Chronicler Of The Winds

The Eighth Night

When I went up to the roof and looked at Nelio, he was already dead.

I stood there motionless, and something hard clamped around my heart.

What I thought at that moment, I no longer remember. But I think it's true that when another person dies, the life you have inside you defends itself by mobilising all its forces to keep mortality at bay.

In the presence of death, life always becomes very clear.

But what I was thinking I can no longer recall.

Then I saw that I was mistaken. He wasn't dead; he was still alive. Or if he had died for a brief moment, then he returned to life because I had called him. I had whispered his name: Nelio. And suddenly he moved, quite feebly, but there was a definite movement on the mattress. I knelt down beside him and put my face close to his mouth; I could feel that he was still breathing.

But was he still there or was he about to leave? I must have been seized by panic because I started tugging and shaking him and calling out his name. If sleep and unconsciousness are the only experiences we have that teach us something about what death is, then he had already sunk very deep. I was shaking a body that felt already far away. Since he weighed so little, it was like shaking a bunch of feathers or an empty shell from which the spirit had departed.

At last he came back to life, though reluctantly, and opened his eyes. He was very tired and also seemed lost and confused. I wasn't sure that he recognised me, and it was a long time before he seemed to be calm again. I gave him some water with Senhora Muwulene's herbs to drink.

'I dreamed that I was dead,' Nelio said. 'When I tried to make my way back up to the surface, something was holding on to my legs. Then I managed to kick myself free. But I only did it because I wasn't finished with my story.'

I changed his bandage. His whole chest was now inflamed. The dark edges of the infection had spread far down towards his groin and up to his shoulders. The stench was almost unbearable. I thought my efforts were pointless – the bullets were spreading their poison through his body more and more rapidly, and his resistance had finally succumbed.

'I have to take you to the hospital,' I said.

'I'm not finished with my story yet,' he replied.

I said nothing more. I knew that he would never let me take him to the hospital. He would stay on the roof until he died.

Nobody had any money to lend me. That month, like so many others, Dona Esmeralda was late in paying us our wages. To give Nelio something to eat I had boiled some eggs from the bakery and mashed them up in a cup. I had to feed it to him, and he ate very slowly. Afterwards I rearranged the blanket under his head. The night was muggy, without a breath of wind. Nelio looked up and gazed at the clear night sky with the glittering stars.

Suddenly he said, 'Opixa murima orèra. Mweri wahòkhwa ori mutokwène, etheneri ehala yàraka.'

I was surprised by his words. I remembered that I had once heard an old woman in my village say the same thing: 'The moon disappears after growing big, the stars continue to shine even though they are small.'

I looked up at the sky. 'The moon will come back,' I said.

'The stars have no memory,' Nelio said. 'For them, the moon is every night a stranger coming to visit and then leaving again. Among the stars, the moon is an eternal stranger.'

The dogs were barking restlessly on that sultry night. Drums could be heard in the distance from the other side of the estuary. Fires blazed, and I thought I could see small, dwarf-like shadows moving to the rhythmic pounding of the drums.

Nelio thought that Deolinda had come to stay, but he was mistaken. Since he slept in his statue at night, he wasn't at first aware of what was going on. It wasn't until Mandioca came and sat down next to him in the shade of his tree one day that he realised that everything was not as it should be. Mandioca was hesitant and embarrassed. He sat there twisting an onion between his fingers. It was unusual for Mandioca to seek out his company alone, so Nelio understood that Mandioca must have something important weighing on his mind.

'What is it you want?' Nelio asked after waiting a suitable amount of time in silence.

'Nothing,' replied Mandioca.

More time would have to pass before Mandioca felt ready to start talking.

'The shadow is still long,' Nelio said. 'I'll stay here until it's gone. Before then you must tell me what you want.'

Mandioca dug into his pockets where his plants grew. He folded back his pockets so the sun could shine on the leaves. Earlier, to his astonishment, Nelio had seen that plants really could grow in Mandioca's pockets. It was as if Mandioca himself were a plant, a sapling whose arms were like spindly branches without leaves.

'Something isn't right,' Mandioca said at last, when the shadow had already begun to narrow.

'What you said just now doesn't mean anything,' Nelio said. 'Speak clearly if you want to talk to me. Stop mumbling.'

'It's Nascimento,' said Mandioca.

Nelio thought that Mandioca seemed to be in a wrestling match with his words.

'What about Nascimento?'

Silence again. Nelio sighed and continued to watch the shadow as it narrowed. A lizard darted between his feet and disappeared into a crevice between the cobblestones.

'What about Nascimento?' he repeated.

After the long, drawn-out preliminaries to the conversation, Mandioca's reply came surprisingly fast.

'Nascimento wants to do xogo-xogo with the xidjana,' he said. 'But I don't think the xidjana wants to.'

