Dália disappeared from the Maloca dos Bares, from the house in Vila Saturnina, from the city. We never found out if she departed this world altogether, and even Omar never found out, or, if he did, he said nothing when he reappeared one wet afternoon. He had no shoes or shirt, and his trousers were soaking. He was like a scarecrow coming in from the rain, and so drunk he bumped into the two porcelain vases before falling into the red hammock. Zana didn’t budge. Domingas and Rânia were concerned, and wanted to help him, but a sharp look prevented them. He slept out of doors in the damp air, and woke with a cough, so worn out he could hardly move. He was already feverish when he heard his mother say:

“All this because of a common dancing girl. That snake would have taken you to hell with her, love. Your brother’ll help you in São Paulo.”

“My brother?” he shouted in exasperation.

Halim came over to his son:

“You’re going to study in São Paulo, you’re going to have to work at it just like your brother …”

“Calm down, Halim … our little boy’s burning with fever,” said Zana, embracing her son. “He needs some rest, then he can go, spend a few months in São Paulo, and come back.”

Omar fixed his bloodshot eyes on his father’s face, tried to get up, but Halim pushed him down hard and turned his back on his son. They didn’t speak to each other until the day he left. Zana repented her decision, and wanted to put her son’s journey off; she looked as if she was in mourning, and prayed for everything to turn out right for Omar; the separation had something of death about it.

He went under protest, rebellious and angry. There were six months of peace and quiet at home, and of relief for Halim. Omar’s books, the novels and poems he read in the hammock, fell into my hands; his books, notepaper, his pens, everything, except for the room, which was his and his alone. In his chaotic bedroom, the old mattress and the sheets were changed. But before he left, Omar had asked Domingas to leave the objects on the shelves; she put a sheet over the collection of ashtrays, glasses, bottles of sand, panties, bras, red seeds, stubs of lipstick, and stained cigarette butts. Domingas, cleaning out the wardrobe, discovered an Indian oar, dark and polished. On the blade, there were women’s names carved with a knife. Domingas smoothed the dark blade, pronouncing one name after another and sat on Omar’s bed, half in a trance, maybe missing him. Now she could go into his room, live with the things he had left behind, open the window and see the horizon he saw every evening before he left for his nightly entertainment. She went through all the furniture in the room, and kept on finding objects, photographs, toys, the old worn-out uniform from the Vandals’ Cockpit. It was different from Yaqub’s room, empty, with no rubbish: a place to put your body, and nothing more. I don’t know which of the two my mother preferred to clean. The fact is that every day, in good or bad mood, she went into each room and lingered there before she started cleaning. And if the oar and the junk excited her, the severity of Yaqub’s room cooled her head. Perhaps my mother liked the contrast.