Burnt Shadows

Raza meets with a man called Ruby-Eye to arrange passage to Canada. Ruby-Eye tells Raza that he’d better have money as he isn’t “nearly desperate enough to survive the journey of the destitute” (336). Ruby-Eye explains that Raza will have to travel with the poorest migrants at first, however, or else wait weeks for a more comfortable opportunity. Raza chooses to travel as quickly as possible. Before he departs, Raza leaves Ismail his Jeep with $1,000 in the glove compartment.

Raza is smuggled across the border to Iran in a shipment of cabbages. Afterwards, the driver, Ahmed, explains the effects of war on his family and that Iran looks so different from Afghanistan because there has been less bombing there. As they arrive at the coast, Ahmed suggests that Raza stay in Iran, but Raza decides to go on. Raza is taken to the hold of a ship packed with migrants, reminding Raza of a mass grave. When the boat sets sail, the crowded hold fills with heat, vomit, and bodily fluids. Horrified, Raza realizes that many of the TCNs he trained made similar journeys. Raza picks up an Afghan boy who is crying and consoles him. Raza, convinced he will die, thinks of Hiroko, hating that she will never know what happened to her son.