Burnt Shadows

Raza considers his two identities: Raza Ashraf, his identity at home, and Raza Hazara, his Afghan alias in Sohrab Goth, where he teaches English to refugees and learns to assemble an AK-47. Raza is both excited and exhausted by his secret life and knows that the charade is not sustainable, especially after Raza learns that he has successfully passed his exams on the third attempt.

Raza goes to lunch with Abdullah, who explains that it is time for him to join his brothers at a mujahideen training camp near Peshawar. Abdullah, nervous, asks Raza whether he should go to the camp or stay in Karachi and continue working as a weapons smuggler. Raza devises a plan: He will go with Abdullah to the camp, then run away to his uncle’s house in Peshawar and let Abdullah assume that “Raza Hazara” vanished due to his supposed CIA connections. Considering it all a great adventure, Raza encourages Abdullah to go to the training camp.

A week later, Raza heads out with Abdullah and Abdullah’s brother Afridi. On the three-day drive, Raza appreciates the beauty of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and realizes that he will miss Abdullah’s friendship. Afridi drops off Abdullah and Raza on the side of the road, and Raza realizes that the training camp is further from Peshawar than he thought. Raza decides quickly to stay in the camp for a few days, then fake a call about a death in his family as a means of escape. Abdullah and Raza see a refugee camp in the distance, and Abdullah tells Raza that all of the young men from the refugee camp become mujahideen because the terrible living conditions, which are still better than the dangerous conditions in Afghanistan, inspire them to fight for their homeland. Raza realizes his selfishness in encouraging Abdullah to join the mujahideen just so he could get out of his lie about being Afghan. Raza tries to convince Abdullah to call Afridi from the mujahideen camp and return to Karachi, but Abdullah tells Raza that there are no phones where they are going. 

Three days before, Hiroko wakes to find Raza gone and a note on his pillow, written in Japanese. Raza’s note explains that he has gone away with his friend Abdullah but that he will be back soon to resume preparations for university. Hiroko goes to Bilal’s house to ask him who Abdullah is. Bilal is not at home, but Bilal’s mother, Qaisra, reassures Hiroko that Raza is a good son. Qaisra tells Hiroko that she doesn’t know who Abdullah is and that Raza and Bilal are not as close as they used to be. Hiroko leaves, followed by Salma, who tells Hiroko that she talked to Raza one last time before he left for Peshawar and that Raza told her that he was going to the mujahideen training camp. Hiroko rushes to find Sajjad, who is shocked but promises to find Raza, assuming someone at the fish harbor will know who Abdullah is.

Salma finds Hiroko again and tells her about her telephone flirtations with Raza and how she told Raza he would never marry because of Hiroko’s history at Nagasaki. Rather than being angry at Salma or at Qaisra, whom Hiroko assumes taught Salma such a prejudice, Hiroko is devastated that her own personal trauma has resulted in heartbreak for her son and is frustrated by her inability to escape the past. Hiroko worries that not telling Raza about the horrors of Nagasaki, focusing instead on the aftermath in Tokyo, Delhi, Istanbul, and Karachi, has inspired him to take dangerous risks in the name of adventure. Hiroko falls asleep in Raza’s bed and dreams of Raza taunting a young Afghan boy, who is simultaneously Hiroko’s former student who became a kamikaze pilot. The dream boy unfurls black wings, and desiccated cherry blossoms spill from his mouth to cover Afghanistan.