“He shouted ‘thief’ so many times I thought he meant me,” said Halim. “Well, he was talking about my son, and to an extent that rubbed off on me. But I let Yaqub talk; I wanted him to unburden himself. Then I said: ‘Is there no chance of you forgetting this? Can’t you forgive him?’ My God, that was worse!”

From the accusation, Yaqub went on to demanding compensation. He wouldn’t rest until his brother returned the eight hundred and twenty dollars he’d robbed. A fortune! It was his savings from a year’s work; a year spent working out the structures of buildings in São Paulo, and other cities in the state; a year inspecting building sites. Zana should be told about this, then she’d understand the real character of her little favorite, her fragile little monkey: “Go on, spoil the wretch until he ruins you! Sell the shop and the house! Sell Domingas; sell everything to encourage his filthy tricks!”

“Over and over again, he cursed the son my wife had spoiled; he couldn’t stop. It seems the devil makes the mother choose one of the two children …” Halim looked straight at me: his misty eyes seemed to want to say more. He sat up. “He wasn’t just angry because of the dollars. The maid had already told Omar who Yaqub’s wife was. He was furious because Omar had entered his apartment, rummaged everywhere, and found the wedding photos, holiday snaps, and must have seen other things too. I was the only one who knew that Lívia, Yaqub’s first girlfriend, had gone to São Paulo at his request. He wanted to keep the secret, but Omar finally found out. I don’t know which of the two was the more jealous, but anyway, Yaqub never forgave the obscene drawings Omar did on the wedding photos …”

Halim put his hands on his head and said: “That’s right: Omar covered Lívia’s face with obscenities, wrote swearwords and drawings on the wedding album … Yaqub went mad … He’d never forgiven his brother’s attack when they were young, the scar … It had never left his mind. He swore one day he’d get his revenge.”

He seemed melancholy now, and was drinking arrack with ice; he hardly ever drank anything else. Two little blue bottles on the table, with the Zahle label, bought from a smuggler. He took three or four swigs and rolled another cigarette. The river and the sky were blurred, and, far off, a procession of lighted canoes formed a sinuous line in the darkness. The wind brought the smell of the nearby jungle. The sound of voices was dying down, and the Floating City was going quiet.

Was Halim going to stop talking? He faced me one more time, and angrily bit his lower lip. He banged his fist on the table as if asking for silence.