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What she, like the others, wanted was a little attention, a little empathy, a little money. Brazil is a rich nation full of poor people, its distribution of income nearly the most unequal in the world. The next night, in another city, a young girl mistook me and my translator for members of Lula's staff. She handed us a note, begging us to pass it on. Many words were misspelled; there was a name but no address. It said: ''Lula, I have six brothers and sisters and my mother doesn't work and we don't have a father to help us. Please, my mother cries because we don't have anything to eat. My name is Adriene.''

Lula, of all people, would understand, the little girl must have thought.

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