Nelio considered what he had heard for a moment before he asked his next question.

'Did he say that?'

'He already tried it.'

'What happened?'

'The xidjana didn't want to.'

'Don't call her xidjana. We said we would use her real name.'

'Deolinda didn't want to.'

'When was this?'

'Last night.'

'What happened?'

'Nascimento thought everybody was asleep. But I was awake. Nascimento pulled off the xidjana's blanket.'

'Her name is Deolinda.'

'Nascimento pulled off Deolinda's blanket.'

'Then what happened?'

'He pulled up her dress to see what she looked like underneath.'

'Did he see anything? Doesn't Deolinda wear anything underneath?'

'I don't know. She woke up.'

'Then what happened?'

'Nascimento wanted her to pull up her dress and show him what she looked like.'

'Did she do it?'

'She got mad and lay down to sleep again.'

'What did Nascimento say?'

'He said that the next night they would do xogo-xogo, whether she wanted to or not. Otherwise Nascimento would beat her.'

And the next night is the night that's now on its way?'

Mandioca nodded. The long conversation had taxed his strength. Nelio moved further into the shadow, which was now quite narrow, and thought about what he had heard.

'If Deolinda doesn't want to do xogo-xogo with Nascimento, she'll know how to stop it from happening. She threw him to the ground once before.'

Nelio considered the conversation to be over. But Mandioca didn't move.

'Is there something else?'

'Nascimento might not know that it's dangerous to do xogo-xogo with an albino.'

'Why should it be dangerous?'

'Everyone knows that you get stuck.'

'Stuck?'

'Nascimento is going to get stuck. He'll never be able to get out again. It's going to look very strange.'

'That's just a story. It's not really true.'

'Deolinda might not know that.'

Nelio realised that Mandioca's real worry was whether Nascimento would get stuck or not.

'Nothing's going to happen,' Nelio said. 'Now the shadow is gone. We don't need to talk about this any more.'

But that night as Nelio lay sleeping in the horse's belly, he was jolted awake from disturbing dreams. He had seen Deolinda's face before him – it was contorted with terror or rage, and she had talked to him, but he couldn't understand what she said. Filled with foreboding, he pulled on his trousers and crept out through the hatch. Then he ran as fast as he could through the city. But when he reached the stairs where the group lay tangled up among cardboard boxes and blankets, Deolinda was gone.

Mandioca was awake.

'Where's Deolinda?' Nelio asked in a low voice so as not to wake up the others.

'She's gone.'

'I dreamed about her. What happened?'

'Nascimento did xogo-xogo with her. Even though she didn't want to. But he didn't get stuck.'

Nelio felt his fury rise. 'Where's Nascimento?'

'He's sleeping in his box.'

Nelio kicked at the cardboard box where Nascimento spent his nights in a ceaseless battle with his monsters. He lifted the lid and told Nascimento to come out. Gradually the others began to wake up too. As Nascimento clambered out of his box, Nelio saw that his face was scratched. This made him so angry that he was about to lose control. The marks on Nascimento's face were Deolinda's attempt to defend herself. Nelio yanked at Nascimento's shirt and pulled him clear of the box. The others sat around nervously. They had never seen Nelio so angry before.

'Where's Deolinda?' Nelio said with a quavering voice.

'I don't know,' replied Nascimento. 'I was asleep.'

'But not before you did xogo-xogo with her!' Nelio screamed. And she didn't want to. I wasn't here. But she came to me in my dreams and told me what happened.'

'She wanted to do it,' Nascimento said.

'Then why did she scratch up your face? You're lying, Nascimento.'

Nelio let him go and began tearing the blankets off the others, who cowered before his fury.

'Nobody is going to sleep any more tonight]' he shrieked. 'Go out and look for her. Don't come back until you've found her. She's one of us. Nascimento has done something very bad to her. Did anybody see which way she went?'

Picado pointed towards the harbour.

'Get going!' Nelio shouted. 'Go and find her. But not you, Nascimento. You stay here and guard the others' blankets. Get back in your box, and don't come out unless I say so. The rest of you get moving! Don't come back without her!'

They searched all night for Deolinda. They kept on looking for her the next day, but she was gone. They asked other boys who lived on the streets whether they had seen her, but she had vanished without trace.

After four days Nelio realised that it wasn't worth it any longer. There was great unrest in the group, and he decided to call off the search. During all this time Nascimento was confined to his box behind the petrol station as if it were a jail. Nelio had worried about how to punish Nascimento for his attack. But it had been in vain. He couldn't decide what to do. Finally he gave up. He gathered them together and said that they would no longer search for Deolinda.

