'It felt as if the world had ended, and I was the only one left alive. No matter which direction I took, I would still be alone.

'But I was wrong about that. Because while I was sitting in the shade of the bushes, I discovered that there was someone on the other bank of the narrow stream. That was where I met the white dwarf, who later led me here to the city.'

It was dawn by the time Nelio stopped talking. A light rain had begun to fall and I made a canopy of flour sacks over him. I touched his forehead and noticed that the fever had returned. Before I got up to go and get more of Senhora Muwulene's herbs, I thought for a long time about what he had told me. I still didn't know what had happened that night on the stage of the theatre. What was he doing there? Who had shot him?

Nelio was asleep.

I stood up and stretched my back, which ached. Then I left him alone with the dreams I knew nothing about.

The Third Night

That night I thought Nelio was going to die, and I would never find out why he had been shot. For long periods he was submerged in the high fever raging through his body. He raved deliriously and thrashed about on the mattress, and it was like watching someone in the last stage of fatal malaria; there was nothing more that either I or anyone else could do for him. He was going to slip away from life without ending his story.

But he fought his way through that crisis too; he was still stronger than the fever caused by his wounds, and when dawn came, his forehead felt cool and he was sleeping peacefully. He had even asked for a little bread before he went to sleep. During the day I fell asleep too. I rolled out a reed mat that I had borrowed from Senhora Muwulene when I went to get more of her herbs. I told her how things stood since I believed I could rely on her.