Chapters 3-4 Summary

The narrator reflects on the power and magic of cell phones to transport Nadia and Saeed to places they will never visit in person. Saeed restricts his apps and Internet usage while Nadia rides her phone “far out into the world.” Even so, the narrator says, Saeed’s cell phone helps him court Nadia. He begins to enter her thoughts continuously through text messaging.

Nadia orders psychedelic mushrooms from a local ponytailed man who will, the narrator says, be beheaded within months. The next morning, militants capture the stock exchange, and 100 workers are slaughtered when the government retaliates. Nadia and Saeed decide to keep a date they have been planning, since the government hasn’t set a curfew.

High on mushrooms, Saeed feels awe and a desire for peace at the sight of a lemon tree on Nadia’s terrace. Saeed and Nadia share their first kiss and stay up together until dawn.

The militants continue to bomb the city, which forces the government to implement a curfew. Praying for peace in a house of worship, Saeed hears a preacher encourage the congregation “to pray for the righteous to emerge victorious.” The preacher does not say “on which side of the conflict he [thinks] the righteous to be.”

Nadia and Saeed almost have sex, but Saeed wants to wait until they are married. He shows Nadia composite images on his phone of cities with skies full of stars, explaining how the photographer constructed the photos. Nadia wants to know if each city would have the same sky “with no human lights.” Saeed explains that it would be “the same sky, but at a different time.”

The following week, the government shuts off all cell signals and the Internet, and Nadia and Saeed lose contact. Saeed looks for Nadia, but she is busy gathering supplies: flour, nuts, oil, fruit and cash from the bank. Soon, the shops are bare, and the government limits how much people can buy. Saeed finally sees Nadia again and asks her to move in with him, but she refuses.

Meanwhile, a man with an assault rifle comes through “a black door” into “the gloom,” followed by a second man. They move as a predatory fish might hunt “in the inky depths,” and the second man “join[s] the fighting within the hour.” Saeed’s boss shuts down the business, and Nadia’s company stops paying its workers. People hear rumors about special “doors that could take [them] elsewhere,” but most don’t believe in them. Nadia moves in with Saeed after his mother is killed by a stray bullet.

Chapters 3-4 Analysis

Hamid juxtaposes abstractions of war against Saeed and Nadia’s flowering relationship, a symbol of intimacy and peace. Their relationship reveals that war is not abstract because it affects people intimately. The central image signifying peace comes when Saeed has an epiphany while looking at the lemon tree. The central image of war, on the other hand, appears in the gruesome beheading of the ponytailed man.

The narration lingers on discussions of technology, supplies, utilities and money, but it omits political and ideological details, referring to the two opposing factions only as “militants” and “the government.” This abstraction aligns readers with the ordinary people caught in the crossfire of systems beyond their control. None of the characters comment on the fighting, and even the preacher remains unopinionated. This violence could happen anywhere and at any time.

The lengthy discussion of cell phones supports the novel’s exploration of time. While cell phones let people travel without going anywhere, events happen simultaneously in Exit West to illustrate that it is still impossible to know all the realities that other people experience. This point is exemplified by the composite photos, which seem beautiful because they bring together two impossible realities.

Doors become more complicated in these chapters, and Hamid’s word choices carry significance. For the city’s inhabitants, the doors are associated with escape, hope and desires, but words such as “gloom,” “hunt” and “inky depths” give the doors used by the fighters a negative connotation.