The Hot Mouths of Ghosts
"Elizabeth's childhood self felt the ghosts of those attached to the world by remorse press their hot mouths against her skin in irritation" (86).
This image appears at the end of Chapter 6 of "Veiled Birds," after Sajjad, James, and Elizabeth have a heated discussion about English colonialism at Qutb Minar. Elizabeth responds to the tension by creating even more tension—she has caught on to the flirtation between Sajjad and Hiroko and she lets the fact of Sajjad's arranged marriage slip, knowing that it would upset Hiroko. This image evokes Elizabeth's physical surroundings—it is an extremely hot day, and they are all uncomfortable in the heat—and her guilt at what transpired between Sajjad and herself. Though she does not try to rectify the situation, the image suggests that she does feel "remorse" about the way the outing to Qutb Minar went down.
Twilight Shadows
"The curved receiver of the telephone gripped Raza beneath the chin as the tone of disconnection pulsed against his ear. Twilight cast the shadows of branches across the window, distorting the symmetry of the iron grille with its curlicues inspired by treble clefs" (192).
Raza observes the scene outside of his window, where the nature of the light at twilight distorts the usual scene, making an iron grille seem unsymmetrical. This image appears right after he hangs up from a phone call with Salma in which she tells him that her parents would never let her marry him because his mother survived an atomic bomb and might have therefore passed genetic disorders onto her son. This image is powerful because as the light outside Raza's window "distorts the symmetry" of the scene, Raza feels separate from his moholla (neighborhood) and out of sync with his neighbors. They don't treat him as he belongs, but they don't ostracize him either. His relation to the moholla is unsymmetrical: "Not an outsider, just a tangent. In contact with the world of his moholla, but not intersecting it" (192).
The Fiery Pupil
"He would have liked to lower himself onto his knees in gratitude, but there was a puddle of oil-slicked water on the ground and Hiroko would have something to say about it if he came home with a ruined shalwar. So instead he allowed himself a moment to watch the fiery pupil that was the sun staring out at him from the dark eye of oil" (240).
In this passage, Sajjad finds Sher Mohammed at the fish harbor and feels as if it is an act of divine providence. He is in the process of looking for Raza, who has run away from home to join a mujahideen training camp. In the image, the "fiery pupil" reflected in the oil stands in for the eye of God.
Colored Strips of Cloth
"He looked up into the distant hills—already darkened into silhouettes in the early part of the long winter night—memory rather than sight providing him with images of coloured strips of cloth tied to the ends of long poles. Some bleached to whiteness, some bright as fresh blood, each marking the burial place of those who had died in some version of the war which had rolled across Afghanistan for over twenty years" (303).
Raza sees this image in his head, brought forth by his memory, after he hangs up the phone call with Abdullah's brother. This image conveys the vast number of Afghan deaths caused by the Afghan War and the War on Terror. It also speaks to Raza's guilt for leaving Abdullah at the mujahideen training camp and later working for the U.S. government. He is worried for his childhood friend and determined to make up for his betrayal so many years ago.
