Two women who disliked each other huddled on the edge of a hotel bed like sisters. For some time, they had been hunched this way over the tiny screen of a phone, waiting for the alert of a new email to appear. While they stared, one of the women thought of a story the other’s mother had written. It was about a tribe in which no one looked each other in the eye, believing that such avoidance could ward off the arrival of jaguars. After the occasional animal slunk off with a baby in its jaws, the women would meet in the shade to grind their manioc and lower their heads more intently. They would murmur about the heat, listening for the judgment in the others’ voices.

On the edge of the hotel bed, the two women made a similar effort not to look up from the phone if they sensed that the other had just done so. As is the nature of avoided events, it happened anyway. They both looked up at once, their faces so close they had no choice but to stare into the dilated pupils of the other. They saw the loosened skin over each other’s eyelids, the creases fixing deeper into the other’s brow. They were in their midthirties now and, as at any age, there were jaguars.

They saw this in each other’s eyes and looked away.