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Two Lives, Intersected

Chapter 14

'There's no such thing as a perfect murder.'

Scene 9: Henry: "Nobody knows what causes it."

"The Kingdom at Summer's End" -- The plot of this story resembles preceding ones in the book. In this one, Nishino and Sunaga have a months-long fling before breaking up.

"The Heart Races" -- Kanoko invites her former boyfriend Yukihiku to a ryokan at the seashore.

"Good Night" -- Yukihiko and Manami, two co-workers, develop a romance. The twist is that the former one does not love his girlfriends, though, by his attentions, most would never know otherwise.

"In The Grass" has a fourteen-year-old main character who lost her mother several years ago. Nishino is the same age. Their very brief relationship, nevertheless, moves her from the past into the future.

"Parfait" -- Nishino and a married woman with a daughter.

Chapter 26 Reorganisation. Qisma was seething with anger.

Chapter 12 The Trunk Boat

"Ah...The time had finally come...For the first time in my life I was all alone."

"She placed her hand on mine, and smiled."

"We all exchanged looks, and hesitated, not knowing how to answer."

Chapter 9 Founding the Party
"As he led his hosts back to the main room, Sayyid Jalal al-Din ordered his guards to clear up the chaos [...]"

"If we die they call our lone defenseless children orphans, but when our children die, no one calls us lone, defenseless mothers anything."

"Towards the forest. To the least likely place to ever see another human being, again."

"I opened the door again and headed quietly for my room." The poet, who works by day at the National Library (Egypt) has had a months-long spat with the singer Umm Kulthum. It arose after she discovered that her song especially sung for King Fu'ad had originally been written for their friend, the lutist Muhammad.

She persuaded Qsabji to compose for her.

I pushed open the shutters and the sun offered up a vibrant, spontaneous city, formidably real.

Chapter 2 "Elements of Chaos"

"The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread with sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him.

Significant events of plot from the viewpoints of the five women are the sweeping invasion of driver ants which cause the villagers & the Prices to cross to safety on the other side of the river. The good outcome is: After a couple days of the ants' scouring the surface of everything, the village is clean of vermin. Another momentous event pregnant with a decisive shift in Orleanna's character is Ruth May's death.

Much happens during the Prices' faith-based mission in the Congo. The results are a female emancipation of Orleanna & her daughters & a Congolese independence from Belgium. Both arrive by a tortuous birth. The mother Orleanna walks her remaining girls through a horrific journey between Kilanga and the embassy in Leopoldville; after hostilities, the Congo is granted self-government then a coup & a lengthy tyranny.

Opens circa 1959 with an American Baptist missionary family from Georgia. Their insular understanding of life undergoes a shock when Reverend Price, Mrs Price, & their 4 daughters Rachel, Leah, Adah, & Ruth May move to the Belgian Congo in central Africa. As two chapter headings suggest--'the things they carried' and 'the things they learned'--their African experience surprised them, & the Reverend dug in his heels.

The last stories, 'All the Secret Things No-one Ever Knows' & 'Love It When You Come, Hate It When You Go', differ from each other. The former describes the amoral relationship of a father to his female & male children. When he divorces his wife & ends his relationship with his daughter, the latter plots his murder. The other (title) story narrates the ups & downs between a successful artist & an IT professional.