Part 1 Chapter 3 Summary

The English administrators divert sparse water to keep the lawns of the Cantonment School green, but remove their children at age 8 to send them home to finishing schools in England. Thus, most of the student body, aged 3 to 19, is brown-skinned. Omar is treated as fat boys usually are in school and when his tormentors get no rise from him, is happy to become nearly invisible. Voyeurism by telescope gives way to close-up spying, at school and around town. The peeping tom never is caught and he delights in living through other human beings. His mothers pump him for information after school, becoming voyeurs-by-proxy.

Omar studies every Englishman's face for signs he may be his father. Frustrated, he arbitrarily attaches himself to the newly arrived schoolmaster as his father. Slim, sharp Eduardo Rodrigues is a mystery figure. He pulls into town dressed...