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would lay down the law benevolently. He imagined himself behind the counter, aided by his sisters-in-law Samira and Fárida. Instead of staying home sucking on a lollipop or in boobish conversation with people at the station, Samira, young and robust, would be of obvious help in the store, making her pleasant manner useful. By the same token, Fárida would be a beautiful presence, pleasing to the customers’ eyes, and the masculine clientele would increase just as soon as the Bargain Shop was changed into a bazaar. As for the agreeable Alfeu, back at his true vocation at the English Haberdashery, there he could fulfill his enviable career, advancing from apprentice to journeyman, from journeyman to master tailor, ceasing to represent any threat to the store’s finances.
    It’s worth repeating what everybody knows quite well: A sister-in-law is not a blood relative, but family ties do permit an intimacy that could be called fraternal. Jamil’s horizons were expanding: a sultan with his harem. That, yes, was living.
    Jamil studied minutely the clauses in the contract to be drawn up at the notary’s office. Partnership on Adma’s side from her mother’s inheritance, partner with Ibrahim on his side in his role as manager of the business. Given over to his leisure activities, Ibrahim would stay on as a kind of silent partner, with Jamil in the position of complete authority with the right to do and undo things.
    He foresaw buying out the shares of Jamile and of Ranulfo, her husband, at the start. Anyone who owns a cacao farm has no other ambition in life beyond acquiring land and more land for planting, increasing his holdings and his harvests. He’s not interested in stores and businesses. Later on Jamil would study what actions could be taken with regard to the shares owned by his other sisters-in-law. It would depend on their good behavior and that of their husbands. In his idle hours the emoluments of the project kept increasing and taking over his thoughts.
    Even the very ugliness of Adma, an aggressive harridan, a slab of dry cod, faded off into the distance. Shaitan the trickster couldn’t hide that reality, nor did he have the powers to do that much. But he did manage to suppress or blur the details, reducing her little mustache to just thick fuzz and transforming her sour, tight mouth into a sign of dignity. After all, Jamil had knocked off others more hideous and repulsive without getting sick, paying in coin of the realm and running the risk of catching some venereal disease, syph or the clap.
    Besides, it must be kept in mind that certain ugly women are irresistible. They’ve got their own mysteries, as Raduan Murad had once said, when Jamil commented with amazement at the extravagance of Salim Hadad, a millionaire fellow countryman, a plantation owner with his twenty thousand tons between ripening and harvest. Married to a cousin, Yasmina, a fine chunk of a woman, a real dish, he was all caught up with the lowest slut on the Rua do Umbuzeiro, Silvinha, a snotty face, a filthy ass, the breasts of a hag, a streetwalker. He spent a fortune on her. How do you explain something as absurd as that?
    “She had her mysteries, Jamil. A creature can look ugly, be in the worst shape, but if her lower mouth is worth a kiss, it’s like a pure diamond, something incomparable. Between you and me, I guarantee it. I know no equal to Silvinha’s downstairs mouth.…” He clicked his tongue in nostalgic affirmation.
    Who knows, maybe Adma is one of those privilegedcreatures, a divine pussy, worth a sucking. Jamil didn’t really believe it, but it wasn’t impossible either. Right there in Itaguassu was the example of Laurinha, nicknamed the Witch. A witch to scare the hell out of you. With the lamp out, in the dark, and with your thoughts on something else, there was no one who could compare with her, a twidget as tight as a virgin girl’s, a body’s mouth that quivered when it was tippled.
    It was more difficult to