When the Apricots Bloom

Huda is the primary protagonist of the novel, and the majority of the novel’s action focuses on her life and motivations. She grew up in Basra and now lives in Baghdad with her husband, Abdul Amir, and her son, Khalid. As a child, she participated in her grandmother’s art of fortunetelling and her brothers’ hunting and foraging. Huda retains these skills, though she lacks the mastery that her family members possessed while they were alive. This becomes evident when she tells Ally’s fortune but often cannot see the full reading, and she hides some readings to spare Ally’s feelings. Similarly, Huda only takes up a “spear” once, when she uses a gardening tool to stab a hornets’ nest near where Abu Issa and the Bolt Cutter are laughing, but she does so just as skillfully as she would have in her youth.

Huda is supporting her family as a secretary, and she fears both Abdul Amir’s resentment of her success and the mukhabarat’s interest in her work at the embassy. However, her fears develop into a need to confront and escape from her oppressors, and she harnesses her bonds with Ally and Rania to save Khalid and Hanan and to escape from Abdul Amir’s negativity and interference.