Lahiri said he taught her to insist upon the right words. Some of his passages had wings fluttering in my aching throat. I don't have much to add; others of my friends knew him far better. But I loved his writing, and so I loved him. And I hope if there's anything that comes after, in any form, that it is as beautiful as his sentences.

'We dash the black river, its flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great es...