Lívia and his brother were dancing in one corner of the room. They were silently entwined, with a rhythm all their own that had nothing to do with Carnival. Whenever revelers bumped into them, their two faces met; then their laughter did suit the occasion. Yaqub glowered. He hadn’t the courage to go up and speak to her. He hated the dance. “I hated all the music they played, I hated the masks, I hated it all,” Yaqub said to Domingas on Ash Wednesday afternoon. He didn’t sleep a wink. He pretended to be dozing when his brother came into the room at daybreak, as Carnival tunes and drunken shouts filled the Manaus air. With his eyes closed, he could smell the perfume squirted by the revelers, and the sweat, the two bodies wrapped around each other, and he sensed his brother sitting on the floor looking at him. Yaqub lay there quiet, apprehensive, defeated. He saw his brother go slowly out of the room, his hair and shirt covered with confetti and streamers, and a contented smile on his face.

It was his last Carnival party, the last morning he saw his brother coming in from a spectacular night out. He didn’t understand why Zana never reproached Omar, and he didn’t understand why it was he, not his brother, who went to Lebanon two months later.

Now the Land Rover was going around Nossa Senhora dos Remédios Square, getting near the house, and he didn’t want to remember the day he had left. He had gone alone, in the care of a family of friends who were going to Lebanon. Yes, why him and not Omar, he wondered, staring at the mango trees and oitizeiros overhanging the street, and those huge clouds, motionless, as if painted on a blue background, taking in the smell of the childhood street, the gardens, the humid heat of the Amazon, the sight of the neighbors leaning out of their windows, his mother caressing his neck, her gentle voice saying: “We’re home, love …”

Zana got out of the jeep and looked in vain for Omar. Rânia was on the veranda, beautifully dressed and perfumed.