In Dhaka, Grandmother and Mayadebi meet Saifuddin, a stocky mechanic who brings a sari for Saifuddin’s wife and tells them about the infirm old landlord, Ukil‑babu (the great‑uncle Jethamoshai). Saifuddin explains that after Partition the house was divided, strangers were invited to occupy it, and a Muslim rickshaw‑puller named Khalil later came to look after the ailing Ukil‑babu. Grandmother hands Saifuddin a brown‑paper packet (the sari) and, after a brief tea‑making episode, the small party—Grandmother, Mayadebi, Tridib, Robi, Saifuddin and Khalil—enter a grim, overcrowded upstairs room where Ukil‑babu lives among cobwebs, tyre tubes and dusty books. The old man treats the visitors as “clients,” insists they queue, and refuses to leave, while Khalil argues he cannot persuade him. After a heated exchange Grandmother proposes a compromise: they will take Ukil‑babu away for a few days until the danger passes, then let him decide whether to return. Khalil reluctantly helps the frail man into a black coat, shoes and a walking‑stick; Tridib lifts him into Khalil’s rickshaw, and they carry him out of the yard. The narrator watches the bleak yard and feels the weight of the house’s “up‑side‑down” history.

The narrative then shifts to a reflective essay on “silence.” The narrator argues that the 1964 communal riots in Khulna (East Pakistan) and the parallel unrest in Calcutta have been erased from official histories because they fall into a gap where words cannot reach. He recounts his attempt to verify the events at the Teen Murti Library in New Delhi, searching through 1964 newspaper volumes. He discovers a brief report of “twenty‑nine killed in riots” and a front‑page headline about police firing on a Calcutta crowd. This research forces him to confront the truth: his cousin Tridib was not killed in an accident but died in the Khulna riot when a mob attacked the car carrying his family, Khalil’s rickshaw, and the old man. His father had forced him to keep Tridib’s death a secret, insisting he never speak of it.

The chapter then moves to the narrator’s adult life in London. He meets Ila and Robi at the Maharaja restaurant in Clapham, exchanging banter with the Bengali‑accented waiter Rehman‑shaheb. After dinner Ila arranges a meeting with May (Price), but the narrator’s plans to fly back to India are repeatedly delayed by frantic trips for gifts and a missed flight. On the phone Ila tells him she is on a weekend getaway with Nick Price, trying to reassure him despite a nervous tone.

Finally, the narrator arrives at May’s flat bearing a porcelain vase he bought as a present. May is tearful and asks why he never asked how Tridib died. She recounts the night of the mob attack: the car was ambushed, the driver fled, the mob seized the rickshaw, killed Khalil, the old man, and Tridib. May confesses she has long blamed herself, believing she could have saved him, and now, after years of silence, offers him a night’s stay before his early‑morning departure. The chapter closes on an intimate moment between them, suggesting a tentative reconciliation of memory, guilt, and the elusive “redemptive mystery” that has haunted the narrator since the riots.