Even now, within this text, I can almost feel her fidget. If she could, she would sneak between two sentences like a moth between two slats of a venetian blind, and would finish my story off from the inside.
-- Sara (One)

Importance: Here, Sara describes Lejla's character. She is constantly moving, constantly changing, making definitions and stillness and certainty all but impossible. This sets up on of the major tensions of the novels. Sara is always trying to make meaning out of the events of life. She was a good writer in school, got published in many literary magazines, and works as a translator at the time of the novel. Lejla, by contrast, resists meaning. She is complicated, incoherent, and feisty. As the novel progresses, both Sara and Lejla have to humble themselves - Sara growing less attached to coherent narratives, Lejla settling down into the inherently meaningful moments that life really does...