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hips…”
    In spite of the fact that Raduan wasn’t a schoolmaster or even a private tutor, lots of people called him Professor, and he accepted the title without surprise or arrogance. He showed an interest in knowing just where and how Adib had been able to appraise Lina’s hips. It had happened quite accidentally: Having gone to deliver a message to Sante’s house, he’d found the aforementioned lady squatting and scrubbing clothes in a tub, her skirt hitched up and her hipsshowing. He’d chanced a peek. Besides being bold, Adib was nosy.
    “There are those that say—”
    Raduan, knowing full well what they were saying, cut off Adib’s jabber. “Hearing always brings advantage, my boy; repeating doesn’t. Forget what you’ve heard if you don’t want to lose your job.”
    Lose his job? God save him and keep him! In the bar, a privileged position, Adib lived in contact with the rich and influential, the upper crust of the city, always current on happenings and stories, enjoying himself in debauchery with the whores who made their rounds there to pick up hicks. Throw away all those benefits? He’d have to be crazy.
    Before that he’d toiled for three years at the Style Shop, a store belonging to his brother Aziz. Did he like it at the store? If he had to work he’d rather have the bar, for the reasons mentioned. He’d begun working behind the counter at the Style Shop for nothing, to learn the ropes. Only in the past year had he got to collect a salary, a pittance. Not being a pack mule, he’d quit.
    What about as a partner? As a partner, or even just sharing in the profits, Professor, that was just a lot of talk. Because Aziz would never give him an interest in the business, no matter how much Adib killed himself with work and pleased the customers. The Style Shop of Barud and Brother? Fat chance! His ideal was to get a cacao farm—like Saad, his older brother, the son-in-law of Colonel João Cunha, who gave him a free hand, and Saad was piling up the money.
    “You’re not one to get involved in these things—isn’t that so, Professor? You live a life that’s nice and easygoing. But not everybody can live a life of comfort like a lord without working. For that you’ve got to have a lot of gray matter in your head.”
    An unexpected rascal, thought Raduan Murad, smiling good-naturedly as he listened to the unlikely commentary. How many others might there be, thinking the same thing without daring to say so? He was sorry Adib was interestedin only the daughter of a plantation owner and disdainful of the daughter of a merchant. Too bad.
    “Who said so, Professor? Just show me where there’s one to be had and I’m off on the run after her. I’ve got a lot of drive behind the counter; you can ask Aziz. He’s always trying to get me back, but I’d rather work for Senhor Sante. You can learn something here.”
    “Even if the girl’s not like those beauties, maybe a little ugly?”
    “No woman’s ugly if she’s got a little dough.”
    “Right you are, my boy. I can see you’ve had a good upbringing.”
    They got their good upbringing in the bosom of the home and loitering on the streets. While still adolescents they adopted and practiced the articles of the prevailing codes of the region, the unwritten but undisputed laws. When the time came to take a wife, they had to choose a virginal and virtuous woman, hardworking and upstanding, because it fell to her to give birth to and rear the children, take care of the house, and live in circumspection and modesty, be submissive. Beauty and youth are secondary qualities, especially if the principal dowry of the bride is measured in leagues of land or the number of doors on a place of business—the Bargain Shop had three doors opening onto the street. Beauty, grace, and youth are preferences when one is looking for a lover, a flirtation, or companionship for a night in bed, for a lay. In those cases, yes, the prescription calls for a pretty hooker,