I applied for the position of staff interpret at the Court on impulse, but once I had accepted the job and moved to The Hague, I realized that I had no intention of returning to New York, I no longer knew how to be at home there.
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: These opening lines not only provide some background exposition regarding the narrator's life, but they also evoke the sense of rootlessness that has come to define the narrator's current state of being. The narrator appears to still be reeling from the death of her father, and ti is possible that her grief drove her to apply for a job in another country in order to escape reminders of her life prior to her father's death.

I thought I heard one of the girls say verkrachting, the Dutch word for rape.
-- Narrator (chapter 2)

Importance: In this scene, the narrator is taking public transportation to work when she...