He also realised that it was very difficult for kids who suddenly found themselves on the streets to force their way in and become accepted by those who were already living there and keeping watch over their territory. Many were turned away and beaten; they retreated, but then came back because they had nowhere else to flee. In the end, many of them disappeared, and no one ever asked about them. Nelio sometimes lay awake in the horse's belly with his head resting against the left hind leg, wondering whether there was a separate heaven for the street kids who vanished without a trace. A world solely for street kids, where they could continue their stubborn life of dancing and starving and laughing.

Nelio fell silent, practically in the middle of a sentence. It was almost dawn; the sky in the east had already begun to shimmer with the faint reddish-yellow light which heralded the sun. I could tell from his face how tired he was. I thought he had dropped off to sleep but then he began to speak again.

'The chance came unexpectedly. One day I had the chance to join a group of street kids – the ones you know, the ones who live right outside on this street. One day something happened that changed everything. It was pure chance that I was there. But isn't life made up of a long chain of chance moments?'

I waited for more, but it never came. Nelio had closed his eyes. Soon he was asleep. His breathing came in gasps. I was already dreading what I would see when I changed his bandage. And yet I knew that life was still holding on to him. He would never leave me ignorant of what had happened when he became one of the group of street kids that lived and plied their trades on the street outside the theatre and bakery.

I knew that there would be more.

I got up, went to the edge of the roof and looked out across the city, I was very tired.

Later that day, after I had paid another visit to Senhora Muwulene, I went to the plaza where the equestrian statue stood. The old men were sitting there in the shade, exactly the way Nelio had described them. I sat down next to the horse's leg and saw the hatch which led to Nelio's secret room. For a second I was tempted to open it and crawl inside. But I didn't do it. That would have been an affront to him. I left quickly. From one of the enticing girls I borrowed money to buy some food. There were still ten days left before Dona Esmeralda might pay me my small wages, if she happened to have any cash, and that was not always the case.

The day was exceedingly hot. A thunderstorm was brewing on the horizon. I hurried back to the rooftop where Nelio lay, fast asleep, and rigged up the rain canopy I had earlier put together from old flour sacks.

I had just finished when the rain came.

Nelio noticed nothing. He slept.

The Fifth Night

The rain had moved off and the night, which was fresh and clear, had settled in over the city. I had slept for several hours next to the chimney on a pile of old newspapers since the roof was still damp from the heavy downpour. It was almost midnight, and I was about to go down the winding stairs to the heat of the bakery to check on the slovenly baker's work when Nelio broke the silence and said that he needed to use the toilet. Since he had eaten so little during the days and nights he had lain on the mattress, I had forgotten to make any arrangements. I went downstairs and out to the backyard where one of the enticing girls from the bread counter had retired with one of the bakers from the day shift. I caught them in a situation that was not at all easy to ignore, and I could feel myself blushing, but I hastily grabbed one of the buckets that was used for emptying the rubbish and went back to the roof. Behind me I heard the baker's fury at being disturbed and the girl's embarrassed giggles. I tore pieces of newspaper and put them next to the bucket. Then I helped Nelio up and left him in peace. When I returned, he was lying on the mattress again. I saw that he was sweating from the effort, and I blamed myself for not making better arrangements for him.

'Your work is waiting for you,' he said.

'I'll be back soon,' I told him. 'The dough mixer doesn't know how much flour or how little salt to mix for the bread to meet Dona Esmeralda's standards.'

With the bucket in hand, I left. It took me two hours to get the night's work in order. The dough mixer's eyes were glazed. When I realised that he had been smoking soruma and was off in a land far away, I could no longer control myself, and I punched him right in the face. I yelled at him that I had had enough and that Dona Esmeralda would fire him the moment I told her how unreliable he was. After that, everything took even longer. The dough mixer could scarcely stay on his feet, and I had to haul up the heavy flour sacks myself, since I didn't dare to let him go to the storeroom alone. On top of that, the wood in the ovens was bad that night. It took a long time before I got them hot enough so I could shove in the first baking pans. I rolled out the dough and baked the bread as fast as I could. But it was the small hours of the morning before I could kick the dough mixer out and go back to the roof. Nelio was awake when I got there. To my joy, he had eaten the fruit and the slice of bread with the thick layer of butter, which I had left for him next to his mattress. He had also put on the shirt I had washed for him earlier in the day. I thought that a miracle might be in the making. The fact that he had needed to use the toilet was a sign that his stomach was not seriously damaged. The fact that he was eating meant that life was trying to return inside him. Maybe Senhora Muwulene's herbs were healing his wounds.

But when I changed his bandage, I felt disheartened again. The wounds had grown darker; they were festering and smelled very bad. I knew I had to tell him how things stood – that he would die if he wasn't taken to a hospital where doctors could cut out the bullets that were poisoning his body. But he only smiled and shook his head.

'I'll tell you when it's time,' he said.

I cleaned the wounds as thoroughly as I could, without causing him too much pain. I could see that he made the utmost effort not to show me how much it hurt. Afterwards I put on the clean strips of cloth and gave him some water to drink. He sank back on to the mattress. In the glow of the kerosene lamp I could see how haggard his face had become during the four days I had spent with him. His black skin was stretched taut over his cheekbones, his eyes seemed to have sunk into their sockets, his lips were cracked, and his curly hair had begun to fall out. I thought that he should rest instead of devoting his nights to telling his story. I couldn't deny my curiosity – I wanted to hear his words, every one of them, since I sensed that his story was in some way also about me. I realised that I had to be patient. In the silences, when he allowed the story to rest, he would have a greater chance of regaining his strength.

But when he asked me to sit down on his mattress and then continued his story, I was never able to tell him to stop, to think about himself and how important it was not to exert himself. As he had on the previous nights, he continued his wandering through the city and through his life. A little before dawn a few scattered raindrops fell. But that was all. Otherwise we were surrounded by silence, now and then broken by dogs growling and barking at each other somewhere in the dark.

Nelio had often pondered the power that chance has over human beings. Those little words 'if' and 'if not' were more important than all other words. No one could ignore them, no one could deny that they were always close at hand, like symbols of the unpredictability that shapes our lives.

One morning he had been out on one of his aimless meanderings through the city – which often brought him the most significant experiences – when quite close to the theatre and bakery he caught sight of several policemen who had grabbed a street boy and were furiously beating him with their black batons. Nelio had noticed the boy before; he was the leader of a band of street kids, and his name was Cosmos. Like most of the others who led bands of children and guarded their territories, Cosmos was somewhat older than the others, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Nelio had noticed him because he seldom hit the smaller boys, rarely even yelled at them or ordered them to run errands for him unnecessarily.