South of Calcutta, in one of the dim curves of the Hugli River, before inserting its dense wet arms into the clay sand, several children played with innocent joy as they dipped their tiny bodies in one of the nearby public fountains. The old city was cut off by the warm gray air that cut out the profiles of its distant buildings. The afternoon progressed, heavy as if wanting to glimpse his presence in an unappealable appointment with the night, still distant waiting for her in his warm and dark arms. A little farther on, on one of the almost invisible edges of the Garden Reach, was a scattered rustic farmhouse; its alleyways of humid earth, let escape a strange smell, that at times seemed to flee from the earth and to meet with the dirty puddles, that abounded for those days of spring. Women, dressed in rustic, light-colored saris, emerged for moments in the courtyards, barely divided by a few boards and cartons. Going up the most imperceptible alley, and after passing by the edge of the hill, you could see a ramshackle and chaotic hut. It was difficult to perceive the place of the entrance and, how much ...