Related Characters Saeed, Nadia, Saeed’s Father, Saeed’s Mother Related Themes: Page Number 97 Explanation and Analysis In this passage, Nadia struggles to accept that Saeed’s father won’t becoming with her and Saeed through the door. During her last one-on-one conversation with the old man, he asks her to promise him that she’ll stay by Saeed’s side at least until they’re out of danger, though he also expresses his desire that the young couple will soon marry and have children. In this moment, Hamid slyly hints at the coming demise of Saeed and Nadia’s relationship, saying, It was an easy promise to make because Nadia had at that time no thoughts of leaving Saeed.” By using the words at that time Hamid implies that Nadia does, at some other time, think about leaving Saeed,” signaling to readers that—at the very least—their relationship is headed toward uncertainty and second thoughts. On another note, Nadia also finds it difficult to promise Saeed’s father that she’ll take care of his son because doing so means essentially accepting the old man’s decision to stay behind. Although she fights him at first, insisting that he come with them, she eventually relents and tells Saeed’s father what he wants to hear, but this ultimately requires that she come to terms with the fact that she’s about to abandon an elderly man in a dangerous city. This is why she feels as if she’s killing him and Hamid’s assertion that “when we migrate […] we murder from our lives those we leave behind only accentuates the sense of grave finality Nadia experiences in this moment. Chapter 6 Quotes In the late afternoon, Saeed went to the top of the hill, and Nadia went to the top of the hill, and there they gazed out over the island, and out to sea, and he stood beside where she stood, and she stood beside where he stood, and the wind tugged and pushed at their hair, and they looked around at each other, but they did not see each other, for she went up before him, and he went up after her, and they were each at the crest of the hill only briefly, and at different times.