So I said nothing to Senhora Muwulene. It seemed to be too late. I had taken responsibility for Nelio, and I would have to bear it alone until he asked me to move him from the roof. After my visit to Senhora Muwulene, I went to the big marketplace and shopped for food. I bought a ready-cooked chicken and vegetables; I didn't have enough money for anything else. The marketplace was bustling. Even though no street kids were running around looking for Nelio, there were many hungry people begging, more than I had ever seen before. I knew that a steady stream of refugees had been coming to the city. The bandits were staging attacks all over the country, and there were rumours that the young revolutionary soldiers ran off whenever the bandits approached. More and more people were being forced to take to their heels, abandoning their homes. I thought about what Nelio had told me, and I understood something about the terrible fate that had befallen my country. The war that was raging was dividing families, brother against brother; and behind everything that was happening, from a great distance away in other countries, there were invisible hands pulling the strings of the bandits. It was the white people who had once been forced to leave the land and who now were seeking to return. In my mind I could picture how Dom Joaquim's statues would one day stand in the plazas again, and I felt a sudden rage at everything that had happened. The war had not only flung Nelio into a homeless vacuum, but it had sent people fleeing – innocent, simple people who wanted nothing but to try to live in peace with each other, people who never allowed a stranger to pass their homes hungry.

When I returned to the bakery from the marketplace, I seemed to see the city in a new way. It was the last rampart of defence against the bandits and the statues that threatened to destroy us.

I wondered how things would go. Without being able to explain it even to myself, it seemed to me important for everyone in the city that Nelio was up there on the bakery roof, and that he was still alive. The story he was telling me was a story that belonged to us all.

With the money I had left, I bought a shirt from a street kid. It was cheap and I could feel that it was of poor quality. But I didn't want Nelio to go on lying there wearing the same shirt. It was sweaty and dirty, and I needed time to wash it. When I got back to the bakery, I sneaked at once up to the roof to see if Nelio was still asleep. To my surprise I discovered that a grey cat had curled up at the foot of his mattress. At first I thought of chasing it away because it was probably flea-ridden. But I let it stay. Nelio was sleeping heavily and his forehead was not as hot as it had been at dawn. I sat down near the chimney and looked at him. I still could not decide whether he was a ten-year-old boy or a very old man lying there.

At dusk the cat abruptly got up from the mattress and vanished over the ridge of the roof without a sound, slipping into the darkness. Nelio kept on sleeping. I ate half of the food I had bought at the marketplace and then went down to the bakery to start the night's work. As I supervised the dough mixer's work – he was new and still hadn't learned in what order to mix the flour, eggs, sugar, water and butter – I wondered if I should tell Nelio about what had happened during the day. I was not sure how he would react. Would he be pleased that he was missed? Or would it make him depressed? I also had to admit that above all else I was hoping it might make him tell me who had tried to kill him, and why.

I was convinced that it was not an accidental shooting. A servant of evil, unknown to me, had pointed the gun at Nelio. I thought it might have been the man with the hard, squinty eyes who had followed his tracks, which had led to the city, and who had now found Nelio. But I couldn't really believe it was him. And that wouldn't explain why it had happened on the spotlit stage, and in the middle of the night.

I argued with the dough mixer, who was lazy and uninterested in his work. I threatened to complain about him to Dona Esmeralda. But he only laughed at me and hummed his monotonous tunes, which he made up as he laboured with the flour and water. Finally I was able to send him home; it was then almost midnight. I baked the first loaves and filled the baking pans. When they were in the oven, I hurried back to the roof. A mild breeze was blowing in from the sea. In the distance I could see lightning flashes from a thunderstorm that was moving past.

Nelio was awake. He smiled when he caught sight of me. I gave him the food I had bought and some water, which I mixed with Senhora Muwulene's herbs.

'I slept for a long time,' he said. And I've been dreaming. I've been retracing my steps. I dreamed that I saw Yabu Bata again.'

'Did he find his path?' I asked cautiously.

Nelio looked at me in surprise. 'Why would I ask him that? Yabu Bata was looking for his path in real life. So why would I ask him about it when I met him in a dream?'

Now, a year after the events on the rooftop, after those nights before Nelio died and I was given the strange explanation for everything that had happened, even now I still can't claim to understand Nelio's answer to my question about Yabu Bata's path. I have a feeling that he was trying to tell me something important. But my brain is still not ready to allow me to penetrate all his words. Sometimes I doubt that I will live long enough to experience that moment.

I changed the bandage. When I saw how the wound had grown even darker, I couldn't hide my horror. I thought that I could also sense the faint smell of death already present in the infected wounds.

'I have to take you to the hospital,' I said.

'Not yet,' replied Nelio. 'I'll tell you when it's necessary.'

His words were so resolute that I couldn't bring myself to object. The extraordinary aura of irrefutable naturalness that surrounded Nelio, ever since he crawled from the equestrian statue and showed himself to the world, had not deserted him even though he was now very sick.

On that night, the fourth night, he talked a great deal about the statue that had become his home in the city and the secret space where he could retreat with his thoughts.

Nelio went into the city at first light on the day after he arrived. He had spent the night on the beach under an overturned fishing boat. He followed the stream of people, overloaded trucks, rusty buses, handcarts and cars moving towards the city. He gawked at the tall buildings and was afraid that the people he glimpsed behind the broken window panes would tumble out and land on his head. He followed the hordes of people without becoming part of them; he drifted along, wondering where he was going. He remembered his first days in the city as a ceaseless wandering, day and night. At first it was confusing and frightening, then more and more pleasant, and finally with a feeling of having reached a focal point where everything converged – all events, all people were gathered at a single point. Then he got to know the city. He pulled mattresses out of rubbish bins and learned to survive by copying the other children who lived on the streets as he did.

The next night he slept in the cemetery on the outskirts of the city. That was also where he thought he found a friend and then experienced a great betrayal. On the first day, which also was the longest day, his bare feet became covered with blisters since he wasn't used to walking on asphalt and rough cobblestones. He also stumbled many times and fell into the holes that peppered the streets and pavements. He learned that at any given moment he had to make a choice between looking at the wares on display in a shop window or continuing on. If he became absorbed in a fierce quarrel between a man and a woman, he couldn't keep moving at the same time.