As Tirad approaches the girl, she nervously lies down her half-awake mother on the deck floor. Tirad orders the girl to show him her hand. She doesn’t have the Saviour tattoo on her arm. Tirad points to the metal plates of her fingers and asks her to take them off. The girl carefully unties the leather bands of the plates and gives them to Lealy one by one. Tirad takes her hands and looks closely at her fingers. Farnab also stares at the girl’s hands with awe. Tirad also orders her to take off the leather footwear that she has on her feet. He looks at the girl’s face again. Now he knows what is so different about her. Her toes and fingers have no nails. She doesn’t have any hair, eye lashes or eye brows. Tirad tries not to show his shock but both Lealy and Farnab have noticed these peculiarities.

Tirad tells Lealy to bring a bucket and wash the woman’s wounds and orders the old woman to leave the deck, although she resists and still wants to explain herself. Tirad yells at her and says he will take care of the matter himself. He bends and closely examines the mother’s toes and fingers. She does have nails and facial hair, but there are incision marks by her right hand fingers and her left feet toes. Lealy comes back with a bucket and starts cleaning the woman with the help of the girl. The woman’s naked body shivers as the cool water touches her skin and wounds. She opens her eyes for an instance and passes out. Tirad squats next to the woman pretending that he is looking for her Saviour tattoo. The foul smell of blood and the woman’s sweat sickens him. He pulls up the woman’s hand and looks at the incision marks. He knows he is being impolite and rude but his curiosity takes the better of him. She doesn’t have a tattoo either. Tirad moves his fingertips along the excess tissues of one of her finger’s scars. The girl’s voice catches him by surprise.

“Her fingers were conjoined when she was born. They had separated them with a knife… These are cutting marks…” she says. Tirad stands up and moves towards the girl. She is tall, with broad shoulders and sunburnt skin. Her breasts, unlike Lealy’s are small, almost flat and she has long stretched legs. She doesn’t seem beautiful but there is something in her frail body that makes her desirable. Perhaps it’s the wet loincloth she has on, a dirty cloth that covers her body from under her arms down to her thighs and is tied around her neck with a leather band. The wet cloth reveals all details of her body’s shape and colour, most of all the little brown spots on her breasts and the round, dark point of her belly button. Tirad has looked more than he should; he lowers his face not to become eye to eye with the girl. But she insists on talking straight to his face. Her eyes are like two cuts, made by a professional cutter that has created two symmetrical fine lines both sides of her slick nose. Tirad feels a bright spark behind her eyes that seems to be blinding him; he puts his hands on his forehead in the form of a shade to protect his eyes.