When the Apricots Bloom

As the novel ends, Huda’s previous act of merely thwarting male authority now emboldens her to attempt a full-blown confrontation with the guards at the checkpoint, but her methods fail her with the arrival of the Bolt Cutter. Although Huda needs to wield Saddam’s name at the checkpoint, thus utilizing aspects of the male-dominated regime to achieve her immediate goal, she still stand up for herself and for women across Iraq by invoking the concept of sexual equality in her speech. Faced with her anger, the men ultimately concede, because Huda has reversed the prior understanding that they had of their duties in the government. Prior to the conversation, they had assumed a male superiority over women, but Huda throws Saddam’s efforts for sexual equality in their faces, implying that the mere suggestion of sexism is an offense against the president. This accusation falls in line with prior mentions of insults to the president carrying severe punishments, and the guards react negatively at even the mention of Saddam’s name, despite being members of his own military.

Even within her family, Huda is forced to reconcile Khalid’s accusations that she has caused the troubles that her family now faces, as well as the inherited pride in being an Iraqi man that urges Khalid to remain in Iraq. Huda must ultimately turn to another woman to resolve this issue, as Ally steps in to both scold Khalid’s rudeness and support Huda in her decisions. The women grow symbolically closer as Ally gives Huda her wedding ring to offer to the Bolt Cutter as a bribe. Unlike the other two women, Ally does not face the very real sense of loss that drives Huda and Rania, for Huda has left her husband and fears losing her son, and Rania has left her daughter in Ally and Huda’s hands. By offering her wedding ring to Huda, Ally thus establishes her own personal investment in the situation, symbolically placing Huda, Khalid, and Hanan’s safety above the sanctity of her own marriage. In this moment, Huda and Ally are united as women against the oppression brought on by the Bolt Cutter’s intervention in their plans. It is interesting to note that this point in the plot also reveals the true nature of the violent sexism underlying the current Iraqi regime, for while the Bolt Cutter only threatens to imprison and draft Khalid, he threatens to sexually assault both Ally and Hanan. Thus, he targets Ally for her foreignness and Hanan for her youth but utterly ignores Huda, who as an older woman and a mother, is somehow less than a woman in his eyes and unworthy even of the threat of sexual assault.

A specific point of contention in the resolution to Chapter 30 is Khalid’s decision to shoot the Bolt Cutter. Huda had already resolved the situation, but Khalid shoots the man anyway, firing multiple shots even after the Bolt Cutter is on the ground. Khalid’s obsession with expressing his frustration with the government and the mukhabarat in a hail of bullets implies that in such situations, violence is not needed, but powerful emotions get the better of people and inspire senselessly violent acts that correspondingly inspire further violence in retaliation. Huda’s methods of appeasing the Bolt Cutter could have gotten the group across the border without bloodshed, but Khalid’s need to vent his anger took control in that moment. In this way, Khalid’s murder of the Bolt Cutter mirrors the Bolt Cutter’s murder of Hatim, for neither murder was necessary and each was motivated by a general sense of anger rather than a specific strategy. Each murder therefore represents the many losses that Iraq itself has faced in the years leading up to the time in which the novel takes place, and Huda, Ally, and Rania are unable to entirely escape the social and political dangers created by years of oppression within Iraq, as well as from sanctions outside of Iraq.

Although the final chapter celebrates Ally, Huda, and Rania’s reunion in Jordan, it also maintains the differences that divide the women. Ally is still a foreigner, separate from the affairs of the other two women and able to leave the country at any time. Rania plans to move to London to be with Hanan, who has already been in England for a month. Huda, though, is still a common person, and she has gotten a new job with Ally’s help, working at the Australian embassy in Jordan while Khalid struggles to adjust to his new life there. While the unity of the three women was needed to overcome the oppression in Iraq, now that that oppression has largely been evaded, the three can neither return to their previous lives nor build a new life together. Rania must go to England to give her daughter the best chance she can at a good life, while Ally needs to remain with Tom to work on their marriage. Huda needs to stay behind in the Middle East because Jordan, although not Iraq, is culturally similar to her home, and she can support her son safely in her current position. Thus, the important element of the novel’s conclusion involves the contrast between the freedom that each woman now gets to experience and the aspects of their lives that remain the same.