Home Fire

The chapter opens with Parvaiz and Farooq in an electronics shop in Istanbul, where they stopped on their way to the airport to pick up new recruits. The story then moves back in time to the day when Isma announced to the family that she was moving to the USA. Both Aneeka and Parvaiz knew that she had applied for a student visa, but because of their father, the siblings had little hope that Isma’s application would be approved. The turn of events shatters the usual family dynamic: Aneeka and Parvaiz will have to move in with Aunty Naseem because they won't be able to afford the house without Isma’s income. Aneeka’s scholarship allowed her to go to the university, while Parvaiz didn’t get funding and couldn’t afford tuition, so he is working as a greengrocer’s assistant and pursues his hobby of recording ambient sound.

Angry at his sisters, Parvaiz goes for a walk in the neighborhood. He is cornered by the boys who live nearby who call themselves “Us Thugz, a shortened form of the Arabic astaghfirullah” (146). They forcefully take away Parvaiz’s phone and one of his most treasured possessions, his mic. The following day, Farooq comes up to Parvaiz, and without introducing himself, gives back the stolen phone. He then tells the boy that he knew his father, whom he refers to as “Abu Parvaiz” (148), and explains that Adil had fought with his father in Bosnia. Intrigued to finally find out more about his father’s life, Parvaiz eagerly accepts Farooq’s company.

Back at home, Parvaiz doesn’t tell his sisters about the new friend, and the two of them start meeting regularly. At those times, Farooq would tell Parvaiz “stories of his father for which he’d always yearned” (153), describing him as a “man of courage who fought injustice” (153). Additionally, Farooq presents to Parvaiz a different version of world history, the one in which Muslims are victims of constant injustice at the hands of Christians. Farooq also criticizes Parvaiz’s matriarchal family and the British austerity measures, which had an impact on the Pasha family. Apart from the topics of his father and Islam, Farooq also shows interest in the details on Parvaiz’s life and eventually tries to turn him against his sisters. As a result, Parvaiz grows more distant from his siblings and, when at home, spends his time on the roof, working on “a project that would eventually be a 1,440-minute track that his ideal listeners would play between midnight of one day and the next—a soundscape of every minute of a day from this perch” (159).

One day, Farooq invites Parvaiz to his apartment, which he shares with his cousins. Farooq leaves shortly after Parvaiz arrives, promising to come back soon, but in the meantime, his cousins come to the apartment and start torturing Parvaiz. At first, they chain him to the floor in a way that makes his whole body ache, and when he can’t take the pain anymore, they unshackle him and repeatedly dunk his head into the water in the kitchen sink. Farooq returns and explains that this is how Parvaiz’s father was tortured at Bagram. When the pain subsides, Parvaiz feels grateful for this newfound understanding of what his father had endured. Nevertheless, on his way from Farooq’s apartment, he texts Aneeka and asks her to come home, at first planning to tell her about what had happened. However, she responds that she is busy with classes, and this reaction intensifies Parvaiz’s estrangement from his twin sister. When Aneeka talks to him, he doesn’t reveal anything about Farooq, so his sister assumes that Parvaiz is in love but doesn't want to tell anyone about his crush.

During their meetings, Farooq persuades Parvaiz that the ISIS Caliphate in Syria is a prototype of a society where Muslims finally feel welcome and at ease. He shows Parvaiz pictures from his time spent in Syria, where the country looks like “a land of order and beauty and life and youth” (178). He urges Parvaiz to “protect the new revolution” (178) and assures him that he can leave Syria at any time. Parvaiz makes arrangements to visit a cousin, a guitarist in Karachi, and buys plane tickets to Pakistan with a connecting flight in Istanbul. Just a few weeks before Isma is set to leave for the US, he bids farewell to his sisters, and the siblings make plans to visit him in Karachi.