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Just then a young girl in a school uniform ran up to us. Dona Cida embraced her. “This is my daughter, Renata,” she said. “She is going to school.”

Renata carefully laid a notebook and a school book on the table. “I have a Portuguese exam tomorrow. When is lunch?”

Dona Cida laughed. “We all get to eat together at Aunt Marcia’s today. Come,” she said to me. “You will join us. I will send my nephew to invite Seu Pedro.”

Renata waited until we had left the open street before she asked, “How is Gato? Did they beat him?”

“No.” Dona Cida put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Because of that nice lawyer I think they will not beat him. And I will talk with the sheriff tonight and we shall see what happens.”

That night, Renata and I sat on the curb beside her aunt’s house and waited while Dona Cida went to negotiate with the sheriff. Pedro had ordered his papers and returned to Salvador. I said I’d return to Salvador by bus the next day. Dona Cida told Pedro that her home was always open to him.

“A beautiful, simple place,” he said to me in English. “The bugs are too much, and I can’t understand where they sleep, but the countryside is beautiful. Dona Cida is an intelligent woman, isn’t she?”

Renata was studying her Portuguese by the street light as we waited. I watched the moon. Renata carefully began to erase a page of her notebook.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I have to write an assignment preparing for this exam tomorrow. This is last week’s lesson, so I don’t need it any more.”

“But why are you erasing it?”

“So I can use the page again.”

“Oh,” I said, “of course.” I paused. “Do you like school?” Immediately I realized the irrelevance of my question.

“I am going to finish high school and go to university.” I wondered at the quality of this country school where Dona Cida must struggle to pay Renata’s expenses, to which Renata walked over an hour each way. And I wondered at Renata’s determination that she studied even while her brother sat in jail.

“Will they kill my brother?” she asked.

I thought about how to respond. Renata deserved more than platitudes. Besides, I knew they wouldn’t comfort her. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think your mother is very clever, and she will negotiate well.”

“She will do her best,” Renata said, and turned back to her Portuguese.

Several hours later, Dona Cida returned. She looked defeated. “They will release him tomorrow,” she said. She walked to the back of the house without another word and began washing beans. Renata shut her Portuguese book. I lay down on the mat Dona Cida had prepared for me near the door. Bugs crawled over my legs, so I tucked the sheet tight around my body to stop them. I heard the soft slap of water as Dona Cida washed the next day’s beans. Around us, like an immense dome, rose a silence defined by the cant of a thousand cicadas.

eight

sex and friendship

“They let Gato out of jail, finally,” I said to Luzia. I was sitting at our table in the single room that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. I was trying to type notes into my new laptop with minor success. Luzia sat across from me, combing out her long hair after having put some kind of special conditioner on it.

“He doesn’t have anywhere to stay,” she said.

“What happened to the room he was sharing?”

“He lost it. He’s sleeping at the Fort now, in our capoeira room.”

“But there are rats there!”

“I know.”

I tried to write some more notes. Someone knocked on the door. Luzia looked up.

“You expecting anyone?” I shook my head. She rose and opened the door. Andrea walked in.

“Hi,” she said. Andrea came sometimes to visit us, but not often. It was a long way by bus, and she seldom had bus fare. She flopped onto the sofa and stared at the floor.

I glanced at Luzia and shut my computer. “What’s up, Andrea? You want some coffee?”

Andrea shook her head without lifting it and said nothing. I sat beside her and put my arm around