'She's run off, and she probably won't come back. We don't know where she is. When you don't know where to search any more, you have to give up. She left because Nascimento did something to her that he shouldn't have done. What we should really do is beat him every day for weeks on end and keep him locked up in his box for a whole year. But I don't think it was Nascimento who did the thing that made Deolinda leave. I think it was the monsters inside Nascimento's head that did it. That's why we're not going to beat him. And he doesn't have to stay in his box either. But what happened wasn't right.'

Nelio looked around. He wondered whether they understood what he was trying to say. The only one who seemed pleased was Nascimento. Nelio thought that the next time anyone attacked Nascimento, he wouldn't intervene. Nascimento did have monsters inside his head, but not everything could be blamed on them.

Secretly Nelio continued to search for Deolinda. He missed her, and he worried about what she might have done to herself. Sometimes he thought that she was right next to him, walking at his side with her woven bag slung over her shoulder. Nelio knew that an albino could be alive and dead at the same time. Maybe she had chosen to leave this world and move on to the next world where no one could see her, but where she could see everything she wanted to see.

One day Nascimento stumbled and fell to the ground, opening a big gash in his forehead. Afterwards Nelio went over and examined the spot where he fell. There was nothing there that could have made Nascimento stumble. The explanation had to be that Deolinda had stuck out her invisible leg.

She was somewhere close by. But she would not be coming back.

During that time Nelio spent long hours in the shade of his tree, studying the tattered atlas of the world that Tristeza had found in a rubbish bin and given to him as a present. The Indian photographer Abu Cassamo, whose dimly lit shop was next door to the theatre and the bakery, had told him the names of the various oceans and countries. He told Nelio what the big mountain ranges looked like, where the deserts were, and where the kilometre-high ice sheets reigned. Abu Cassamo, in whose shop there were hardly ever any customers, had a melancholy face, and he never spoke to anyone unless spoken to first. He was exceedingly polite and bowed even to Nelio when he came to the shop and stepped inside the murky room where the photograph lamps were turned off, the cameras were covered with black cloths, and the smell of curry was overwhelming. Through Abu Cassamo, who talked in a low and lilting voice, the world was explained to Nelio.

Nelio leafed through the stained pages of the atlas, thinking that he was living in an evil world. Where were people supposed to get enough strength and joy to endure? He was living in a world where bandits burned villages, where people were constantly fleeing, where the roads were lined with all the dead and all the bombed and burned wrecks of cars and buses and carts. He was living in a world where the dead were not allowed to be dead. They were chased out of their graves or out of their trees; they were in flight just like those who were still alive. And the living – they were so poor that they were forced to send their children to live on the streets like rats. But even the rats were better off, because at least they had their fur coats when the nights were cold.

Occasionally Nelio would glance up from his maps and look at the people who rushed past without seeing him. Were they alive or were they already dead? Sometimes he would go down to the wharf at the harbour and look for the sharks that could sometimes be seen beyond the mouth of the river. Were the breakers rolling towards the beach dead too? Where was there life in these evil times? Where could they get the strength and the joy that they needed to endure?

He pored over his maps. At night he lay sleepless in the horse's belly, and in the afternoon he stood looking out across the sea, immersed in thought. He had the feeling that no matter where he stood, he was in the centre of the world and its evil. That had to be true because he thought the same thing no matter where he was. If Deolinda had still been there, he might have talked to her about everything he was brooding about. The others wouldn't understand. They would just get worried and then run off and find him another dog.

But Deolinda reappeared in his dreams, and sometimes she had Cosmos with her. Nelio asked her where she had gone on that night when she was attacked by Nascimento's monsters. But her answer was unclear, and he understood that she didn't want anyone to look for her.

'I don't need any house,' she told him in one of his dreams. 'I've built myself a hiding place. There I have all the freedom I need.'

That's the way the world is, Nelio thought as Manuel Oliveira greeted the morning, waking him with his demented laughter outside the horse. People no longer build houses, they build hiding places.

Deolinda was gone. Violent storms swept in over the city. It rained steadily for eleven days and nights, and the poorly erected shacks perched along the slopes above the estuary were washed away, and the sharks tugged and tore at the dead bodies all the way to the beach. No one had ever seen anything like it, not even people who were so old it was questionable whether they were alive at all. It was a time of omens. The bandits had now come so close to the city that they sometimes broke into houses and burned and killed in the nearest suburbs. Nelio sometimes thought that if he died inside the horse's belly, his life would have been incomprehensible. How could he explain to his ancestors, when he met them, that he who had been born of good people in a village that was not a hiding place but a home where people lived, had in the end stopped breathing inside the belly of an equestrian statue hidden away in a forgotten plaza in the big city? They would think he was lying, that he was trying to deceive them, and they would chase him away; they would chase him back to life again, and there would be the bandits, waiting for him with their knives and their rifles and their unquenchable lust for killing anything alive and laying waste to the earth.

