Chapter 3 Summary

Chanu goes off to work bundled up in a warm jacket with a furry hood. Nazneen thinks he looks like a turtle. She watches him from the window and then looks at The Tattoo Lady across the courtyard, Nazneen marvels at how anyone can be poor and fat. When Chanu is gone, Nazneen leaves the flat, goes out past the other front doors with their peeling paint, and through the hallways that smell of urine. Nazneen crosses the road into Brick Lane, and begins walking through the neighborhood and making a series of turns with no destination in mind. At first, Nazneen is intimidated by the many people bustling about, until she realizes, to her joy, that she is practically invisible to them.

Nazneen sits on a park bench, lost, like Hasina is in Dhaka now that she has left her abusive husband...