His friends who lived on the lakes helped in the search too. The first month extended into others. In the bars in the Floating City, his pals avoided the topic; it was a hopeless case. They swore they were not on the lakes, or in any of the towns around Manaus.
Tannus felt sorry for his tormented friend. He insisted he should give up: the two of them were nowhere to be found. “They’re in the clouds, having a good time under a tree, eating fried fish.”
Did he give up?
He was waiting, a little naïvely, like someone waiting for a little miracle: suddenly to see a chance flicker of light, when there’s nothing left to hope for.
No such flicker came. Only the fireflies glimmered in the darkness of the garden; and, in the living room, the candles on the altar. Halim, averse to any kind of fanaticism, looked gloomily at his wife. None of this fervor attracted him; he never surrendered to religious ecstasy. His prayers, always calm and serene, seemed to contain doubts about things beyond the grave. When there was no carpet to kneel on, he would put off any urge for transcendence. Life’s finale had no need for such rituals. If it hadn’t been for the fights between the twins, and Zana’s crazy possessiveness where Omar was concerned, he’d have had nothing to worry about. He could have spent the rest of his life, his final days and years, between the bars around the harbor, the labyrinth of the Floating City, and the marriage bed.
Rânia, who looked after the shop, had tightened the links with São Paulo, and the novelties displayed in the window all came from there. As well as being astute in business, she knew how to control the household expenses, noting down every penny that was spent; but she gave in, against her will, to excessive purchases of fish.
We never ate so well. The most varied kinds of fish, with unusual flavors, covered the table: grilled ribs of tambaqui, fried tucunaré, yellow fish stuffed with farofa. Pacu, matrinxã, curimatã, tender, thick steaks of surubim. Even piranha stew, with pepper sauce, came steaming to the table. Then there was mashed manioc, and soup made of fish leftovers, flour made with the bones and heads, or pirarucu balls with parsley and onion.
“Wasn’t it strange, getting so much fish?” Halim said. “Zana filled the two fridges with fish. She gave fish away to the neighbors. I asked: ‘Laysh? Why? What’s all this fish for?’ She replied, ‘It’s good for the bones, our skeletons are rickety.’”
There was something strange about this profusion of fish, because it wasn’t the season for it: the river was far from reaching its lowest level, and we were a long way from Good Friday. We got sick of so much fish. There was a strong smell, the cats and the flies took up residence in the garden, beggars came after the leftovers, and all this superabundance of food, which made us generous with humans and animals, lasted through the months of the rainy season.