We are passing through the town of Pure when Nuchi sees him crouching by the bus stop and holding the left side of his face with his hand. He gives a soft whistle and asks me to stop the van, which I do.

After five minutes of their low and mumbled discourse by the verge, the three of us are heading to the border together; Nuchi smoking by the passenger window, our newcomer in the middle almost doubled over at the waist, and my good self at the wheel.

Vanuchi can’t help but smoke in what he calls his ‘high cinematic style’. After each camp exhalation into the speeding cool spring air, he settles his gaze on our newcomer with a slightly arched right eyebrow.

“Nu Nuchi, fuck…”

begins our newcomer, and then ends it by straightening himself, burping and putting his right arm across my shoulder.

“Your Nuchi would be over there.” I inform him.

He’s slim, silver-haired, with an urban suntan, and when he smiles and informs me that he “was just orientating myself” I see that he’s missing a couple of his front teeth: one from either row.

Vanuchi offers him a cigarette, but the newcomer waves him away, and placing his right arm in his dirty denim jacket, he roots out a bottle of Hemingway. He twists the cap off and takes a slug (‘in earnest’ as the ad goes).

“I’m after, after….”

“What are you after?” says Vanuchi, stressing the ‘you’.