Often he looked at his hands, or looked at his reflection in the piece of a mirror that Pecado used to start fires. He searched for signs that he had already started to age. It was plain to him that a ten-year-old who had so many thoughts would grow old very quickly. He searched for wrinkles in his face, the first grey hairs, a sudden weakness or trembling in his legs. He was often struck by great fear that one morning he would wake up as a dazed old man with no teeth, who couldn't remember his own name, no matter how hard he tried. His thoughts were like a terrible illness he carried within him, which might break out when he was least expecting it.

All this time it was the group that kept him alive. In their daily struggle to survive, he could find moments when his thoughts stopped pursuing him.

But the whole time he had a premonition that something was about to come to an end. Each morning he woke up with a feeling that something was going to happen and he should already be afraid of it.

The storms passed. The rain stopped, and the muddy streets began to dry out. The weather turned hot again. Each day they would seek out the shady plazas to take a siesta.

That was when Nelio discovered that something was wrong with Alfredo Bomba. When the siesta was over he always wanted to keep on sleeping. Nelio asked him if he was feeling all right. He complained that he was always tired, as if sleep were draining him of all his strength.

'Are you in pain?'

'A little,' replied Alfredo Bomba.

'Where?'

Alfredo pointed to one side of his belly.

'Stomach ache,' Nelio reassured him. 'It'll pass.'

Alfredo Bomba nodded. 'It only hurts a little.'

After a few days Nelio knew that Alfredo Bomba did not have a stomach ache. He was running a fever, he didn't want to eat and he was very pale.

'We have to get a pushchair or a wheelbarrow,' Nelio told the others. Alfredo Bomba is sick. We have to take him to the hospital.'

'We can borrow a xuva shita duma outside the marketplace,' said Pecado. 'But they'll want to be paid.'

'They'll get their money,' Nelio said. 'Give me whatever you have.'

A heap of crumpled thousand-escudo notes accumulated at his feet.

'That should be enough,' Nelio decided. 'Mandioca and Pecado will go and get the cart. But don't stand around talking to everybody you know.'

They took Alfredo Bomba to the hospital in a ragged procession. Many who saw them thought the pale boy in the cart was already dead. They would kneel down, make the sign of the cross, or turn away. When the boys reached the hospital, they carried Alfredo to the emergency room, which was full of sick and injured people.

'You'd better wait outside and watch the cart,' Nelio told Nascimento. 'Otherwise somebody might steal it.'

'It smells bad in here,' Nascimento said.

'Sick people never smell good. Now go! And don't fall asleep!'

Pale and in pain, Alfredo Bomba sat in a corner. An irritable nurse came over and asked him what was wrong.

'He's sick,' Nelio said. 'You're the ones who have to tell us what's wrong with him.'

Several hours passed before anyone else took an interest in Alfredo Bomba. Nelio had kept Pecado with him to help and then sent the others off in search of food.

It was evening when two nurses wheeled in a stretcher and lifted Alfredo Bomba on to it.

'Does he have any family?' one of the nurses asked.

'He has me,' Nelio said. 'He doesn't need anyone else.'

'Are you his brother?'

'I'm his brother and his father and his uncle and his cousin.'

'What's his name?'

Alfredo Bomba.'

'Bomba isn't a real name, is it?'

'Then he has a name that isn't real. But he has pain in his stomach. And the pain is real.'

They wheeled the stretcher into an examining room that was full to overflowing with people whimpering and moaning. The smell of sweat and filth was overpowering. Nelio swatted away a cockroach that was groping its feelers over Alfredo Bomba's sweaty face.

A doctor who was tall and fat came into the room. He stopped at the stretcher and looked down at Alfredo. 'You're having stomach pains?' he asked brusquely.

'He's very sick,' Nelio said.

The doctor muttered something inaudible and then pulled up Alfredo Bomba's filthy shirt and began pressing on his stomach. Another doctor passing by stopped at the stretcher. They talked to each other, but Nelio didn't understand what they said. The other doctor began pressing on Alfredo Bomba's stomach too.

'Why are they pressing so hard?' groaned Alfredo Bomba.

'Doctors press hard so that their fingers can speak to the sickness inside.'

'We should have gone to a curandeiro,' Alfredo Bomba said. 'It hurts so much.'

The two doctors stopped pressing.

'He'll have to stay here,' said the fat doctor. His voice was now much less brusque.

'What's wrong with him?' asked Nelio.

'That's what we have to find out,' replied the doctor.

'Maybe he has worms,' suggested Nelio.

'I'm sure he does,' the doctor said. 'But this is something else.'

That night Alfredo Bomba slept in a hospital bed that he shared with another patient. Nelio sent the others off with the cart and then lay down under Alfredo's bed. The next day they took blood samples from Alfredo Bomba. His arms were so thin that the person drawing the blood could hardly find a vein. The following day they took more blood.

