“And he did,” Halim recalled. “Adamor was a real ferret. Zana offered him a pile of photos of our son, but he wouldn’t take them. He leafed through the album and said that Omar’s face was already in his head.”

In a short time, he did what Halim and Tannus hadn’t managed in months of searching. Zana saw how insinuating Adamor was. She told him about her son’s disappearance, hinted at the possibility of looking for him, sounded things out. Toad-Leg frowned attentively, moved by the story. He even shed tears, half sincere, half pretend. He wiped his eyes with his scaly hands, lifted up his head, and asked, in a serious voice, if madam would remove that mistrustful Indian woman. Domingas, obedient as ever, stopped feeling the fishes’ eyes. Then Adamor began to offer madam the most expensive fish, and the ones he couldn’t sell, from piranhas to small fry.

“All that was missing was for her to buy the tray and the rusty old medal,” grumbled Halim. “She’d have bought everything: the river, the sun, the sky, and all the stars. Everything, absolutely everything.”

In the early morning, Zana would station herself in the living room waiting for the fishmonger’s deep-throated cry. Halim was in a nervous state, and spent sleepless nights in bed alone. Sometimes he got up and spied on her from the top of the staircase, but she was obsessed, and had no eyes for Halim; she was living in a world of her own, inhabited only by Omar’s image. They even spent a whole night without speaking, facing one another, with her eyes fixed on his face—only her eyes, for the look in them was bottomless, without beginning or end. Another night, he remembered Abbas’s gazals, recited the ones he knew by heart, and then begged, implored her to leave their son in peace with that woman … That’s what Omar wanted, he himself had said it before he went away: he wanted to live far from everyone—who knows, maybe he’d even set up business with the woman, the two of them, like adults … Omar was a grown man; there was no sense in him living at home with his parents, ruining himself with drink and whores … That’s the word, ruining himself … In no time he’ll get sick, he’ll rot, and no one can face watching their son go downhill. She listened, with her eyes on Halim’s face. Nothing, not a blink, came from her impassive face. He gave a sigh and got up, seeing his words and his voice, with its lover’s urgency, vanish into the night silence.

One Saturday morning he saw her go out with the fishmonger. Fine drizzle was falling after the night’s downpour. Zana put on her best clothes. She had a little makeup, her hair was loose, and she wore her delicate jade earrings. Her eyes, protected by long lashes, and the perfect arch of her eyebrows, took Halim’s breath away.