Chapter 24 November 1953
This chapter is from Homa’s point of view.
She is incandescently wild. She will not give them any information. She is quiestioned and refuses to answer. The man threatens her with a different man.
She’s questioned again the next day and still refuses to answer.
She thinks of her loved ones and tries to remember grace.
The scary man questions her and she still refuses. She tells him he is part of a sycophantic cult. He appears genuinely surprised and attracted to her.
As a rule they’re not violent to young women, but Homa is an exception. He makes sure the door is locked and turns out the light.
Chapter 25 December 1964
We’re back to Ellie’s point of view.
She has been trying for a year to see Homa and now she finally can.
She goes to Homa’s house. Homa has a baby! and a husband – Abdol.
She was raped in prison.
Released after six months when she was six months pregnant.
She makes it clear she never wants to see Ellie again. (I think it is also clear that she knows it was Ellie)
Chapter 26 December 1964
Homa’s point of view.
This is a harrowing chapter.
When you’re drowning and the world feels like it’s not meant for you, when the lack of sleep and appetite make you want to curl up and give up, when the demands of the baby are overwhelming and absoloutely crushing – how do you fake the person of a woman who is alright?
She is grateful to Abdol who asked her to marry him despite knowing what happened to her in prison. People still talk – they know the baby was conceived before the marriage.
True, in the very early hours and days of prison what fuels me is anger. But after what happens in that closed room with the door locked and the light out, after what happens as my screams fall against cement walls and my clothes are torn and my flesh bruised, I am made of grief. I now scratch the surface of my anger and peer beneath the skin of it and find only a well of sadness so deep there seems no way out.
She thinks about Ellie’s visit and how she wasn’t ready to talk about it, to think about it, or to heal.
The one thing that is keeping her going is her daughter
My child has no fault in how she was brought into being; the crime is not hers.