In Chap­ter Five of “The Bread­win­ner,” Par­vana finds her­self in the mar­ket­place with­out her father, who usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied her. The heavy restric­tion on women dur­ing Tal­iban rule leaves her uncer­tain about how to shop, as women typ­i­cal­ly can­not enter shops. Instead, she decides to buy bread first, pulling her chador tight­ly around her face and sig­nal­ing for ten loaves from the bak­er. As she waits, the aro­ma of the fresh bread fills her with hunger.

While at the fruit and veg­etable stand, a sol­dier abrupt­ly con­fronts her, ques­tion­ing her pres­ence on the street. He orders her to be ful­ly cov­ered and threat­ens her father and hus­band with pun­ish­ment for allow­ing her to ven­ture out. Par­vana, dri­ven by fear and des­per­a­tion, yells back at the sol­dier, which momen­tar­i­ly stuns him. Seiz­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty, she runs away, acci­den­tal­ly knock­ing over turnips dur­ing her escape. Clutch­ing the warm bread tight­ly, she races through the mar­ket­place, not car­ing about the eyes on her.

In her haste, she col­lides with a woman car­ry­ing a child, who turns out to be Mrs. Weera, a fam­i­ly friend. Despite her ini­tial inten­tions to escape, Mrs. Weera insists on accom­pa­ny­ing Par­vana home, believ­ing her moth­er needs com­pa­ny and care. Par­vana reluc­tant­ly leads her back, con­cerned about her mother’s health dete­ri­o­rat­ing over the past few days.

Upon arriv­ing, Noo­ria, Parvana’s sis­ter, imme­di­ate­ly crit­i­cizes her for not buy­ing enough gro­ceries. Mrs. Weera reas­sures Noo­ria, explain­ing that Par­vana was chased out of the mar­ket, and she takes charge of the sit­u­a­tion, look­ing for the source of a foul smell in the apart­ment. She quick­ly assess­es the family’s dire condition—lack of water, her mother’s state, and the absence of their father, who has been arrest­ed. Mrs. Weera encour­ages Par­vana to fetch water, treat­ing the sit­u­a­tion like a team effort.

Par­vana duti­ful­ly makes mul­ti­ple trips for water as Mrs. Weera tends to her moth­er. Exhaust­ed, she still push­es through, know­ing her fam­i­ly depends on her. How­ev­er, when she reach­es for unboiled water due to her thirst, Noo­ria harsh­ly inter­venes. After­ward, Mrs. Weera serves Par­vana boiled water and reas­sures her moth­er. The chap­ter ends with the fam­i­ly find­ing some brief com­fort togeth­er as they talk qui­et­ly, leav­ing Par­vana hope­ful despite the grim cir­cum­stances .

In Sep­tem­ber, the pro­tag­o­nist finds them­selves in Pim­li­co with Mar­garet Kem­ble, dressed in tar­tan scarves. They dis­cuss var­i­ous top­ics, includ­ing the upcom­ing acclima­ti­za­tion exam­i­na­tion Marg­eret is prepar­ing for. Their ban­ter touch­es upon their opin­ions on pol­i­tics, social media, and rela­tion­ships, brought to life by Mar­garet’s teas­ing atti­tude towards Arthur, who approach­es awk­ward­ly after return­ing from Scot­land. Arthur is flus­tered, and the dynam­ics among the char­ac­ters reveal a blend of humor and under­ly­ing ten­sions regard­ing gen­der and soci­etal expec­ta­tions, espe­cial­ly con­cern­ing how they per­ceive one anoth­er.

As their day unfolds with vivid descrip­tions of their sur­round­ings and inter­ac­tions, mem­o­ries of non­hu­man inter­ac­tions sur­face, lead­ing to a poignant child­hood rec­ol­lec­tion where the pro­tag­o­nist strug­gled with an irra­tional fear of spi­ders, exac­er­bat­ed by their moth­er’s con­flict­ing approach to deal­ing with the arach­nids. This fear is addressed through imag­i­na­tive sto­ry­telling from their father, clev­er­ly trans­form­ing the spi­der into an almost endear­ing char­ac­ter, pro­mot­ing an under­stand­ing that rein­ter­prets fear into some­thing less threat­en­ing.

The nar­ra­tive shifts to a dis­cus­sion about ill­ness as Mar­garet catch­es a cold that high­lights the stark dif­fer­ences in con­tem­po­rary and his­toric expe­ri­ences of ill­ness and health­care. This incites office meet­ings con­cern­ing the treat­ment of the time-trav­el­ing expats, indi­cat­ing the seri­ous­ness of their health, con­trast­ed against the back­drop of humor and cama­raderie among the char­ac­ters.

Amidst these inter­ac­tions, a more seri­ous sub­plot emerges involv­ing Quentin, a char­ac­ter strug­gling with unseen pres­sures. His para­noia regard­ing the gov­ern­ment leads him to fear for his safe­ty, which rais­es ques­tions about trust and com­plic­i­ty with­in the Min­istry. The pro­tag­o­nist grap­ples with their role in a com­plex bureau­crat­ic web while attempt­ing to main­tain a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy and care among friends, amidst deep­er inse­cu­ri­ties about loy­al­ty and per­son­al con­nec­tions.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, the pro­tag­o­nist engages with Gra­ham over their whim­si­cal strug­gles with both food and cul­ture. Their evolv­ing rela­tion­ship hints at deep­er lay­ers of affec­tion inter­spersed with shared moments of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, por­tray­ing a rich tapes­try of life dur­ing a tumul­tuous peri­od. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of per­son­al growth, humor, fear, and com­plex­i­ty in rela­tion­ships forms the core of the chap­ter, encap­su­lat­ing the intri­cate dynam­ics of their lives as they nav­i­gate the ever-present chal­lenge of adapt­ing to both new and long­stand­ing fears and soci­etal expec­ta­tions.