In the chap­ter titled “H—NARIN,” set by the Riv­er Tigris in 2014, we are intro­duced to Nar­in, a girl excit­ed about her cousins’ vis­it from Ger­many. The fam­i­ly has roots in Turkey, and the children’s flu­ent Ger­man impress­es Nar­in, who shares her grand­moth­er’s unique tal­ent as a heal­er through water dows­ing. As her cousins ques­tion her about their grand­moth­er’s abil­i­ties, Nar­in describes how her grand­moth­er detects hid­den water streams and hopes to inher­it this skill. Despite some sib­ling squab­bles, their time togeth­er allows Nar­in to feel the joys of hav­ing cousins.

The fam­i­ly pre­pares a grand break­fast for their guests, show­cas­ing a vari­ety of tra­di­tion­al dish­es, and the scene high­lights their cus­toms and val­ues, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing clean­li­ness and respect for the deceased dur­ing a vis­it to the village’s ceme­tery. The impor­tance of hon­or­ing ances­tors is empha­sized through their rit­u­als, with women lead­ing the remem­brance cer­e­monies.

As the chil­dren explore the ceme­tery, ques­tions arise about a tomb­stone belong­ing to an Eng­lish­man who died by the Tigris while search­ing for a poem. Their dis­cus­sion reveals curios­i­ty about his­to­ry, iden­ti­ty, and the loss of her­itage, espe­cial­ly poignant giv­en the impend­ing con­struc­tion of a dam that threat­ens to sub­merge Hasankeyf, the community’s ances­tral home.

Lat­er that evening, dur­ing a fam­i­ly din­ner, Narin’s fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to engage with their past via a mor­tu­ary feast, sym­bol­iz­ing a con­nec­tion between the liv­ing and the deceased. Con­ver­sa­tions turn seri­ous as Nar­in over­hears her uncle’s con­cerns about ris­ing vio­lence and the future of their home­land, lead­ing to dis­cus­sions about relo­ca­tion to Ger­many. Her father express­es doubts about aban­don­ing their roots, reveal­ing a gen­er­a­tional con­flict about the safe­ty and future of their com­mu­ni­ty. Narin’s thoughts weave between her impend­ing hear­ing loss, the fear of fanat­ics, and the com­fort of famil­ial love.

This chap­ter cap­tures the essence of tra­di­tion, the bur­den of her­itage, and the com­plex­i­ty of iden­ti­ty amid chaos, leav­ing Nar­in feel­ing unset­tled yet hope­ful about her family’s jour­ney to Iraq and her own per­son­al growth.