The book opens in an unnamed Middle Eastern city, which we are told is “swollen with refuges but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war” (1). Here is where Saeed meets Nadia, at a night class on product branding. She wears a robe and veil but seems independent and modern in her outlook; she drives a motorcycle and tells Saeed (after first asking him if he prays) that she never prays. He asks her out for a cup of coffee at the school cafeteria, but she demurs.

The scene shifts to Saeed at the ad agency where he works. He is trying to come up with a pitch for soap but is distracted by thoughts of Nadia and by the sight of a hawk outside of his window. When he shows his project, which he has assembled at the last minute, to his boss, his boss seems too preoccupied to notice its slapdash appearance.

The scene then shifts to an unnamed white woman’s house in a wealthy neighborhood in Sydney, Australia. She is asleep and has forgotten to turn on her burglar alarm; we are told that her husband is away on business.