Par­vana and her moth­er returned home late at night after a vis­it to the prison, exhaust­ed and in pain from their long jour­ney. As Par­vana leaned against her moth­er to climb the stairs, she felt the throb­bing pain in her entire body, espe­cial­ly in her blis­tered feet. Noo­ria and Maryam were shocked by the state of both Parvana’s and their mother’s feet, which were raw and bloody from the ardu­ous walk. Par­vana real­ized that her moth­er hadn’t ven­tured out­side since the Tal­iban seized pow­er in Kab­ul, though her father had encour­aged her to ven­ture out and observe the world. He believed that as a writer, she need­ed to see the atroc­i­ties hap­pen­ing in order to accu­rate­ly por­tray them in her work.

Par­vana recalled how her par­ents often argued about their future in Afghanistan, with her father insist­ing it was their home and that edu­cat­ed indi­vid­u­als should remain to help rebuild the coun­try. How­ev­er, her moth­er was adamant about stay­ing indoors, believ­ing that while the Tal­iban ruled, her writ­ing had no pur­pose. After their tir­ing jour­ney, fatigue over­came her moth­er, who col­lapsed onto the toshak and shed tears for a long time. Despite Noo­ri­a’s attempts to care for her, she remained unre­spon­sive, even­tu­al­ly falling asleep.

The next morn­ing, Par­vana, still tired and bur­dened by the haunt­ing dream of sol­diers assault­ing her and her fam­i­ly, found some relief in the rou­tine of break­fast and chores. She real­ized that every­one in their fam­i­ly had to lean on one anoth­er for sup­port, and even in her pain, her sis­ter Nooria’s grumpi­ness light­ened her mood.

As days passed, Par­vana and her sib­lings grap­pled with wor­ries about their mother’s con­di­tion and the family’s dimin­ish­ing food sup­ply. Par­vana occu­pied her­self by piec­ing togeth­er frag­ments of a pho­to­graph of her father, feel­ing a pro­found sense of loss. By the fourth day, their food was com­plete­ly deplet­ed, and ten­sions flared as Par­vana insist­ed her moth­er should take action, while Noo­ria grew frus­trat­ed at her sis­ter, indi­cat­ing that every­one was affect­ed by their mother’s depres­sion.

Final­ly, faced with the need for food, Par­vana reluc­tant­ly took the mon­ey from Noo­ria, over­com­ing her reser­va­tions. She found her­self in a posi­tion where her fam­i­ly’s sur­vival depend­ed on her actions. With no options left, she resolved to head out and pro­cure food for her fam­i­ly, feel­ing deter­mined despite her aches.

In Chap­ter Four, the nar­ra­tive fol­lows a sum­mer filled with sig­nif­i­cant events impact­ing the lives of the pro­tag­o­nist and expa­tri­ates. The chap­ter opens with a moment on bikes, where the pro­tag­o­nist’s com­pan­ion reflects on the supe­ri­or­i­ty of a fast motor­bike, spark­ing a philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sion that tran­si­tions to their mun­dane real­i­ty. The pro­tag­o­nist then faces an unset­tling email issue with a col­league, Quentin, and receives a sur­pris­ing call from Vice Sec­re­tary Adela, indi­cat­ing scruti­ny over com­mu­ni­ca­tion and express­ing con­cern over their project.

Lat­er, there’s a shift in the sta­tus of expa­tri­ates as trav­el restric­tions are con­di­tion­al­ly lift­ed. This change is based on their abil­i­ty to pass an exam demon­strat­ing famil­iar­i­ty with con­tem­po­rary life. The pro­tag­o­nist con­tem­plates the impli­ca­tions of this shift, espe­cial­ly regard­ing Gra­ham’s dis­dain for mod­ern soci­ety, fear­ing it might affect their accep­tance with­in the larg­er world. Graham’s sense of alien­ation and resis­tance is jux­ta­posed with the desire for assim­i­la­tion, empha­siz­ing the broad­er theme of dis­place­ment.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Gra­ham empha­sizes his strug­gle with moder­ni­ty, while the pro­tag­o­nist wit­ness­es his growth through test prepa­ra­tion and engage­ment with the Min­istry. Amidst per­son­al tur­moil, the chap­ter fea­tures social gath­er­ings orga­nized by Gra­ham aimed at boost­ing morale among expa­tri­ates, reveal­ing cul­tur­al clash­es and the bur­dens of expec­ta­tions.

A notable scene occurs dur­ing a lec­ture soirée in which the Min­istry presents dry, unin­spired con­tent, in stark con­trast to the live­ly pre­sen­ta­tions by the expa­tri­ates. This con­trast ignites a sense of cama­raderie among the expa­tri­ates and high­lights their vibran­cy com­pared to the Min­istry’s stal­e­ness, accen­tu­at­ing the jux­ta­po­si­tion of past and present.

The chap­ter clos­es with a din­ner gath­er­ing that high­lights cama­raderie among Gra­ham, Arthur, and Mar­garet, show­cas­ing their friend­ships and the evolv­ing dynam­ics amidst class and cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences. Con­ver­sa­tions drift from the banal to the pro­found, embed­ding humor and ten­sion with­in per­son­al inter­ac­tions, encap­su­lat­ing the fragili­ty of their exis­tence against the back­drop of a suf­fo­cat­ing gov­ern­ment struc­ture, leav­ing the read­er pon­der­ing their fates.