Summary

In Part One, Chapter 1, Sammar met her colleague, Rae Isles, at the Winter Gardens. They needed to discuss her "translation of Al-Nidaa's manifesto" (3). Sammar observed her surroundings. While sitting with Rae, Sammar felt the grief from her husband Tarig's death four years ago shifting inside her. Rae asked about Tarig. He was her cousin. They had met when Sammar was seven, and her family visited Khartoum, Sudan. Sometimes she pretended she was born there instead of Scotland.

As "a Middle-East historian and a lecturer in Third World Politics," Rae knew about the Sahara and the meanings of many Arabic names (5). Sammar was the translator in his department (5). Al-Nidaa was an extremist group in Egypt, whose manifesto he needed her to work on.

In the Garden, Sammar was drawn to Rae's politeness. She found herself telling him about the way she had adopted Tarig...