Chapters 9-10 Summary

Saeed and Nadia live at a worker camp, building migrant housing outside of London. Each family is promised a small home with access to utilities. However, a “time tax” will be imposed, payable to those who have lived in London for a long time. Some natives and migrants still fight violently, but life is tolerable for the most part. Saeed works on a road crew with a native foreman who feels as though they are “remodeling the Earth itself.” Nadia works on an all-female crew that lays pipe. Meanwhile, an elderly man in Amsterdam falls in love with a wrinkled man from Rio de Janeiro who visits him using a magical door in a shed.

One morning, Nadia and Saeed watch some birds who have lost their homes because of the construction. Saeed is annoyed that Nadia wears her black robe even though she doesn’t pray. Hoping to rekindle their relationship, Nadia suggests moving to Marin, a city near San Francisco. Surprisingly, Saeed agrees.

In Marin, Saeed and Nadia set up a hut on a hillside among other migrants. The narrator turns to a discussion of what “nativeness” means. Those who claim it tend to come from “the ranks of those with white skin who [look] most like the natives of Britain.” Another group is “composed of those… descended… from the human beings… brought from Africa… as slaves.” Saeed is particularly attracted to this “layer of nativeness” in a preacher he meets. He is soon smitten by the preacher’s daughter. Nadia notices but doesn’t care. She has been fantasizing about a girl from Mykonos.

The narrator describes a “rich… on paper” old woman born and raised in Palo Alto who no longer feels at home in her neighborhood. She senses that she, too, has migrated.

Chapters 9-10 Analysis

The author portrays a time of relative peace in the lives of Saeed and Nadia, yet he continues to juxtapose construction with destruction to suggest cycles of peace and violence. The descriptive imagery of the birds losing their homes to buildings illustrates that it is often necessary to destroy something in order to create something else. Saeed’s foreman reinforces this concept when he feels as though they are reshaping “the Earth itself.”

In the vignettes where people use the doors to find happiness, as opposed to fleeing terror, the doors act as a substitute for planes. They allow the narrative to skip over travel descriptions and linger on human relationships instead. Saeed and the preacher’s daughter share an intrinsic connection—something missing from the relationship between Saeed and Nadia. The main characters continue to reach for their innate desires, which include their sexual desires.

The author introduces the concept of a “time tax.” This allegorical tax implies that the longer a person lives somewhere, the more they are entitled to be there. Exit West challenges this assumption by showing how imperialistic thinking still holds sway in people’s minds. Hamid uses the vignette of the old woman from Palo Alto to support this argument. Described as “rich… on paper,” she is a distasteful and entitled character.