The two of them got into the convertible, and the neighbors observed the scene from their windows, astonished, taken aback by so much luxury and formality. It was truly impressive! Impeccable clothes, chrome-capped shoes, an imported car. It all seemed like the reverse of Omar; nothing seemed like him. Up to the last moment, no one knew what was going on, not even Halim. Zana, yes; she was the first to see, and she fought the final battle with determination. My God! What an explosion. But how had she found out?

“How?” Halim bit his lip. “She didn’t need to go after Omar; she went after the car … a load of gleaming scrap iron. Omar could have been living with that woman till this very day. As far as I’m concerned, he could have lived with any woman, pretty, ugly, even if she was a whore … with anyone, or lots at the same time, so long as he left me in peace with mine …”

Halim’s son: he was strong and virile with all kinds of women, but with his mother he was either aquiver, or trembling like young bamboo. There’s no understanding the power of a mother: of Zana, in particular. She was the only one who didn’t swallow the story of the English bank. Omar duped everyone; who wouldn’t believe in such a convincing facade, in the British punctuality, and the Englishman himself? What about his voice, his thoroughly rehearsed gestures, his short sentences, his hesitation as he ended them: all these signs of the gentleman? Wyckham, a big man with enormously long arms, and a round face full of red spots, was, as Zana eventually found out, an impostor, a big-time smuggler. His gestures, his voice, his manner of eating, everything was real, except his profession. Omar worked with Wyckham; he was his right-hand man. The two of them had a female partner in crime, and that’s where the convertible and the woman came into it. Zana went rummaging, imagining, divining, like an architect in reverse: she uncovered the secret hiding places they’d built themselves. The building was unfinished, but it had monumental ambitions.

First, the easy part: she found out that the job in the British bank was pure farce. Then, stalking around the Port Authority and in the warehouses of Manaus Harbor, she greased the palms of employees and stevedores. Patiently, she spread her net, and caught her fish, small fry and big boys. She also found her way around the system, the smuggling network Omar had gotten mixed up in. Halim only found out about the story when it was near its end. That was why he looked so solemn in the final weeks, before our conversation in the shop storeroom.

“When a son’s fate’s at stake, no detective in the world can find more clues than a mother,” he said. “She did everything on the quiet, silently, like a shadow.”