Summary

The novel opens in Zamana, a fictitious city in Pakistan based on the city of Lahore. The prologue establishes the home of Massud and Nargis.

In Chapter 1, Massud and Nargis awake in their home. They are married architects in their fifties. Recently, an unknown culprit has been entering the nearby mosque and using its loudspeakers to announce personal secrets and transgressions of various citizens. Massud and Nargis employ an illiterate Christian man named Lily as a housekeeper, and they treat his 19-year-old daughter Helen like a daughter of their own, even paying for her education. Lily’s wife Grace was murdered the previous year, but because Lily was a Christian and the killer was a Muslim, the killer served less than one year in prison. Massud and Nargis leave their home to help transport books from an old library to a newly constructed...