I walked across the cobblestones to examine and admire it. It seemed an odd item to find here in the courtyard of a once-cloistered convent. I was so enthralled I failed to hear the door behind me open.

"Do you find my Shiva interesting, Ms. James?" said a soothing voice, just barely audible above the chirps of birds. I think I caught a breath in my phlegm-locked chest, but then I turned to see a tall man dressed in casual chinos and a dark sweater. He was trim, looked to be in his early sixties, with a mane of salt-and-pepper hair and lean features more craggy than handsome. But his eyes were everything, telling you he owned the space around him, owned in fact, the air he breathed. It had to be Alex Goddard.

"Yes," I answered almost before I thought. "It just seems to be a little out of place here."

I wondered if he was going to introduce himself. Then I realized that when you're used to being the master of a pri­vate domain, you probably never think to bother with such trivial formalities. Everybody knows who you are.

"Well," he said, his voice disarmingly benign, "I suppose I must beg to differ. May I suggest you consider this Shiva for a moment and try to imagine he's a real god?"

"He is a real god" I said immediately feeling patronized. Nothing makes me angry faster. "In India, he's—"

"Yes," he said "I know you did a film about India—which I found quite extraordinary, by the way—but why wouldn't the Shiva fit right in here? You see, he's a very modern, universal figure. He incorporates everything that exists in the contemporary world. Space, time, matter, and energy. As well as all of human psychology and wisdom."

"I'm aware of that," I said sensing my pique increase. We were not getting off to a great start.

"Yes, well." He seemed not to hear me. Instead he started putting on the leather jacket he'd had slung over his shoulder. "Notice that Shiva has four arms, and he's dancing with one foot raised. He's also standing inside that great circle of flame, a sort of halo encompassing his whole body. That circle stands for the great, all-embracing material universe, all of it. Dark and light, good and evil. He knows and controls everything."

Hey, I realized, this guy's got some kind of identity thing going with this ancient Indian god.