Calcutta in early October was bustling with the annual Durga festival. The goddess Kali, the most popular of the Hindu pantheon and especially venerated in Bengal and Assam, had innumerable names and avatars, as did her husband Shiva, the god of destruction. Durga is one of Kali’s metamorphoses, ...
He had left Omiwa Shrine toward evening, he recalled, and had encountered a cart laden with lilies just as his car was passing flooded rice paddies ablaze with the scarlet glow of the setting sun. The wild lilies piled high upon the cart and held in place with sacred rope were a faint pink, as if...
There he found the old lady, Tadeshina, whom he knew to be Satoko’s maid. Satoko herself had already been to the Matsugae house to exchange New Year’s greetings, and today, finding occasion to bring some traditional Kyoto bran mash as her own New Year’s present, Tadeshina had made her way inconsp...
He had idle visitors frequently enough. The building seemed to arouse curiosity. Most of them had children and came in at the children’s urging. Tōru would lift them up to the telescope, and that would be that. This pair had been different. They had come as if trying to pry into something, and le...