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‘That does not sound like philosophy to me, Mr Coetzee,’ I said, ‘it sounds like something else, I will not say what, since you are our guest. Maria, you can fetch the cake now. Joana, help her; and take off that raincoat. My daughters baked a cake last night in honour of your visit.’

The moment the girls were out of the room I went to the heart of the matter, speaking softly so that they would not hear. ‘Maria is still a child, Mr Coetzee. I am paying for her to learn English and get a good certificate. I am not paying for you to play with her feelings. Do you understand?’ The girls came back, bearing their cake. ‘Do you understand?’ I repeated.

‘We learn what we most deeply want to learn,’ he replied. ‘Maria wants to learn – do you not, Maria?’

Maria flushed and sat down.

‘Maria wants to learn,’ he repeated, ‘and she is making good progress. She has a feeling for language. Maybe she will become a writer one day. What a magnificent cake!’

‘It is good when a girl can bake,’ I said, ‘but it is even better when she can speak good English and get good marks in her English examination.’

‘Good elocution, good marks,’ he said. ‘I understand your wishes perfectly.’

When he had left, when the girls had gone to bed, I sat down and wrote him a letter in my bad English, I could not help that, it was not the kind of letter my friend at the studio should see.

Respected Mr Coetzee, I wrote, I repeat what I told you during your visit. You are employed to teach my daughter English, not to play with her feelings. She is a child, you are a grown man. If you wish to expose your feelings, expose them outside the classroom. Yours faithfully, ATN.

That is what I said. It may not be how you speak in English, but it is how we speak in Portuguese – your translator will understand. Expose your feelings outside the classroom – that was not an invitation to him to pursue me, it was a warning to him not to pursue my daughter.

I sealed up the letter in an envelope and wrote his name on it, Mr Coetzee / Saint Bonaventure, and on the Monday morning I put it in Maria Regina’s bag. ‘Give it to Mr Coetzee,’ I said, ‘put it in his hand.’

‘What is it?’ said Maria Regina.

‘It is a note from a parent to her daughter’s teacher, it is not for your eyes. Now go, or you will miss your bus.’

Of course I made a mistake, I should not have said, It is not for your eyes. Maria Regina was beyond the age where, if your mother gives you a command, you obey. She was beyond that age but I did not know it yet. I was living in the past.

‘Did you give the note to Mr Coetzee?’ I asked when she came home.

‘Yes,’ she said, and nothing more. I did not think I needed to ask, Did you open it in secret and read it before you gave it to him?

The next day, to my surprise, Maria Regina brought back a note from this teacher of hers, not an answer to mine but an invitation: would we all like to come on a picnic with him and his father? At first I was going to refuse. ‘Think,’ I said to Maria Regina: ‘Do you really want your friends at school to get the impression you are the teacher’s favourite? Do you really want them to gossip behind your back?’ But that weighed nothing with her, she wanted to be the teacher’s favourite. She pressed me and pressed me to accept, and Joana backed her up, so in the end I said yes.

There was lots of excitement at home, and lots of baking, and Joana brought things from the shop too, so when Mr Coetzee came to fetch us on the Sunday morning we had a whole basket of cakes and biscuits and sweets with us, enough to feed an army.

He did not fetch us in a car, he did not have a car, no, he came in a truck, the kind that is open at the back, that in Brazil we call a caminhonete. So the girls, in their nice clothes, had to sit in the back with the firewood while I sat in the front with him and his father.

That was the only time I met his father. His father was quite old already, and unsteady, with hands that trembled. I thought he might be trembling because he found himself sitting next to a strange woman, but later I saw his hands