When dusk began to fall, he found himself on the outskirts of the city. Behind a partially collapsed gate in a wall he saw several trees. He thought that he should climb up there, uncertain whether the city might have its own wild animals that hunted the homeless at night. But when he slipped in through the gate, he discovered he was in a cemetery. It didn't look like the place where they buried the dead in the burned village: simple mounds of earth, perhaps decorated with a few sticks tied in the shape of a cross. Here the graves had walls around them, with cracked, deteriorating photographs set in ceramic. Many of the graves were in shambles. He felt as if he were in a cemetery for dead grave monuments, not for people who had been reunited with their spirits. Some of the graves were so big that they resembled little houses, all of them adorned with white plaster crosses, and some of them had wrought-iron gratings in front of the openings. He was very tired. He saw other people curled up among the graves under blankets or pieces of cardboard. Outside some of the tombs, women were cooking food over fires while their families waited in the shadows. Nelio saw that the tree he had noticed from the street wasn't tall enough to climb. One of the tombs that was bordering on total collapse seemed deserted. That was where he crawled in and huddled in the dark. He fell asleep almost at once, secure in his conviction that he was surrounded by people and spirits who wished him no harm.

When he woke up at daybreak he discovered that he was not alone in the filthy tomb. A man was lying along the opposite wall. He had a mattress and a blanket, which he had pulled up to his chin. He had hung his clothes on a hanger: a suit, a white shirt and a necktie. A shaving mirror had also been set into the wall of the tomb where a piece of tile had fallen out. Nelio sat up cautiously and was preparing to sneak away when he noticed one of the man's feet sticking out from under the blanket. At first he thought the man was sleeping with his shoes on. But when he bent down and looked closer, he realised that they were not real shoes. The man had painted shoes on his feet, white shoes, with red edges and blue shoelaces. In amazement Nelio stared at the shoe-foot sticking out. At that instant the man woke with a start and sat up on the mattress. He was quite gaunt and had sharp, piercing eyes. Nelio had the feeling that he had yanked himself out of sleep the way a wrestler tears himself out of his opponent's grasp.

'Who are you?' the man asked. 'You were sleeping here last night when I came home. I didn't want to wake you up, even though this is my house. I'm a kind man.'

'I didn't know this was anybody's house,' Nelio said.

'All of the houses in this city belong to somebody. There are so many people and so few houses.'

'I'll go,' Nelio said.

'Why are you sitting there staring at my shoes?'

'I thought they were feet,' replied Nelio. 'But now I see that I was mistaken.'

'I always sleep in my shoes,' the man said. 'Otherwise there's a big risk that somebody might steal them. To steal my shoes, the thief would, unfortunately, have to cut off my feet. That would be a great calamity.'

Then he showed Nelio how he had tied a string from his forefinger to the hanger where his suit hung. If anyone tried to steal his suit during the night, he would wake up.

'You can call me Senhor Castigo,' said the man as he got up and began to dress. 'Do you have a name? Do you know how to do anything? Or are you just as sluggish and ignorant as everybody else?'

'My name is Nelio.'

Then he considered what he could actually do.

'I can carry suitcases on my head,' he said.

Senhor Castigo gave him an amused look. 'An excellent occupation,' he said. 'The world needs people who can balance suitcases on the wooden blocks they call their heads. Can you hold a mirror without dropping it?'

Nelio held the mirror while Senhor Castigo skilfully knotted his tie.

When he was satisfied he nodded with pleasure at the mirror, hung it back on the wall and folded his blanket. Then he motioned to Nelio to follow him. Before they passed through the gate, which was hanging crookedly from its hinges, the man with the painted shoes stopped and stared at Nelio.

'You're too clean,' he said after a moment, and he bent down, picked up some dirt and rubbed it on Nelio's face. Nelio tried to resist, but Senhor Castigo hit him hard on the arm.

'Do you want to live? Do you want to survive? Or what?' he said. 'I can tell that you've just arrived in the city. I'm giving you the opportunity to survive – so long as you do as I say. Do you understand?'

Nelio nodded.

'Walk a few paces behind me,' continued Senhor Castigo. 'We don't know each other. Stop when I stop, walk when I walk. Remember this for the time being. I'll teach you the rest later on.'

They walked towards the town. At a street corner Senhor Castigo stopped and bought an onion. Nelio did as he had been instructed. He stopped a few paces away, and then continued to follow the man with the painted-on shoes. They walked along the base of the steep slopes until they reached one of the wide streets that Nelio recognised from the day before. They passed a café where many white people were sitting and drinking from glasses and cups. When they had left the café behind, Senhor Castigo drew Nelio into a dark stairwell that stank of urine,

'Carrying suitcases on your head is honest work, befitting a human being,' he said with a smile. 'But now you're going to learn the basis for all human labour, the most respectable profession that anyone can have.'

'I'd like to learn that,' said Nelio.

'Begging,' said Senhor Castigo. 'To arouse sympathy by means of your filth and your misery and your hunger. To help your fellow men express their generosity. Go out on to the street. When any white people come by stick out your hand, start crying and ask them for money. For food, for your brothers and sisters for whom you have sole responsibility. Your father is dead, your mother is dead, you're all alone in the world. Do you understand?'

'My mother is alive,' Nelio protested. 'My father might be too.'

Senhor Castigo flew into a rage. His eyes blazed. 'Do you want to live? Do you want to survive? Or what?' he shouted as he shook Nelio; his hand on Nelio's arm was like a claw. 'If I say they're dead, then they're dead. Right now, at this moment, while you're begging.'

'I can't cry for no reason,' said Nelio.

Senhor Castigo pulled the onion out of his pocket, bit it in half, and then grabbed Nelio hard by the neck. He rubbed the onion in Nelio's eyes until they stung and burned and his vision grew clouded with tears. Then he shoved Nelio out to the street. Nelio tried to do as he had been instructed. He stuck out his hand to the white people passing by. Mumbling, he tried to explain that he had not eaten for several days, for a week, for a month. A woman stopped. She was very fat and her skin was bright pink.

'Now you're lying,' she said. 'If you hadn't eaten for a month you would have been dead long ago.'

She walked away without giving him a thing.

Senhor Castigo hid in the shadows. Every time anyone stopped and began searching in his pockets to give Nelio a banknote, Senhor Castigo would walk past at exactly that moment, and then go back to the shadows from which he had come.

It wasn't until later that Nelio understood what was going on. In the middle of the day, when the heat was overwhelming, and Nelio was wobbly with fatigue and lack of water, Senhor Castigo said that they should leave and take a rest. They walked down to the harbour area, which Nelio had seen from a distance the day before. In the wall of a building hung a curtain made of white plastic streamers, which Senhor Castigo swept aside. Inside, the room was dark. Nelio had trouble seeing since his eyes still smarted. A woman who was toothless and filthy and smelled of sour wine appeared with a bottle of beer and a plate of food for Senhor Castigo. He told her to bring Nelio a scrap of bread and some water. When he was ready to pay, he took a wallet out of his pocket and smiled.