Yaqub was no acrobat; he didn’t smear his hands with wax, but he did have a good time at the Carnival balls at Sultana Benemou’s house; Omar went to the adults’ party and stayed up all night with the merrymakers. Yaqub was thirteen, and it was as if his childhood had come to an end at that last ball at the Benemous’ mansion. That night he’d not even dreamed that two months later he would be separated from his parents, his country, and this landscape that now breathed new life into his face as he sat in the front seat of the Land Rover.

The young people’s ball had started before nightfall. At ten o’clock, the grown-ups in their fancy dress came into the room singing, dancing, and shooing the youngsters out. Yaqub wanted to stay till midnight, because a fair-haired niece of the Reinoso family, a fine tall girl, was going to stay too and dance into the early hours of Ash Wednesday. It was Lívia’s first night at the grown-ups’ party, and the first time Yaqub had seen her with lipstick on, lids shaded with black eyeliner, her braids scattered with sequins that made her tanned arms flicker with light. He wanted to stay to dance, hold her, and feel he was almost an adult too. He was just summoning the courage to go up to Lívia when Zana’s voice ordered: “Take your sister home. You can come back later.” He did as he was told. He took Rânia to her room, waited till she was asleep, and raced back to the Benemous’ house. The room was bursting with revelers; amid all the colors and masks he saw the shining braids and painted lips, then went weak at the knees when he saw a face and hair just like his own, right next to the face he admired.