Saeed also considers
Nadia in this new context, finding that she looks the same, though perhaps more tired. Still, she continues to wear her black robes, a fact that begins to annoy him, since she doesn’t even pray, actively avoids speaking their shared language, and even goes out of
her way to not spend time with“their people Well take it off then he wants to shout, but this is a sentiment that makes him feel guilty and angry with himself,
since he knows he’s supposed to love—and thus respect—her.
He wants more than anything to love Nadia the way he used to,
but he can’t seem to do this, an idea that leaves him feeling
“unmoored, adrift in a world where one could go anywhere but still find nothing.”
When Saeed feels the urge to yell at Nadia to takeoff her robes, hedisplays a certain protectiveness of his home culture, as if Nadia issomehow appropriating customs that no longer belong to herShare with your friends: