Grace.

He walks into the pharmacy and I can tell straightaway that he doesn’t belong. He’s nervous, surveying us all with the same hunted expression, waiting for the one who’s going to step out of the crowd and expose his imposture. You can tell there’s no difference between us in his eyes, no striations of individuality: to him, we’re all other.

He’s got an incredible face, like Neanderthal man but beautiful: high cheekbones and a broad forehead, very dark eyes. Christ had a face like that, I think, rough and timeless and sorrowing. Now he takes a few steps forward, not knowing which way to turn.

And now he’s right beside me, talking to the cashier. In his hand, he’s holding the cracked plastic wallet containing his ID card. This is a difficult detail to absorb: the fact that he believes this scrap of paper, thinned to vellum by years of close proximity with his body, will legitimise his desperation and admit him to the world where everyone’s fed and clean and happy. He stands there clutching the wallet, shifting from one foot to the other, waiting for his judgement to be pronounced like a schoolboy kept behind after class.

The assistant is replying now, and there’s genuine regret in her voice, but her eyes also flicker nervously from side to side. He sees it and turns to me, starts talking very quickly. I don’t know what he’s saying, it’s too fast. I think, I can’t do this: I’ve got no hands free, my change is in my pocket underneath my keys and I’m not sure whether he’s begging or asking me to buy medicine for him. I am terrified of offending his pride, and I am terrified of helping him.

So I hide behind the persona of the clueless gringo, babbling some nonsense about not understanding, being foreign, and deeply regretting, incidentally, my entire existence. But as he wanders back out into the brown haze of Teodoro Sampaio, I remember that I’ve got R$10 in my pocket. Immediately, I want to give it to him. I don’t care what he spends it on. I just want him to have something that will help him get through whatever he’s going through.

And yet I find I can’t move. I’m too embarrassed to ask the cashier to wait while I go after him. Also, I’m suddenly afraid of the stigma of association. It’s ludicrous, but I feel somehow sure that if I go after him, I’ll jeopardise my place on the side of the people with clean clothes and health insurance; the folks with car keys and good teeth will turn on me and cast me out into the darkness. This is inevitable. So I wait until he’s out of sight, and I can’t follow him.

When I get outside, I look around, hoping he’ll still be nearby so that I can atone – but he’s long gone. I begin the long walk home with my laden shopping bags. And as I walk, I see quite clearly that I’ve failed one of the basic, unspoken tests of humanity we set ourselves. And it feels pretty bad – bad to be born with all the privileges of white skin and western Europe, of education and affluence – and all I’ve got in my hands as twilight falls on the far side of the world is a bag of fucking diapers.