Chapters 41-47 Summary

In Chapter 41, the third year of the drought, 2000, is the summer of Titanic, as the American movie swept through Kabul and gave everyone images for the tragic lovers defying convention to get away. Rasheed loses everything in a fire, and then has to find work as a cook, or in other jobs, where he is often fired for his belligerent personality. He fights more with Miriam and Laila, and threatens to kill Laila.

Miriam tries to get in touch with Jalil. It had been his Mercedes outside of Rasheed's house, in Laila's childhood: he had left her a letter when she wouldn't see him. She calls the mayor's office in Herat, and finds out that Jalil has died in 1987.

In Chapter 42, in April 2001, Massoud is fighting from the north against Taliban forces in the south. Laila learns that the Taliban has...