a brown skirt and a white blouse that she herself ironed and starched. The sister put a coif on her head and the two left the orphanage, went as far as the Avenida Joaquim Nabuco and into a tree-lined street leading to Nossa Senhora dos Remédios Square. They stopped in front of an old two-story house, painted dark green. High up, right in the middle of the facade, there was a square of blue and white Portuguese tiles with the image of Our Lady of the Conception. A young, pretty woman, her hair in clusters of curls, came to welcome them. “I’ve brought an Indian girl for you,” said the sister. “She knows how to do everything, she can read and write properly, but if she’s any nuisance, back she’ll go to the orphanage and never get out again.” They went into the living room, where there were wooden tables and chairs piled up in a corner. “This all belonged to my father’s restaurant,” said the woman, “but now you can take them to the orphanage.” Sister Damasceno thanked her. She seemed to be expecting something else. She looked at Domingas and said: “Dona Zana, your mistress, is very generous, so don’t blot your copybook, my girl.” Zana took an envelope off the little altar and gave it to the sister. The two of them went to the door and Domingas was left alone, happy to be free of that grim woman. If she’d stayed in the orphanage, she’d have spent her life cleaning the toilets, washing petticoats, and sewing. She detested the orphanage and never went to visit the Little Sisters of Jesus. They called her ungrateful and selfish, but she wanted to keep well away from the nuns; she wouldn’t even walk along the street where the orphanage was. The sight of the building depressed her. How many times had Damasceno beaten her! You never knew when she’d get the ferule out. She was educating the Indian girls, she said. In Zana’s house the work was the same, but she had more freedom … She prayed when she wanted, she could talk, disagree, and she had her own little corner. She saw the twins born, she looked after Yaqub, and they played together … When he left for Lebanon she missed him. He was only just a teenager, and didn’t want to go away. Halim gave in to his wife, and let his son go away alone. “Omar stayed close to his mother’s skirts,” Domingas said. “He used to come to my room to complain, and called Halim selfish … The two of them never got on.”