“He knows that this day could be one of his last; it could also be a day he’ll remember years from now, while sipping an espresso in a café or lying awake in bed, in a city still unknown to him but far away from this place.”

Isaac has been arrested by the Revolutionary Guard and is being driven, blindfolded, to his first interrogation. He is aware of the great danger he faces, but still holds out hope that he will be able to leave Iran one day. Instead of remembering the past, which will sustain him in prison, he is dreaming about the future. This scene echoes one at the end of the novel, when Isaac is in Istanbul, looking to his future.

“‘Brother,’ says Hossein, ‘you have to learn not to think about time. It means nothing here.’”

Isaac’s watch, a symbol of his former life as a wealthy, busy and organized businessman, has been taken from him. He has just been interrogated for the first time. The guard Hossein warns him that there is no point asking about time in prison. This comment foreshadows the long period that Isaac will spend in prison, unaware of when he will be released.

“Feeling a chill settling in her thighs, she goes back into her quiet house, which suddenly seems unnecessarily vast—the white limestone façade, the lanterns illuminating the garden path, the shimmering blue of the pool, all posing as elaborate gatekeepers to the unraveling inside.”

The night after Isaac is arrested, Farnaz has a terrifying night at home: She imagines a man hanging from a tree in the garden. Her thoughts reflect the chaos that has overtaken Iran, with its past glory and riches overturned in the Revolution. The unraveling also refers to her family life, both before and since Isaac’s arrest.