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By Root 125 0

There was great excitement, and the men couldn’t keep away from the socialites. The writer was striking up conversations with everyone: Indians, caboclos, artisans and popular composers. He never tired of recording the names of plants and animals. He ate everything, even fried piranha. The four of them were received by the mayor and honoured by the local council. In the dinner given by Genesino Adel, Estiliano was the only guest who knew something about the writer. The women were so impressed with the white palace that Estiliano told them about me and the Cordovils. The next day the paulistas came to visit me. So many people had gathered around the door, and even Florita came to see the tourists. I told them I’d inherited the white palace and now lived here. They asked to see the shack and left horrified by so much poverty. Then I showed them pieces of organdie and silk from the Paris n’América haberdashery. I wanted to sell everything, whatever the price. They bought it. One of them, the oldest, wanted to know who I was going to give such marvellous cloth to.

To my beloved Dinaura.

Has she died?

No, she’s somewhere around, in some enchanted city. But one day she’ll come back. If you hear that name, it’s her, she’s the only one in the world.

The three women looked at me as if I was a madman, and I got used to being looked at like that.

I gave part of the money to Florita and kept a little in case there was worse to come. Then I grew confused and lost count of the days, waiting for a miracle. My moods shifted: hope one day, despair the next. Those trees were planted by Florita. From time to time she’d bring some meat stew with maxixe and rice with jambu leaves soaked in tucupi sauce, delicacies she used to make in the white palace. She said I was crazy to think so much about Dinaura: she couldn’t bear seeing me like this, gormless, with a face on me like a sad toad. She served my lunch, picked fruit from the garden, and when the bell rang five times, stayed close to me, to feel my anguish and see me so upset. Then she grumbled: So long ago, and you’re still dreaming of that thankless woman. Then she went away, jealous and proud, pushing her tray. I never again gave her small change, nor did I ask for a penny. Now we were equals.

One morning when she was here, a boy came to deliver a roll of paper. Genesino Adel sent it, he said.

I unrolled it, and saw a photo of my parents, just married. I tore the paper down the middle, gave Florita Amando’s face, and put the picture of Angelina, my mother, on the wall of the only room in this shack. I waited two more years to enter the white palace. That was when Genesino Adel sold the building to the Justice Tribunal. I didn’t visit the house; I went in by the back just to see the sculpted head of my mother in the middle of the fountain. I kissed the stone eyes, the face warmed by the sun, and asked the judge to authorise me to take the head to my room. He refused. Then I swore that never again would I set foot in the white palace. I looked at the stone head for the last time and asked my deceased mother to help me find Dinaura.

I bought a big canoe and moored in the harbour, offering trips to the passengers from the Booth Line. Then, when the Hilary opened the route between Liverpool and Manaus, I got fat tips. It was a huge ship, much bigger than those of the Hamburg–South America line. On the canoe trips we saw egrets on the backs of buffalo, and sometimes a harpy eagle flying over a lake of black waters. I remember a group of tourists who wanted to see Indians. I said: All you need to do is look at the inhabitants of the town. But one of the tourists insisted: Pure Indians, naked ones. Then I took them to the Aldeia of my childhood and showed them the last survivors of a tribe. If you want to talk to them, I know an interpreter, I said, thinking of Florita. They didn’t want to talk, just take photos. Then I asked them if they wanted to see the lepers on the island of Espírito Santo, and one of the tourists said no, a dry, definitive no. At the end of the trip I showed them