Free The Discovery of America by the Turks by Jorge Amado Page B

backgammon afternoons, when Raduan Murad was left all alone in the bar, sipping his last glass of the bogus anisette, counterfeited by the Mohana family and delicious, better than the imported variety, Adib came over to him.
    “May I, Professor? Do you remember that talk we had the other day?”
    “Talk? Which one?” Raduan was playing innocent.
    “About marriage, et cetera and so forth. You told me, Professor…”
    “Now I remember.”
    “I’m an orphan on both sides, you know. I’d like you, Professor, to have a talk with Mr. Ibrahim as if you were my father. I want to marry his daughter.”
    “You want to marry Adma?” He held back an expression of surprise. Astonished, he remained silent for a moment and looked straight at Adib with obvious wonderment.
    “What about Adma? Does she know about your intentions?”
    “We’ve been making love going on two months now.”
    “Making love? How? She up in the window and you down in the street? Sending little billets-doux?”
    “Little notes, Professor? Not with me! It’s right in the backyard. When I leave here at ten o’clock at night, she’s waiting for me. She leaves the gate open.” He clicked his tongue in an obscene sound of satisfaction, identical to theone he gave months before when he recalled Procópia, the civil judge’s woman.
    “You mean…?”
    “Just what you’re thinking, Professor. You know what it’s like. People start fooling around, a touch here, a pat there; then when you realize it, it’s too late—the meeting’s already been called to order.”
    An amazing individual! Trying to clarify things for him, perhaps, he only ended up leaving Raduan in the dark, all confused, as he swore he was.
    “Maybe you can’t imagine it, Professor, but she’s really something.” He smiled with contentment and satisfaction. Raduan Murad was fascinated.
    “Tell Mr. Ibrahim he can put the store in my hands. In my hands it’s going to be a first-class bazaar.”
    From whom had Raduan heard an affirmative just like that?
    “I’ll see to the matter,” he said, accepting the assignment. Conceding it its deserved importance, he added: “This request calls for a celebration, speeches. It’s not every day that an engagement like this comes along, one so…” He searched for the adjective. “Auspicious.”
    He sat there thinking for a moment and then turned to Adib. “Really something! Is that what you said, Adib my boy?”
    “Really something!” the young man confirmed.
    Raduan Murad preserved in his memory the expression he hadn’t been familiar with. Absorbed in it all, he turned his eyes toward the sky, which was breaking into fire over the outlying parts of Itabuna.

18
    As he passed by the doors of the Bargain Shop, Jamil Bichara grew indignant at the sight of bars on the doors that early in the evening, when there was a lot of commercial activity. It was absurd, something that called for urgent measures and quick action. He’d try to see to that and put an end to the mess.
    He went over to the entrance to the family quarters and began to climb the stairs. He could hear the sound of voices coming from the living room. At the top he found the door wide open. He peeked inside before clapping his hands and asking permission to enter. From what he could see, a solemn ceremony was taking place, in the presence of a lot of people. Who knows, maybe it was a mournful but animated wake. Had there been a death in the family? Maybe the persecuted Ibrahim had committed suicide, unable to bear any longer the crisis that had overcome the business and the family. Only something like that could explain the closing of the store and the somber Sunday clothes of the unknown couple standing on the threshold of the foyer. He recognized Raduan Murad, who was making a speech in Arabic, probably the funeral eulogy for his friend. He was filled with sadness and remorse, but he immediately discarded the funeral theory when he heard the crystalline and licentious