It was not long before she heard the men outside. She opened the door saying, 'Do you see what your thieves did to this door?'

— putting them in the wrong, though they looked, she thought, like policemen chasing a criminal. 'Sit down, please,' she said, and sat herself, noting that both were staring at Ben's door.

Luiz sat at the head of the table, taking the commanding place from force of habit. The American was opposite Teresa, the protuberant cold eyes prepared for anger.

Teresa began at once: 'That was a bad thing you did. You stole him from here. He is not your property.' She was speaking to Luiz, but he said, 'I am not to blame. I had nothing to do with it. That part of the institute has nothing to do with Brazil: it is under separate international control.' And he waited for Stephen Gaumlach to speak. He did not: he had twisted himself to stare at Ben's door.

'But you are both here,' said Teresa, seizing the — to her — nub of the situation.

'I am an old friend of Professor Gaumlach's,' said Luiz. 'But you knew those men were coming to get Ben.'

'I am apologising — on Professor Gaumlach's behalf,' again directing his colleague with a look. It was ignored. 'Instructions were exceeded. The door should not have been broken in.'

'If you expected us just to give Ben to you then why did you send criminals? They were just street criminals.' And before either man could say anything — the American seemed to feel no need to — 'And you put Ben into a cage like an animal, without clothes.'

'I've told you,' Luiz Machado said. 'That had nothing to do with our institute. But it was obviously a misunderstanding.'

Teresa said, 'I think the misunderstanding was that you did not expect us to find him like that.'

Here Luiz nodded, acknowledging that she was right, and that, too, he was impressed by how she was standing up for herself: she knew — must know from Inez — how important he was.

Now Stephen Gaumlach spoke, as if he had heard nothing of their argument. 'You can't keep him. You don't understand, do you?'

'I know you want him for your experiments. I know. I've seen with my eyes .' And she indicated her eyes with her two forefingers.

He leaned across the table to her, fists clenched, his face dark with rage. 'This . specimen could answer questions, important questions, important for science — world science. He could change what we know of the human story.'

And now Teresa felt attacked direct, into her great respect, her reverence, for knowledge and for education; that area, like a window into an unknown sky, where she could have bowed down and worshipped — and she burst into tears. She told herself, furious, that she was tired and that was why she was crying, but she knew the truth. As for Luiz, he believed this ignorant girl was frightened because she was challenging authority, and was going to get into bad trouble because of it. Knowing Professor Gaumlach as he did — he did not much like him — he saw Teresa rather as he might a mouse that has decided to stand up on its hindlegs and threaten a cat.

As for the professor, he was irritated that Teresa was crying.

Both men thought she was defeated: there was a great deal she could have said in accusation that she had not — laws had been broken in ways that could easily have serious consequences. But it was not calculations of a legal sort that made her say what she did now. It was the hateful bullying face in front of her, those cold angry eyes, while in her mind's eye she saw Ben howling naked in the cage, she saw the white cat, with faeces dripping down on her fur from the cage above. She said in Portuguese, 'Voce egente ruim' The hatred in her voice did reach her antagonist, if he did not understand her words. Now she said in English, 'You are bad people. You are a bad person.'

She did not address this to Luiz, and this was not because he had absolved his institute from all blame, nor in her mind were thoughts of a political kind — this American was a member of the most powerful nation in the world, that kind of thing: she was not interested in politics. No, she disliked Stephen, she hated him, as instinctively as she judged Alex Beyle a kindly but weak man who was good to her while he was around but forgot her the minute he left. She knew that for this famous professor to insert wires into a cat's head, and her kittens' heads, and measure her feelings as she tried to feed them while dirt dripped on to her white fur, to make monkeys sick — she could see now only too clearly the little paws stretched out to her for help — he would do anything at all and never think of what it cost the animals. He was a monster of cruelty.

But she was still weeping because of the conflict that was tearing her apart. Luiz said, 'You say that Ben is owned by — what did you say his name was?'

'Inez — she's your friend, isn't she? — she must know the name. Alex Beyle. He's an American film-maker and Ben will be the star.' 'I understood that there will be no film?'

'That isn't certain. Alex is in .' She named the little hill village where Alex and Paulo were working on their script, or scripts, knowing that it was not likely Luiz would know it. 'He is off on location now. The weather is bad. The telephone is not good. I shall tell him what has happened when he telephones me, and I'll say you want to talk to him about Ben.'

Her voice was steady now. She got up. 'If you'll excuse me, I have work to do.'

Slowly, the two men got up. Luiz, as always, was calm, was smiling. As for the other man, staring at Ben's door, he looked like a red ant — she knew now what the resemblance was that had been bothering her to recognise it.

She said, 'Ben is asleep. He is not well after what was done to him.' And she stood in front of Ben's door.

'You must not take Ben out of the country,' said Stephen, threatening, seeming to loom over her.

'He can go where he wants. He has a passport,' she said.

Luiz said to Stephen, 'We should go.' His voice told both Stephen and Teresa that there was a plan in his mind.

The two men left. Teresa wept, from relief; she was shaking all over because of what the confrontation had cost her. She knew that these men — she did not distinguish between them, saying this one is responsible, that one is not; they both had power, and were alike, for her — would do something soon to make possession of Ben legal. This time it would not be a kidnap: they would have the law behind them: Ben would be arrested on suspicion of something or other.

Teresa used the interval before Alfredo and Antonio returned to pack clothes for Ben, going quietly in and out of his room so as not to wake him — he was moaning in his sleep. She put in a warm jersey and a cap, and did the same for herself.

When Alfredo and Antonio came back they heard from her what had happened, and knew they should hurry.

'Quick, Ben, we're going on an aeroplane, far from here,' Teresa said, while he sat up in his bed, frightened, and then all eagerness. 'To my people? Now?'

'Come on, Ben,' said Alfredo. The look Teresa and Alfredo exchanged confessed their helplessness: how could they put an end to this eager hopefulness? Yet they must, they would have to.

Teresa left a letter on the table for Alex, saying that she and a good friend were taking Ben to a safe place — she was careful not to say where, because she knew it would not be Alex who would read that letter first. She had told the janitor to report the break-in to the police, and to board the door up more securely.

And so they left Alex's place, and in the street got into Antonio's car: he would take them to the airport. There he said goodbye, but he would see them soon in Humahuaca, which was where Alfredo would find work; it was a couple of hours' drive from Jujuy.

This was a big aeroplane, of the kind people use to go from continent to continent, but at Sao Paulo they changed to a smaller one, with very different people in it who had a look of being engaged with the work of the world. This plane flew lower, bringing the landscape up towards them, and its shadow flitted about over rough terrain where people like Teresa were walking and looking up to see an aeroplane, in which none of them could hope to travel, pass overhead. But once Teresa had thought she would never be in an aeroplane. Ben was looking down, and with interest. Apart from that first little hop over London with Johnston this was the first time he had been awake on a plane and ready to notice what was around him. At first he found it hard when Teresa said, Took, that's a big river down there,' or, 'That's a range of hills.' He asked, 'A river? That's a river?' Or, 'Those are hills? They look flat.' Then his mind adjusted and he took it all in and was pleased and proud that he was understanding. But that little grin of his, not the wide scared one, told Teresa and Alfredo what he was thinking about.