Summary

The author begins Chapter 4 by saying that “the day Kambiz set himself on fire two kilometers from my apartment,” the author begins, “I was planning my second escape” (216). She had been accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which mean she “could take refuge in a small cornfield town, far away from Amsterdam” (216). She describes how, while she remained in Amsterdam, she became somewhat obsessed with Kambiz’s story, and brought Philip, who was then still her husband, into her obsession. She also describes how, at the same time, she discovered that there were people within the Persian community who doubted her own story, including the Three Miracles. Her considerations of how unsettled she became include comments on how she perceives immigration authorities even now, as “unhappy white men openly hating me for coming in and taking too much, wanting too much, their birthrights...