Pages 23-42 Summary

The three friends arise each morning before sunrise. Ramadhin usually knocks to awaken the protagonist, who has been nicknamed "Mynah." The three swim in the First Class pool and then pilfer breakfast set up on the Sun Deck, eating it in a lifeboat hung above the deck. Cassius produces a cigarette he found but Ramadhin refuses it, because of his asthma, which everyone has noticed. Thinking back to his youth, the narrator recalls that Ramadhin was still sickly several years later, when they met again. He remembers spending most of that time with Ramadhin's sister, Massoumeh, with whom he had a tentative romance. As the boys return to Tourist Class, Mynah reflects that they already have agreed to do one forbidden thing each day. He thinks about his parents' divorce, which he does not believe had a huge impact on him...