Nahr's Palestinian family is expelled from their homeland and settles as refugees in Kuwait after the Nakba.

Nahr's father dies of a heart attack in another woman's arms, leaving the family disgraced in exile.

Nahr marries Palestinian dissident Mhammad in a subdued ceremony, but their union is cold and disconnected from the start.

Mhammad abandons Nahr at nineteen and returns to Palestine, leaving her with nothing and no explanation.

Nahr meets the older Iraqi woman Um Buraq and enters sex work to fund her brother Jehad's university tuition.

Saudi officials gang-rape Nahr at a party, but Iraq's invasion of Kuwait interrupts the assault and she escapes.

Kuwaiti authorities arrest Jehad on forged collaboration charges, and the family's landlord evicts them, blaming all Palestinians.

Nahr and her family flee Kuwait and resettle in Amman, Jordan, beginning another chapter of displacement.

Nahr travels to Palestine for the first time and is denied residency, receiving only a temporary tourist visa.

Nahr attends a secret resistance meeting beneath Jumana's beauty salon but refuses to risk transporting weapons.

Nahr receives an email from Bilal and returns to Palestine, committing herself fully to the resistance movement.

Israeli settlers throw rocks at Palestinians during the olive harvest; soldiers kill a Palestinian child and burn the groves.

Nahr and Bilal marry in a ceremony attended by Nahr's mother, who sews a symbolic Palestinian wedding dress.

Israeli soldiers pull Nahr from a helicopter-bombed taxi, arrest her, and she is tried and convicted of terrorism.

After sixteen years in the Cube, Nahr is released and later receives a secret coded letter from Bilal.

Nahr is born into a Palestinian family displaced by the Nakba and grows up as a refugee in Kuwait, where a failed marriage and the Gulf War push her toward sex work and survival. After Kuwaiti authorities imprison her brother and the family is evicted, they flee to Amman, Jordan, beginning yet another chapter of displacement. Nahr eventually travels to Palestine for the first time, witnesses the realities of Israeli occupation, and is drawn into her brother-in-law Bilal's resistance cell. Committed to fighting the occupation, she marries Bilal and participates in increasingly bold operations against the Israeli military and settler presence. She is ultimately arrested and spends sixteen years in solitary confinement in a specialized Israeli prison cell called the Cube. Upon her release, a secret coded letter from Bilal offers hope that their love and shared struggle can continue.

Nahr's journey from exile to imprisonment and hope.

As a young girl, Nahr's grandmother watches Israeli soldiers destroy her family's home during the Nakba.

Um Buraq introduces Nahr to two other women and Nahr chooses the working pseudonym "Almas," meaning diamond.

A client promises to marry Nahr, and she stops working for Um Buraq to pursue the relationship.

The client abandons Nahr after arranging a secret abortion in Egypt, leaving her gravely ill and alone.

Um Buraq finds the gravely ill Nahr and arranges medical care, insisting that all men are ultimately worthless.

Jehad is accepted into a degree program at Moscow University, making Nahr feel her sacrifices were worthwhile.

When Nahr's retail job closes during the Iraqi occupation, she opens a makeshift hair salon at Um Buraq's home.

A human rights lawyer secures the release of Jehad, who was beaten by Kuwaiti authorities during his detention.

In Amman, Nahr learns that Um Buraq was imprisoned in Kuwait for allegedly collaborating with the Iraqi army.

Jehad reveals a Palestinian Liberation Organization contact who may help him and Nahr secure official residency papers for Palestine.

Nahr visits her mother's childhood home in Haifa and punches the Jewish occupant who attacks her.

Israeli forces kill Bilal's friend, a shepherd, strengthening Nahr's resolve to leave Amman and return to Palestine.

Bilal's resistance cell successfully smuggles weapons through a checkpoint using Nahr and Jumana as diversions.

A fire breaks out in Jumana's salon when Nahr forgets a hot plate left on, threatening the secret tunnels below.

Bilal's prison hunger strike draws international media attention and forces Israeli authorities to release him.

Nahr's story is built on the people surrounding her, from her grandmother who survived the Nakba to Um Buraq, the Iraqi woman who introduces her to sex work and becomes a lifelong confidante. During the Gulf War, Nahr navigates occupation and financial desperation, opening a salon and watching her brother Jehad suffer unjust imprisonment before a human rights lawyer wins his release. After the family escapes to Jordan, Nahr learns of the wider resistance network and eventually makes her way to Palestine, where she witnesses occupation's daily violence and reconnects with the land her family lost. In Palestine, she joins Bilal's cell in a successful weapons smuggling operation and manages the fallout of an accidental fire at Jumana's salon that nearly exposes their secret tunnels. Bilal's repeated imprisonments test the group's resolve, culminating in a hunger strike that forces the Israeli authorities to free him. These secondary moments form the human fabric behind the novel's larger political and personal story.

The people and moments that shaped Nahr's path.

After Nahr's father dies in another woman's arms, her mother-in-law blames Mama for being a poor wife.

Mhammad cries out the name "Tamara" and weeps on his and Nahr's wedding night, revealing deep emotional distance.

Nahr wakes at Um Buraq's home after her first night of sex work and is handed payment for her efforts.

Um Buraq instructs Nahr to encourage clients to drink heavily so she can steal their banking information.

Jehad returns to Kuwait from Amman as widespread rumors of an imminent American military invasion begin circulating.

A former client rapes Nahr at a bank, but she memorizes his PIN and later drains his accounts with Um Buraq.

Jehad tells Nahr that the Oslo Accords are largely symbolic and that Palestinian resistance organizing continues in secret.

Nahr confronts Bilal about his role in the resistance movement and learns that he has been secretly monitoring her.

Nahr tells Jumana that only privileged women can freely choose their income, and that judging sex workers is not revolutionary.

Bilal reveals that Mhammad is secretly gay and has long been in love with an Israeli soldier named Itamar.

Nahr and Bilal covertly run tubing to divert water back to his almond trees from settler-controlled irrigation pipes.

Bilal tearfully confesses to Nahr that severe prison torture left him uncertain he can be sexually intimate or father children.

Bilal uses his chemistry training to introduce a homemade endocrine-disrupting compound into nearby Israeli settler water pipes.

Nahr and Bilal quietly remove the chemical compounds before investigators test the water supply, then resume the operation afterward.

Nahr sings Palestinian songs aloud during her terrorism trial, experiencing a feeling of freedom despite being in chains.

Nahr's early adult years are defined by painful revelations about gender, power, and survival, beginning with her husband's emotional unavailability on their wedding night and her gradual initiation into the world of sex work under Um Buraq's guidance. The Gulf War strips away further illusions: Nahr survives a brutal rape and retaliates by draining her attacker's bank accounts, a moment that crystallizes Um Buraq's philosophy about men and power. Her first visit to Palestine brings a cascade of discoveries, including learning the true reason her marriage failed and confronting Jumana's judgment of her past in a speech that redefines what it means to be a revolutionary woman. Back in Palestine for good, Nahr and Bilal grow closer through covert acts of resistance, including secretly poisoning settler water supplies and carefully covering their tracks before investigators arrive. Even the intimate revelation of what imprisonment did to Bilal's body does not weaken their bond or her commitment. Her defiant singing at the terrorism trial that ends her freedom stands as the most powerful turning point of all, capturing the novel's spirit of unbreakable resistance.