Zana gave me her son’s uniform; it was loose on me and made people laugh. I swallowed the laughter, and gave the clothes back before Zana ate me with her eyes—she couldn’t bear seeing the uniform on another body. And thanks to Halim, I went to the Vandals’ Cockpit.

At the school I found traces of Omar: ex-girlfriends, stories of shindigs, heroic scenes, challenges, duels. On the toilet walls was graffiti composed by him. Wherever he went, he left a daring gesture, some act of bravado, an epigram, words of humor and irony. I finished the course he had abandoned in the final year. In fact, Omar never finished anything, he would never go to a university, despised diplomas, and was ignorant of anything that didn’t give him an intense, powerful pleasure, in his endless quest for adventure.

Halim and Zana thought that their graduate son could straighten him out, and that sooner or later the tough life of São Paulo would tame him. For months they believed Omar’s letters: he was fine, it had taken him a while to get used to the cold, but now he was studying, getting up early to go to the college, having his dinner in the pension in the Rua Tamandaré, hardly leaving his room. It was a different Omar, diligent, never playing truant, though he did feel a bit out of place among the other pupils, being so grown up. On the last Saturday in August, Yaqub’s maid visited Omar’s pension to give him clothes and sweets Zana had sent. Two coats, a pullover, and a pair of velvet trousers, so that her little hairy boy wouldn’t suffer from the cold and drizzle; and a tin full of Arabic sweets, to remember his mother by. Omar acknowledged the gift: “Thanks very much, brother. It’s the first time I’ve enjoyed my food since I came to São Paulo. Only my mother could give me so much pleasure.” Yaqub said nothing when the maid told him that Omar, sitting on the bed, devoured the sweets.