Yehoshua settles into his work as a runner, though there is little camaraderie between he and the other boys. He learns that Mr. Barbanel is keeping meticulous records in a diary that serves as a history of the ghetto. This is illegal and must be done in secret. Yehoshua begins helping him smuggle the pages to Miss Margolin for safekeeping; Margolin is a young nurse who has been helping smuggle pregnant women out of the ghetto. Yehoshua idolizes Barbanel and Margolin, but he reveals that they don’t survive the ghetto and the diary will be lost at some point by the end of the war. At night, Mr. Barbanel sometimes sets up a secret radio for the runners to listen to; Yehoshua sees the numbers on the German radio and has a thought: if even the Nazis are bound by the laws of numbers, perhaps they are the work of God.

The narrative shifts back to Tom and Everett’s conversation. Tom speaks to Sarah’s strength—her husband has been murdered in Europe while he looked for the diary in Yehoshua’s story, and she has continued the EJ synagogue in his place, though she is deep in mourning. Tom admits that he is attracted to Sarah, but he still mourns her husband with her, as he found them to be a rare couple.