Then nothing happened. After three days had passed Nelio started to think that the doctors had forgotten about Alfredo Bomba, but the next morning a nurse came to get Nelio. He followed her through the corridors, which were so crowded with sick people lying on the floor everywhere that they could hardly make their way through. She showed Nelio to a room where a piece of cardboard was tacked up over a broken window. Behind a desk sat the fat doctor who was the first to press on Alfredo Bomba's stomach.

'Doesn't this boy have any parents?' he asked, and Nelio noticed that he sounded terribly tired.

'He only has me. He lives on the street.'

The doctor nodded slowly. 'Then you're the one I have to talk to,' he said. He stretched out his hand and said that his name was Anselmo.

'Alfredo Bomba is very sick,' Anselmo said. 'He's going to die soon.'

'I don't want that to happen,' Nelio said. 'I can get money for all the medicine he needs.'

'It's not a matter of money or medicine. Alfredo Bomba has an incurable disease. He has a tumour in his liver. Since neither you nor he knows what a liver is, I won't try to explain. The tumour has already spread through his body. There's nothing we can do to save his life. We can ease his pain, but that's all.'

Nelio sat in silence.

He felt as if the doctor's words had transferred some of Alfredo Bomba's pain to his own stomach. He refused to think that Alfredo Bomba was going to die. And yet he knew that it was true.

'He really doesn't have any parents?' Anselmo asked again. 'Doesn't he have any tia, any avô?'

'He has me and the others,' Nelio said. 'How long does he have to stay in the hospital?'

'He can stay here until he dies. Or he can leave with you now. With the medicine, his pain will almost disappear.'

Nelio stood up. He realised that the man on the other side of the desk thought he was talking to a ten-year-old. But Nelio himself felt as if he were a hundred.

'He'll come with us,' Nelio said. 'His last days will be the best ones he's ever had.'

They left the hospital. Nelio had been given a paper cone with pills that he was supposed to give to Alfredo Bomba when he was in pain. Nelio asked him whether he wanted to ride in the cart back to their street, but Alfredo Bomba said no. They walked along the shady side of the street, down the steep slopes.

'I know I'm going to die,' said Alfredo Bomba.

'You're not going to die,' Nelio said. 'I have medicine in my pocket.'

'Even so, I know that I'm going to die,' Alfredo Bomba said after a while.

'Didn't you hear what I said?' said Nelio angrily.

They walked in silence.

Later that day, when Alfredo Bomba was asleep, Nelio told the others what the doctor had said.

'He can make a wish for whatever he wants,' Nelio said. And whatever it is, we'll give it to him.'

'He can have my trainers right now,' Tristeza said.

'Alfredo Bomba has never liked wearing shoes,' Nelio said. And besides, his feet are smaller than yours. He's the only one who can tell us what he wants.'

That night Nelio didn't go to his statue to sleep in the horse's belly. They made a fire behind the petrol station. They had all done their utmost during the day to earn enough money so they could cook a feast over the open fire. Alfredo Bomba sat closest to the fire, wrapped in a blanket because he was cold. Nelio had given him a pill. The pain was gone, but Alfredo could do little more than taste the food they had made for him.

'I'm sure you'll be well soon,' Nelio said. 'But until then, I want you to make a wish for whatever it is you want most.'

Alfredo Bomba didn't seem to understand what Nelio was saying. 'Whatever I want?' he said slowly.

'Whatever you want.'

'I've never heard of anybody wishing for what he wanted most and then actually getting it.'

'Then you'll be the first,' Nelio said.

Alfredo Bomba sat for a long time, pondering what Nelio had said. Nascimento and Mandioca disappeared every once in a while to look for more wood to keep the fire going. The city grew more and more quiet; silence descended over the group sitting around the fire.

Then Alfredo Bomba began to speak. 'I remember that my mama once told me about something amazing when I was little. She said it was true, but I've always thought it was a fairy tale, the kind that you tell to children. But I've never forgotten what she said. Maybe now I should try to find out if it was true or not.'

A mother doesn't lie to her children,' Mandioca said.

'Quiet,' Nelio said. 'Don't interrupt. Let him talk in peace.'

'There's supposed to be a place where the living and the dead meet,' Alfredo Bomba said. 'It's supposed to be a huge garden, with a river running through it. In the middle of the river there's an island that's nothing but sand. If you ever visit that island, afterwards you'll never be afraid of anything for the rest of your life. If it's true that I can wish for whatever I want most, then I wish that I could go there.'

'Yes,' Nelio said when Alfredo Bomba had stopped. 'I've heard of that river and an oval-shaped island made of sand. I've also heard there's a kind of lizard there that sings. But maybe I'm mistaken. I think you're right – you should visit that place.'

'I don't know where it is,' Alfredo Bomba said. 'How can you go someplace without knowing where it is?'

