A small crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, gleaming in daylight. Near where Nilima, Anjali’s mother, sat, a ceiling fan turned slowly. Some of the furniture had been cleared away for mats to be laid out on the floor, but some, including two armchairs and a divan, had been left where they were. On the sideboard was a Mickey Mouse–shaped pencil box, next to a few photographs and curios. A clock upon one of the shelves said it was eleven-twenty-five.

Mr. Talukdar was a tallish man, heavy, fair, clean-shaven. Most of his hair was grey, and thinning slightly. He’d held some sort of important position in an old British industrial company that had turned into a large public-sector concern a decade after independence: British Steel, renamed National Steel. He was now standing next to a television set, whose convex screen was dusty, and talking to someone.

Mr. Mitra seemed to remember that Mr. Talukdar had two sons in America, and that the sons had children. But Anjali had had no children, and that might have made things worse for her. He looked at a man singing a Brahmo sangeet on a harmonium in the middle of the room, attended by only a few listeners, and saw that it was someone he knew, an engineer at Larsen & Toubro.

The song stopped, and the sound of groups of people talking became more audible. The hubbub common to shraddh ceremonies was absent: people welcoming others as they came in, even the sense, and the conciliatory looks, of bereavement. Instead there was a sort of pointlessness, as people refused to acknowledge what did not quite have a definition. Mr. Mitra’s stomach growled.

He looked at his wife in the distance, the bun of hair prominent at the back of her head; she bent and said something to Nilima, Anjali’s mother. Suddenly there was a soft, whining sound that repeated itself, low but audible; it was the cordless phone. Mr. Talukdar stooped to pick it up from a chair and, distractedly looking out of the window, said “Hello” into the receiver, and then more words, nodding his head vigorously once, and gesturing with his hand. He walked a few steps with the cordless against his ear, gravitating towards a different group of people. Mr. Mitra realised that the tuberoses he’d brought had been placed on that side of the room, beside three or four other bouquets.