Summary

Deeti and Kalua board the migrant ship and find the conditions are not good. Migrants ride in the hold, which is “like a floating storage shed, with a ceiling so low that a grown man could not stand upright in it for fear of hurting his head” (227). Very little light penetrates the hold and it is packed with men. Deeti struggles to keep her face veiled. Kalua escorts her to the women’s section, in the front of the hold, where she meets several other women including a teenage girl named Munia who says they will be like sisters. The women are kept in seclusion in their part of the hull, let out only for meals, but a great intimacy develops between them because of this. Many of the women have become indentured servants because of oppression in India -- two sisters are victims...