'We'll deal with that,' Nelio said. 'I have an atlas of the world. The one that Tristeza found in the rubbish bin. I'll talk to Abu Cassamo, the photographer, tomorrow morning. He might know.'

'Do you really think it's possible?' asked Alfredo Bomba.

'Yes,' Nelio said. 'I think it's possible.'

Alfredo huddled under his blanket next to the fire and fell asleep.

'So we're going on a journey,' Nelio said a little later. 'We'll need a lot of money, and we have to find out where that place is. And we don't have much time, either, before Alfredo Bomba gets too sick to make the journey.'

'There's no river and there's no island,' Nascimento said. 'I won't be part of this deception. It's better that we let him go to the movies every night. I don't think Alfredo Bomba has ever been to the movies.'

'They'll never let him in,' Mandioca said. 'He doesn't have any shoes. You have to have shoes and a ticket to go to the movies. If you only have a ticket, you can't get in.'

'Sometimes all of you talk too much,' Nelio said, not hiding his annoyance. 'We're going to find that place, and we're going to get enough money together so that we can go there. Now we'd better get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow. And to show you that I'm serious, I'm going to sleep here tonight.'

'It's no good if you get sick too,' Tristeza said, worried.

Alfredo Bomba is sicker than me. That's the only thing that matters.'

They settled down for the night. Nascimento crawled inside his cardboard box and pulled the lid shut. Nelio curled up next to Alfredo Bomba. He lay there thinking that he had taken on a great responsibility. Alfredo was counting on getting what he had wished for. No one had the right to disappoint someone who was dying.

That night Nelio slept badly, tormented by disturbing dreams. The dreams that plagued him all had faces and reminded him of the young bandits who had clung to their bloody weapons. They had taken away his trousers and his ability to think and feel. He found himself near a river and caught sight of his face in the water. He was looking at a ghost, an old man with sunken eyes and a grimy stubble on his face. From the other side of the river Yabu Bata shouted something to him, but he couldn't understand what he said. Nelio woke up before it was light. Alfredo Bomba was sleeping next to him, on his back with his mouth open, like a little child. Nelio thought it would be wise for him to start this important day by trying to understand the dreams he had had during the night. From his father he had learned that dreams often contain omens. They might be puzzling, but it was a person's task to interpret the omens and to act accordingly.

'People sleep in order to dream,' his father had told him. 'The reason we wake up afterwards is so that we have the chance to interpret our dreams.'

Nelio thought that it would have been easier if he were lying inside the horse's belly. There he was used to studying his dreams. He needed to be alone if he was going to listen to the voices of the night that spoke to him. Here, surrounded by the sleeping band, he had no peace.

With the first glow of morning light in the sky, Nelio got up, carefully so as not to wake the others, and walked across the deserted street to Abu Cassamo's shop. He listened at the door and could hear the sound of shuffling footsteps inside. He knocked gently and waited. Abu Cassamo peeked from the doorway after undoing all the locks and the safety chain, which were his security against the world he mistrusted. His eyes that were always melancholy regarded Nelio standing outside.

'I've brought my maps again,' Nelio said. 'And I also have a question to ask you.'

Abu Cassamo let him into the dim studio. Then he squatted down next to the spirit stove where he was making coffee according to a complicated ritual. Nelio sat on a stool and waited. On the walls hung torn tourist posters in gaudy, implausible colours, and Nelio assumed that they were scenes from the Indian subcontinent, which Abu Cassamo would never see.

When Abu Cassamo had emptied his little coffee cup, he wiped his mouth and sat down on a stool facing Nelio, who was already holding the tattered atlas in his hands. He explained to Abu Cassamo why he had come. But he spoke of Alfredo Bomba's wish as if it were his own.

'I once made a promise to my father to visit this island,' Nelio said. 'Last night I dreamed it was time for me to make the journey. My father will be very annoyed if I don't do as we decided.'

'I assume that your father is dead,' mused Abu Cassamo.

'He'd be angry even if he was alive,' replied Nelio. 'I don't think it's got any better since he drowned in a ditch full of water when he was groggy with malaria.'

Abu Cassamo took the book of maps and turned on the last of the glaring photographic lamps that still worked. Nelio waited, aware that he was slowly being pulled back in time, to a point long before the bandits came and burned his village. Not until many hours later, as Abu Cassamo turned the final page of the maps, did he come back to real life again.

'I can't help you,' Abu Cassamo said. 'The island where your father is waiting for you isn't shown. This is a very poor atlas.'

'I found it in a rubbish bin,' Nelio said. 'Now I understand why someone threw it away.'

'The world can only be shown on poor maps,' Abu Cassamo said. 'How could anyone make a complete map of something that is so badly tended as our world?'

They were quiet for a moment.

'How do you find an island that isn't shown on any map?' asked Nelio at last.

