There were words for most things in Tamil and English and Sinhalese. Widow, widower, orphan—these were words for pain. But he couldn’t find the word for someone who had lost a sibling or a child. There was no name for it. Language, in all its complexity and dexterity, could not name the depth of that pain. He must remember to tell Smrithi that language could not describe what Dhara and Priya had each suffered. Language had limits, like the borders of a nation. Pain did not.

Words were leaving him now. They were luminous, tropical birds sensing the approach of a long, barren winter. He liked the stillness. It didn’t frighten him. He cried at weddings, refused to go to the almost monthly funerals of their friends, laughed at his grandchildren’s jokes, played with his great-grandchildren, and simply stopped talking to everyone else.

•

Nala walked around the grounds of Rookwood Cemetery. It was a peaceful place. There was a Jewish section, an enormous Chinese section, and even a section for Buddhists—there were graves for everyone, lying harmoniously together in death. She had stopped for a while at the cemetery for Australian soldiers. It was on Remembrance Drive. Remembrance: Australia remembered and revered its dead. It buried its warriors with dignity.

A week ago Rajan had gone to his study for his afternoon nap. He changed into his sarong and placed his neatly folded clothes on the rack next to the mattress he slept on during the day. He napped the same way he had always napped—on his back, hands on his stomach, fingers locked. He looked the same, only lately much smaller. He was shrinking into himself, she had thought: his mind and words turning inwards. He had closed his eyes and never opened them.

‘It’s not right,’ she said to herself. ‘It’s not right that I should live to see this.’

‘Would you have preferred if it was you first?’ he asked her impatiently. ‘You need to pull yourself together, Nala.’

She turned to look at him, but he wasn’t there, just a lifetime of scoldings, echoing in her ears.

She had been to viewings before; they were an important community get-together. But she didn’t want to look at her husband’s body; preserved yet lifeless. She and the mortician dressed him. She chose a yellow, pin-striped Marks & Spencer shirt that she had given him years ago. He didn’t like yellow, but she knew his dark skin looked better in that colour than the formal blue or muted brown that he insisted on wearing.

They had to have the viewing; people needed to pay their respects, but for once she found herself agreeing with him. He said, ‘Respect is better reserved for the living than for the dead. For my own funeral, I want a private cremation, short and simple.’