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A book, along with two others which mysteriously appeared on my living room couch. My wife, equally at a loss had no idea where they came from. No one had been to the house previously, certainly not the dear family friend who just finished A Fine Balance and asked if I would read it. Reluctantly taking a break from Walser and The Tanners, I began my 600 page responsibility to a person who has always been there for us.

The book's first four pages were partially folded from use, not to signify any important passage or point. The remainder of the pages were white and crisp except for the occasional single letter or short word erased from use. It wasn't clear whether they were fading or attempting to emerge. No name of ownership or penned notes showed anywhere or any other sign the book hand been read in another's hands.

On a good day I can read thirty pages. Immediately the words vanished and one hundred pages were completed each day. Immersed in a foreign culture, India, 1975, under the brutal reign of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi and her State of Emergency, the tortures of a caste system, the mass murders of a government discarding citizen rights and reaching for complete and lasting control, left me as fearful as the characters whose lives I lived. The world of death and torture was hideous, the stench of relentless fear. Other manners of the denial of life emerged more silent yet still brutalizing the living of a life. In small villages in order to provide safety for oneself and one's family life had to be ordered according to one's station as provided within the unwritten sanctions of caste. Aspirations, dreams, uniqueness were sacrificed to live as one was expected to live by the citizen's of the town. The hope flourished that children would follow suite, marrying and having their children quietly dragging the yoke of this life, participating in the small happinesses of the allotted conventions. In the large and growing cities life also was abdicated by the grasp for power where no matter where it was found there was a higher power controlling it, or the striving for upper or middle class existence with its conformity, safety, accoutrements, and agreed upon cliche's which passed off the burden of hypocrisy, the breath-quickened unreasoned reason for the, "Necessary," flood of blood. Precious life was taken, but also discarded by buckling to what others thought, the pronounced model of success, being, "Right," kneeling before the altar of arbitrary convention created to support the edifice of reigning power.

The great vampire that sucked the blood out of life was, time. It devoured individuals. Families were crushed, their ways of life vanishing, then vanished. This is the work of the world, the passage of time lost opening to its precarious renewal in different forms. A tragedy in this story is that time passed but did not open onto a new time for the many that might provide a continuation or a new existence with further meanings. Many reached a dead end as did the repetitions of the changing of power in new vestments with old designs of clothing hidden beneath.

Yet, there was a woman who defied custom and went off to make a life on her own despite the expectations that she was chosen for success within the fence-lined beliefs of her village. It was always difficult, one obstacle after another, then another waiting in line to follow. She was not the customary hero, nor never sought that trophy. Her heroism was in being herself and trying to survive where odds said she could not. This question hung in the air till near the end of the story, survival. Over time she found unexpectedly a familial love with the two tailors and a young border who lived with her in her small flat. Concern, giving, and caring sprung from people I never imagined could, would. The evil also carried hearts which could warm at times. Did she make the right choice? It could have been easier if she listened to the insistence of her brother and married at an early age, or marry at all. Tough, with all the difficulties she did live her life, patch-worked as it may have seemed to those doing what they were supposed-to-do. Those readers who love quiet heroes, this is a woman to adore, a story to adore, who can adore unexpected small gestures of kindness that flourish tender within bleakness.

This is beautiful and seamless writing that does not call attention to itself but gifted to the reader for the telling of this story. As I write I am understanding why when I finished and since, I have been emotionally wrought. I wanted to get back to reading Walser, a newspaper, listening to music, anything. This may be due to something personal within me and my identification with these characters and this story, or the literary accomplishment, or both. Although writing about it has now helped me to understand it there is still no resolution. I sit here embroiled. The past tells me to allow it to rage within and not get in its way. In the end it will open up for me, as great books do, a life with a fuller meaning.