Summary

Dantala returns to Dogon Icce. He feels conflicted towards Shuaibu, his aunt’s husband, because he has learned that Shuaibu abandoned his wife. She was being too attentive to Dantala's ill mother. When Dantala arrives, his mother has already been buried. His brothers Maccido and Hussein have also come to the funeral; he learns that his third brother, Hassan, died in Lebanon during a religious course. Dantala does not believe this excuse: “They are quiet, refusing to tell me what really happened. I know they are lying… My head is spinning as I think of the many things that could have happened, why they were in Lebanon, and what made Hussein mention Iran” (108).

Dantala is angry that his brothers had stopped visiting his mother toward the end of her life. Dantala is also frustrated with his brothers’ Shiite...