Summary

Pages 30 through 33 – In their living quarters in the back of Mama Nadi’s bar, Sophie paints Salima’s fingernails with some of Mama Nadi’s illicitly borrowed nail polish. Conversation reveals Salima’s homesickness for her family, including her little daughter (Beatrice); how she (Salima) was raped by a rebel soldier who, she says, quite possibly killed her brother; and how jealous she (Salima) is of Sophie’s apparent peace when she is singing. For her part, Sophie reveals that even while she’s singing, she still feels the pain of what was done to her, and that she believes that she and Salima are safer with Mama Nadi than in their home villages, even with what Mama Nadi asks them to do. A tearful Salima then reveals that she is pregnant, and begs Sophie to keep the secret. Sophie then reveals that...