'You can't find it,' Abu Cassamo said. 'The best thing you can do is to drink uputso and dance and talk to your father. Sometimes the dead can show us ways that we didn't realise we knew.'

Nelio couldn't help noticing the faint undertone of scorn in Abu Cassamo's voice. He knew that Indians were like whites in the sense that they had never understood why black people often danced and talked to their ancestors. Just like the whites, Indians were afraid; they hid their fear by showing their contempt, although with much greater discretion than the whites, because they were businessmen and they didn't want to make enemies with anyone who might some day unexpectedly become a customer.

'I'm going to take your advice,' Nelio said. 'But I have another question. Who might give me all the money I need to make the long journey and also buy a new suit for my father?'

'I didn't know that the spirits wore suits.'

'My father claims they do. When I dream about him, he's always wearing the same suit, which is now much too shabby and worn.'

'I only know one person who might be able to give you the money,' Abu Cassamo said. 'His name is Suleiman, and he's just as rich as the great Khan, but everybody pretends he's not because he doesn't give any money to build new mosques.'

'Why would he give me the money?'

'He's Indian, like me,' Abu Cassamo said. 'But his soul has gone astray by living so many years among blacks, like you. He's so afraid of evil spirits and omens now that he doesn't even dare to conduct business any more. He has shut himself up in his house and never goes out. If you give him my greetings, he might let you in.'

'How do you happen to know him?'

'He was my last customer,' Abu Cassamo said sadly. 'In the last photograph I took, you can see the fear shining in his eyes.'

'Maybe he ought to go with me to the island,' Nelio said. 'Where does this man named Suleiman live?'

'There's a house next to the old prison that looks as if it's had its top chopped off. 'Suleiman tore down the upper storey with his bare hands after he was swindled in some big deal. He was punishing himself for being so gullible. That happened many years ago, before he believed that the evil spirits and omens could harm him.'

Nelio got up to go. It was already late afternoon. He was very hungry.

'Don't you ever eat?' he asked.

'Only when I'm hungry,' Abu Cassamo said. 'But today is not one of those days.'

'I'll let you take my picture,' Nelio said, 'when I come back from my journey. And you'll take pictures of the others that I live with here on the street. You'll develop the pictures, we'll pick the best ones, and then we'll frame them. And we'll pay you for your work.'

'Which wall should we hang the photos on?' asked Abu Cassamo after he had shown Nelio out.

'At the back of the petrol station,' Nelio said. 'There's a beautiful wall there. When it rains, of course, we'll have to cover them with sacks.'

The next day Nelio walked through the city to Suleiman's chopped-off house. He opened the gate and walked into a yard that looked like an overgrown cemetery. In the dry grass lay rusty dog chains, a reminder of furious barking. Nelio knocked on the door. A tiny slot opened just above the doorstep. A fat brown finger stuck out and indicated that Nelio should lie down so that his face was level with the slot. The finger disappeared, Nelio lay flat and stared straight into an eye.

'I've come to talk to Suleiman about an island where fear is erased,' he said. Abu Cassamo sent me here.'

The eye vanished and the door opened a crack. It occurred to Nelio that all Indians open their doors only halfway, maybe out of fear, but also out of thrift. Nelio went into the chopped-off house where all the curtains were drawn. There was an unfamiliar smell, and it was very dark. When his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, he saw that the house had no furniture at all. The only thing inside the house was money. There were bundles and stacks of banknotes everywhere, all tied up with string. It was the money that was making the smell that Nelio hadn't recognised. In the midst of all the money, as if surrounded by protective walls of banknotes, stood Suleiman. He was short and very fat. His hair had fallen out, his beard was skimpy, and the frames of his glasses were held together with dirty tape. Nelio explained to Suleiman the purpose of his visit. He listened with his eyes closed. When Nelio stopped talking, Suleiman threw out his arms in a gesture of weary resignation.

'I don't have any money to spare,' he said. 'The little I have left, which you see here, is already spoken for. And I can't go with you on your journey either. Beyond these doors all those who wish me ill are waiting. At night I hear them scratching and scraping on the walls of the house. They've lured my watchdogs away with poisoned pieces of meat.'

'We could leave after dark,' Nelio suggested.

'Even worse,' Suleiman said. 'It might have been possible in the daytime, in bright sunlight, but I don't dare. And besides, I'm too fat and my eyes are too feeble. I have to stay here and guard the money that's left. Once I was a wealthy man, as rich as Khan. Now my wealth has made me poor by dwindling away in some manner that I don't fully comprehend. Everything is already spoken for.'

'I believe one of the small bundles would be enough,' Nelio said cautiously, lowering his voice so that his request would seem smaller because it was presented so quietly.

