Part 2, Chapters 1-5 Summary

Ishmael left the school in Ramle in 1946, when he was ten. He didn't feel that there was anything else that he could learn there. Mr. Salmi had him doing much of the classroom teaching by then. Ishmael had made a place for himself working with his father, at his mother's plotting. He took over Kamal's newspaper reading job, which infuriated Kamal.

At the end of the war and news of the death camps, things changed in Tabah. Ishmael, who was still in school at the time, found Mr. Salmi reading more radical surahs. There was an increase in tension between the Arabs and the Jews. Rumor spread that it had been a Zionist plot. Ibrahim missed having Gideon to talk things over with. They hadn't spoken since the night Ramiza's baby died. Jewish immigration to Palestine increased, which increased...