What Strange Paradise

Content warning: Chapters 6-11 Summary and Analysis contain references to multiple human deaths and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Amir hears his uncle sneaking out of the apartment around midnight. He follows him out into the still-bustling streets of Alexandria, to a pier where a number of people, none of whom look Egyptian, are queued up to get on a run-down ferry. Two old men examine them before letting them through. Two Egyptian teenagers question the old men about where the ferry is going; annoyed, one of the old men says they are going to Kos Town in the Dodecanese Islands in Greece. One of the old men spots Amir, who is hiding at a nearby café, and offers him a spot on the ferry for free. He tells Amir that it is a sight-seeing trip, like the tourists take. Seeing Quiet Uncle boarding, Amir agrees.

The old man sneaks Amir into the line, and Amir boards the ferry, hiding from his uncle in the crowd. On board, he hears a heavily pregnant woman asking strangers about the trip. She practices reading English from a notecard: “Hello. I am pregnant. I will have baby on April twenty-eight, I need hospital and doctor to have safe baby.