82 pages • 2 hours read
Shooting Kabul
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Chapters 4-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Arrival”
Chapter 4 begins with a tense exchange at Customs between Fadi’s father and the customs official, who asks why there are five passports but only four passengers. The official is sympathetic when Habib explains what happened, diffusing any potential conflict. Fadi’s uncle Amin and aunt (khala) Nilufer, his mother’s youngest sister, meet the family at the airport. Fadi meets his 10-year-old cousin Zalmay, who likes playing video games.
Fadi thinks about his family’s return to Afghanistan only five years earlier, when he was around Mariam’s age. He wishes Mariam were with them to see the San Francisco Bay and blames his father for taking them back to Afghanistan in the first place.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Reunion”
Uncle Amin and Khala Nilufer live in Little Kabul in Fremont, California, which Amin states “has the largest population of Afghans in the United States” (526). Fadi meets the rest of the family, and they treat the new guests to a traditional Afghan feast. During the meal, Zafoona reveals that she believes her ill health is to blame for Mariam getting led behind: “If I wasn’t so sick, I could have looked after her” (580). Fadi rejects her explanation because he firmly believes that he is the only one to blame.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Paradise”
Chapter 6 describes the initial period of Fadi’s life in the United States. He and his family are living in a room in Uncle Amin’s house, and Fadi sits in the corner watching his father and other family members desperately call the consulate in Peshawar for news of Mariam’s whereabouts. He feels hopeless and lost. Zalmay tries to cheer him up, but Fadi only withdraws further. He spends most of his time surfing the web for mentions of his sister but finds none.
On Habib’s salary as a taxi driver—he’d hoped to teach agriculture at a local community college, but there was no opening for a teacher—the Nurzais move into a cramped two-bedroom apartment. Fadi sleeps on the floor in the living room, letting Noor have the second bedroom. At night he rereads Claudia’s escape in From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Noor has taken a job at McDonalds, and he hears his father and Noor coming home from their jobs and Noor offering some of her earnings to Habib. Noor tells Habib that she is the one to blame for Mariam being left behind; she was supposed to take care of her younger siblings, she says, and she failed. Again, Fadi does not accept Noor’s feelings, believing he alone is responsible.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Brookhaven”
Fadi notices a change in Noor. She is no longer sullen and aloof, but thoughtful and sad. He wishes he could confide in her but still feels too ashamed of his guilt. Fadi navigates his first days at Brookhaven Middle School. He receives a free lunch ticket and realizes that it is because his family is poor. The bustling school overwhelms him, and he feels like an outsider. He sees two other Afghan students but cannot work up the courage to talk to them. During lunch, after narrowly escaping an encounter with the class bully, he meets Anh Hong, who is running for class president.
Chapters 4-7 Analysis
Chapters 4-7 detail the transitional period between Fadi’s arrival in the United States and the beginning of the school year. Fadi’s feeling of dislocation characterizes this period. He is never fully in the moment because he is always thinking about Mariam. Driving away from the airport looking at the Bay, he thinks: “Mariam would have loved it” (507), while on his first day of school, he thinks: “Mariam should have been starting first grade” (694).
These chapters also introduce the reader to Afghan family culture. In Chapter 5, the family gathers around the dastarkhan, a tablecloth laid out on the floor on which food is placed. Family members utter greetings of Salaam Alaikum and the invocations insha’Allah and Ameen, and they eat dishes such as qabuli pulau (lamb pilaf) and mantu (dumplings in meat sauce). Fadi cannot enjoy these either, because he thinks: “Mantu was Mariam’s favorite dish” (561).
Despite the warmth and kinship of the family reunion, searching for and worrying about Mariam still occupy the family for weeks. Senzai uses images of darkness and cramped spaces to embody Fadi’s discomfort, anger, and loneliness. The discomfort does not let up when the Nurzais move out of Uncle Amin’s house and into their own apartment. Fadi notes: “There was nothing heavenly about […] the Paradise Apartment Complex” (644). This name highlights the irony of the family’s situation: The United States was supposed to be an asylum, a place of comfort. Instead, without news of Mariam, they seem to fall deeper into despair. Fadi feels hopeless, which is the opposite feeling one might expect for a boy who is beginning a new chapter of his life.
The expansive world of Brookhaven Middle School contrasts Fadi’s dark, brooding homelife. He still feels disoriented. Entering the school, “He stared down the long hallway packed with kids and tried to get his bearings” (708)—but at least the bustle and newness of school take his mind off Mariam.
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