When the Apricots Bloom

The tension of Huda, Rania, and Ally’s plan increases almost to the point of ruining their scheme as Huda must confront her husband, Ally must avoid her own husband’s questions, and Rania must deal with both Malik and the need to trust Huda and Ally with Hanan’s safety. These chapters contain several partial truths, but these partial truths are told to protect a plan that is ultimately in everyone’s best interests. For example, Ally cannot tell Tom the reasons behind her trip to Jordan, nor can she tell him that she is helping to smuggle two children out of the country, but she can tell him the white lie that she is taking a vacation. If Ally were to tell Tom the full truth, he would undoubtedly prevent Ally from helping Huda and Rania, so it is better for Ally to pretend that she is taking Tom’s advice and taking some time off. Similarly, Huda must initially lie to Abdul Amir about taking Khalid to Basra, since Hatim’s demise gives her the excuse she needs to take Khalid away from home. Huda’s lie is separated from the truth in more ways than one, since the original lie was meant to be about the lake trip, and the truth is that she is taking Khalid out of the country. Essentially, Huda is capitalizing on the same sense of “honor” that prevented Rania’s father from saving her brothers, and this dynamic becomes apparent when Abdul Amir is so ashamed about his role in Hatim’s death that he can accept almost anything that Huda proposes.

These chapters also mark the first death that any character suffers in the novel, as Hatim’s occupation as Ally’s driver causes his death at the hands of the Bolt Cutter, whose loss of control demonstrates a buildup of tension for the Iraqi men in the novel. This same tension leads Abdul Amir to insist that he and Khalid should both be staying in Iraq. Years of oppression and economic strain have built up an inclination amongst Iraqi men to fight to maintain their social standing, and thus, the idea of abandoning the fight for survival by leaving Iraq becomes unthinkable. By contrast, the women in these chapters are largely operating around the impulses and pride of the men, as Huda needs to manipulate Abdul Amir’s vulnerable position to get Khalid out of the house and capitalize on Abu Issa and the Bolt Cutter’s underestimation of her as a woman. Meanwhile, Ally must resist Tom’s charms and cater to his sense of authority by pretending that she is giving in to his advice that she take a vacation. Ally also must dodge Abdul Amir’s attempt to contact Tom and disrupt both women’s plans. Rania, too, needs to deal with the interference of men, for she must stay behind to create the appearance that nothing has changed with Malik, presenting the portrait and complying with the implication that Hanan should be given over to Uday Hussein. These highly calculated courses of action all serve to reflect the idea of taking the path of least resistance, for although the women cannot actively fight their way free of the intervening men, they can subvert masculine control by acting as though they are going along with the men’s interests.

Ally experiences a range of conflicting emotions in these chapters, for although the plan to aid Huda and Rania provides her with a new sense of kinship with her mother’s memory, she also feels an intuitive need to remove herself from the risks that the trip entails. Even as she recognizes Bridget’s past mistakes, Ally also fears that she is perpetuating a cycle of interference in the lives of the Iraqi people by involving herself in Huda and Rania’s plans. Likewise, Ally is in a more perilous situation than her mother was, for Bridget was relatively safe as an American in Baghdad in the 1970s, while Ally runs the risk of being hurt and detained if the authorities discover that she is both American and a journalist. Thus, Ally’s consistent thoughts about abandoning the plan are emblematic of the struggle between the role that ostensibly brought her to Iraq (that of a housewife), and the purpose of her investigation, which is to get closer to her bold and independent mother. Ally’s time in Iraq thus far tells her that she should avoid dangerous situations, and this instinct pushes her to abandon the scheme, but her memories of her mother and the fantasies she has about Bridget’s time in Baghdad push her to be bold and to rewrite her mother’s mistakes.