In the chap­ter “By the Riv­er Tigris, 2014,” the sto­ry unfolds with Grand­ma prepar­ing for an upcom­ing jour­ney, excit­ed­ly mak­ing tra­di­tion­al foods like stuffed vine leaves and borek. Nar­in, her grand­child, shares her excite­ment, pray­ing for guid­ance and pro­tec­tion from the spir­it Khider, along­side oth­er unseen beings aid­ing their com­mu­ni­ty. These spir­its include Sore-Soran, Mama-Rasan, and Xudāne-Mālē, each rep­re­sent­ing dif­fer­ent aspects of every­day life and sup­port. Grand­ma high­lights how kind­ness can emerge from unex­pect­ed places through the tale of Ibrahim—a moral sto­ry empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of com­pas­sion and action when one’s neigh­bor is in dis­tress, sig­ni­fy­ing that even the small­est efforts mat­ter against great chal­lenges.

As they sit togeth­er, Grand­ma reflects on the nature of sto­ry­telling ver­sus clock time, empha­siz­ing that sto­ries con­vey deep­er truths tran­scend­ing mere chronol­o­gy. This les­son of resilience and per­spec­tive is mir­rored in a per­son­al sto­ry from her child­hood, show­ing how neigh­bors who seemed friend­ly held prej­u­dices against her fam­i­ly. Grand­ma’s wis­dom extends to her belief that despite pain and adver­si­ty, the world is filled with beau­ty.

Their con­ver­sa­tion shifts to their immi­nent trip to Iraq and the sig­nif­i­cance of their ances­tral home in Lal­ish, said to be cre­at­ed by divine inter­ven­tion. Grand­ma recounts the leg­endary for­ma­tion of this sacred val­ley through the angels’ jour­ney and the leav­en­ing of water, instill­ing a sense of pride and con­nec­tion to their her­itage in Nar­in.

As the night approach­es, a deep­er con­ver­sa­tion fol­lows about their fam­i­ly lin­eage, par­tic­u­lar­ly cen­ter­ing on Leila, who migrat­ed and demon­strat­ed extra­or­di­nary tal­ents. Grand­ma explains that these gifts have evolved through gen­er­a­tions, poten­tial­ly cul­mi­nat­ing in Nar­in. The notion of a “fir­man” aris­es, describ­ing the dan­ger­ous edicts that led Leila to escape her home­land due to impend­ing vio­lence against their peo­ple. This his­tor­i­cal pain remains pal­pa­ble, echo­ing the ongo­ing mem­o­ries held by the Tigris Riv­er itself.

Ulti­mate­ly, they set­tle down for the night, with Grand­ma promis­ing to reveal the truths of their his­to­ry when they arrive at Nin­eveh, illus­trat­ing that some­times, even rivers must aban­don their orig­i­nal paths in search of safe­ty.