Yaqub’s visit, though it was only short, let me get to know him a little. Something in his behavior escaped me: he left a mixed impression on me, of someone hard, resolute, and proud, but marked, at the same time, by an eagerness that was like a kind of affection. This uncertainty left me confused. Or perhaps it was I who was going up and down like a seesaw. A lot of what they said about Yaqub didn’t fit with what I saw and felt. At home, with the family, he changed, and became wary. With me, however, his armor was incomplete, to use Halim’s phrase about his son. As we walked around the city, and came near the harbor area, he seemed to find everything strange. He was dripping sweat, and irritated by the filth piled up in the streets. Gradually, this took on less importance. Near the Amazonas Hotel he stopped by Dona Deúsa’s tacacá stall, and drank two gourds of the thick liquid, calmly swallowing the steaming pepper sauce, slowly chewing the spiced jambu, as if he wanted to recover a childhood treat. Then we went around the Escadaria harbor, where a canoeist took us to the Educandos creek. The low level of the river Negro left muddy beaches, with their motorboats, some stranded, others disused, their hulls upturned. Yaqub began to row, and at times lifted an oar and gestured to the inhabitants of the shanties built out over the mud. He laughed to see the children running through the alleyways of the slum, on the improvised football pitches, or clambering on the awnings of abandoned boats. “I played a lot around here,” he said, “I came with your mother, we spent Sundays by the water there … hiding in the floating islands.” He seemed happy, and wasn’t bothered by the smell of mud infesting the beaches along the creek. He pointed to a shack on the left bank, just before the metal bridge. We beached the canoe, Yaqub looked at the house with its legs in the mud, went up some steps, and called me. It was a shack that had been painted blue, but now its front was covered with gray blotches; inside were two small tables and stools: a woman who was setting the tables asked if we wanted to eat. Yaqub answered with a question: did she remember him? No, she had no idea: who was he? “This boy’s mother and I used to come and eat fried jaraqui in your house. Then we used to swim in the creek … I played football and flew kites …” She stood back, looked him up and down, and asked when, was it a long time ago? “I am Halim’s son.”