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snakes in the garage behind the courthouse. Sometimes the snakes would escape and slither into the rooms where court proceedings were under way. Panic would break out and the proceedings would come to a halt as Senhora Muwulene crept about, gathering up her snakes, which were usually hiding in the dark corners behind the heavy tables of the prosecutors and attorneys. The tables were made of the black, iron-like wood that is found only in our country.
    So it was Senhora Muwulene that I was on my way to see, and she smiled her toothless smile when she saw me coming. I told her straight out that I needed herbs to treat a young man who had been shot in the chest and had lost a great deal of blood. Senhora Muwulene didn't ask any questions about what had happened. But she did want to know whether Nelio was left-handed and whether he had been born on a Sunday or on a day when the wind was blowing from the north. I told her honestly that I didn't know. Senhora Muwulene sighed and complained of my ill-prepared visit. Then she mixed some crushed leaves with a thin clear liquid that she poured from a bottle which had previously contained aftershave lotion. I paid her and then hurried back to the bakery. Following Senhora Muwulene's instructions, I diluted the contents of the bottle with water and went up to the roof. Nelio hadn't moved since I left him; he was lying motionless on the mattress. But when I knelt beside him, he opened his eyes and looked up at me.
    Does the face of a dying person seem more distinct? Is it only in the proximity of death that a person's features appear as they really are? I thought about this as I gave him the diluted potion to drink. Still, I was worried that if he drank anything it would seek out forbidden paths in his wounded chest. But I knew that I had to take the risk; there was no alternative as long as he refused to let me bring help or to take him on a cart to the hospital, which stood on the highest hill in the city. When he had finished drinking I lowered his head back down to the mattress. He closed his eyes after the exertion, and I looked at him and thought that even totally black people, like him and me, could turn pale. I touched his forehead and could tell that he had a fever; I hoped that Senhora Muwulene had mixed the best herbs she had.
    Nelio was ten years old, maybe eleven. And yet I had the feeling that it was a very old man who lay there on the mattress. Did the hard life of a street kid induce a different kind of ageing than for the rest of us ordinary people? A dog that is fifteen is already extremely old. Did the same apply to Nelio? I had no answer to my own questions, and I realised with despair that in a short time he would be dead. But soon I could tell from his breathing that he had slipped into a deep sleep again. It looked as if Senhora Muwulene's herbs had already brought down his fever; his forehead felt much cooler. I stood up and looked out over the city as I ate a piece of the bread I had baked during the night.
    Since it was still early in the morning, I knew that the theatre would be empty. The actors seldom arrived to start rehearsals before ten o'clock. Nelio was asleep and his breathing was steady now, so I went down the winding staircase, back to the stage where the night-time drama had been played out. The old cleaning woman, Cashilda, was slapping the seats with a rag, making clouds of dust. She was so old that she could neither see nor hear. On several occasions she had confused morning and night; she had arrived at the theatre in the middle of a performance and set about slapping at the seats while the audience was sitting in them. When the actors heard the continuous slapping sounds and the angry protests coming from the dark theatre, they stopped the play. Some of them went down to explain to Cashilda that it was evening, not morning, and that she shouldn't be slapping at the seats when people who had paid for tickets were sitting in them. Then the