'I have no money to give away,' Suleiman said, and Nelio could tell that he was beginning to get annoyed. 'Everybody wants money. I can't leave the house without being surrounded by all the beggars. It's easier to count the ones who don't want anything. The beggars even beg from each other. The dead in the ground shout for money. I've given away everything I once owned. What's left here is for paying my debts after I'm dead. The money in the corner by the window will pay for my funeral, the money beyond the door there will pay for my cousins' weddings and for my faithless sons' illegitimate children, whom no one will acknowledge except me. I have the alms ready, the fines and the bribes, and everything is spoken for. There's no money for a suit for your father or for a journey to the island that you're talking about. Even if it doesn't exist, even if you're actually a con artist and I choose to let you deceive me, I have no money to give you.'

'A little boy is going to die soon,' Nelio said. 'His soul could protect you.'

'My house is full of all the dead souls that people who have asked me for money have given to me as guarantees which I can redeem when they die. But what good have they done me?'

Nelio left Suleiman's house. The paths he had taken during the past few days had not led him any closer to his goal.

That evening Nelio gathered the group. He waited until Alfredo Bomba was asleep before he began to speak.

'Abu Cassamo couldn't find the place that Alfredo Bomba's mother talked about. Since Abu Cassamo never has customers who want to be photographed, he has been able to devote all his time to studying the maps. So it won't do any good to ask anyone else. And we don't have time to go searching for Alfredo Bomba's mother; no one even knows if she's still alive. We haven't managed to get hold of any money, either.'

He looked around. They all avoided meeting his gaze since they had nothing to say.

It was Tristeza who broke the silence. 'Maybe it would be better if we gave him my trainers after all. Now that he's so sick, maybe his feet have grown bigger.'

'Why would that happen?' asked Nelio.

'Sick people swell up,' muttered Tristeza. 'The blood hides from death in their feet.'

Nelio pondered Tristeza's strange remark for a while. He had learned that Tristeza, even though he thought slowly, sometimes could say things that were worth considering.

'Alfredo Bomba doesn't want trainers,' he said. 'He wants to visit the island where people lose their fear. Our first problem is to find out where it is. Our second problem is that even if we find it, we have no money to pay for the journey.'

'There's no such island,' Nascimento said.

'Maybe not,' said Nelio thoughtfully. 'But that's a only minor problem.'

They were looking at him with surprise. What did he mean? Nelio raised his hand dismissively. Right now he didn't want to hear any more questions. Somewhere inside his head a plan was being hatched. He had discovered an unknown path in his mind which he was now following, and it would give him the answer to how they were going to grant Alfredo Bomba's wish. Nelio stood up and walked past the petrol station out to the street, and crossed to the other side where Abu Cassamo's photographic shop stood, next to the bakery and the theatre. One of Dona Esmeralda's performances had just finished. The audience was pouring out and heading off in the dark in various directions. The watchmen were starting to lock the doors, and the lights outside the entrance were extinguished, one by one. Nelio stood and watched all this at the same time as he followed a winding path between dense brambles in his head. He was seeing with his gaze turned inward, and he now knew how they would make the journey to the island in an unknown part of the world, or maybe in a world that didn't actually exist.

He went back to the waiting boys. Alfredo Bomba was asleep.

'I've found the island,' he said. 'It's not on the maps that Abu Cassamo tried in vain to read. And it's so close that we don't need any money to make the journey.'

'Where?' asked Nascimento.

'Right across the street,' Nelio said. 'It's right where Dona Esmeralda has her theatre. At night the theatre is empty. The stage is deserted, because the actors are asleep. What doesn't exist you have to create yourself. Even an island that no one can find can be created. Even a dream can be plucked out of your head and shaped for a purpose. Tonight when the watchmen outside the theatre are asleep, we'll climb in through one of the broken windows in the back, where Dona Esmeralda has her wardrobe room. Then we'll turn on the lights on the stage and start rehearsing a play about Alfredo Bomba's visit to the island that his mother told him about.'

'None of us knows how to do that,' Mandioca said.

'Then we'll have to learn,' Nelio told him.

'Some of the watchmen outside the theatre have guns,' said Nascimento.

'We'll be quiet,' Nelio said.

That same night, just after midnight, when the watchmen had fallen asleep outside the theatres entrance, they sneaked round to the back and climbed in through the broken window of the wardrobe room. They had assigned Tristeza to stay with Alfredo Bomba, since he would never be able to learn to say lines or to move in a disciplined way onstage. They found their way by striking matches, and then turned on the glaring spotlights that hung above the stage.

The stage was deserted.

They stood below in the house. At that moment Nelio thought that the stage looked like a mouth, an open mouth waiting for the food they would give it.

Then they began creating the island.

Nelio smiled his weary smile in the dawn light. In the distance, on the other side of the river, a thunderstorm was brewing. I realised that we were now approaching the end, both of his story and of his life,

I said nothing. I just looked at him and smiled. What was there to say, after all?

Then I got up and went down the stairs to the bakery.