Home Fire: Chapter 3 – Eamonn Summary & Analysis

Eamonn is back in London as spring starts to bloom. He is traveling to Isma’s neighborhood to deliver the M&M’s, and he feels that the roads are familiar to him from his childhood. He remembers visiting a great-uncle’s house on Eid every year, even though none of the family observed Ramadan. Once at the house, Karamat would become a different person, with a different language and gestures. Just as Eamonn started wanting to know more about the culture, the “business with the mosque photographs”  happened.

Eamonn is upset that after everything Karamat had done for his constituents, it was the Muslims who had “turned their back on Karamat Lone.” As Eamonn continues his journey towards Isma’s neighborhood, he thinks how spending time with her reminded him of the family from whom they are now estranged. He feels that “behind these doors existed a piece of his childhood—of his father—that he’d been too ready to forget.”

Eamonn knocks on Aunty Naseem’s door and she answers. When he says that he has brought a package from Isma, she invites him in for tea and makes him samosas as they chat. Just as Eamonn is about to leave, he hears footsteps at the top of the stairs. Aunty Naseem tells the footsteps—Aneeka—that Eamonn is here. Aneeka leaves to “[fix] herself up,” then returns a few minutes later. Eamonn is struck by how beautiful she is and is immediately attracted to her. On hearing Eamonn’s name, Aneeka immediately recognizes him; her expression hardens and she asks what he is doing there.

Eamonn explains that he walked to Aunty Naseem’s house to deliver a package from Isma. When he comments on how lovely the walk along the canal was, he mentions that he looked up information about it: the bridge above the canal was almost bombed by the IRA in 1939, she can look up more information about it. Aneeka says it’s not a good idea to look up bombs if you’re “Googling While Muslim.”

Aunty Naseem then suggests they all call Isma, but Aneeka refuses. Aneeka then offers to walk Eamonn out. She asks him what he was really doing there, and he is unable to tell her that he was curious about “a lost piece of his father,” so he says that he saw a photograph of Aneeka and wanted to see if she was that beautiful in real life. She gives him a look of disgust and walks away. But when Eamonn is on the train home, he is shocked to see Aneeka walk up to him in the carriage. She asks him if he lives alone, and then tells him to take her to his apartment.

Aneeka and Eamonn don’t speak much on the train, and when they arrive at his home, he is embarrassed by the affluence of his neighborhood and apartment, which is paid for by his mother, Terry. Eamonn notes Aneeka’s hijab, saying that Isma prefers turbans. Aneeka immediately unpins her hijab and the cap underneath, shaking out her long hair. Eamonn doesn’t know if she’s trying to send him a signal. He lays his hand on the table, palm up, inviting her. She takes his hand, notices his fast pulse, and places his other hand on her heart, saying that their pulses match.

The next morning, Eamonn is amazed how everything in the apartment smells like Aneeka, as though she is a storm that has passed through. She was hesitant at first, even tried to put her hijab back on, but then she swung the other way as if to prove to him that she really wanted to stay. He also wanted to show her that he wouldn’t expect everything from her without anything in return, and they “set about discovering each other in that slow-quick way of new lovers.”

That morning, Eamonn discovers Aneeka praying in the living room on a towel. She angles herself away from his naked body, but he can’t help but watch her pray for a time before returning to bed. When she returns, he asks what she was praying for, but she says that prayer isn’t about transaction. He jokes that she had to “put on a bra for God.” Aneeka doesn’t respond, saying, “You do other things better than you do talk,” and she continues to undress.

Eamonn and Aneeka have sex once more, this time with her hijab on. When he later asks why she wears the scarf, she says, “I get to choose which parts of me I want strangers to look at, and which are for you,” and against Eamonn’s will, he likes that answer. As they lie together, he brings up Isma, thinking to himself that she wouldn’t approve of what they have done. Aneeka says that they used to be close, but now they don’t speak.

Aneeka then asks if she can be Eamonn’s “secret”—she doesn’t want anyone else to know about their relationship. She doesn’t want her friends knowing when they can meet him, or Aunty Naseem inviting him over, or Isma using him as a way to get to her. He agrees to keep the secret. Eamonn quickly discovers that secrecy means not having Aneeka’s phone number or being able to find her online. Instead, she simply turns up at his apartment at some point in the day. The secrecy acts as “an aphrodisiac that gained potency the longer it continued,” and he finds himself constantly thinking about her.

Sometimes Eamonn and Aneeka speak about Isma and even about Parvaiz, though Eamonn thinks about him like a ghost. She talks about him like a partner in crime during childhood, from whom she was rarely detached. But after school, their lives diverged. Parvaiz hadn’t received scholarships like Aneeka, and instead he went traveling. Aneeka says little about him past that.

One morning, less than two weeks after they met, Eamonn feels resentful of Aneeka’s control of their relationship and packs his bag for a week away at a friend’s home. But the second night, he finds a cab company and arrives home at 3 a.m. to find her curled up on the doormat. He immediately gives her a key, and “something shift[s] between them that night.”

When Eamonn wakes he finds Aneeka making breakfast, and she shows him a chart she’s made of the blocks of time that he shouldn’t expect to see her. He gives her a few times as well, including a weekly Sunday lunch with his family—which he adds that she could join sometime. She grows nervous about this idea, but Eamonn assures her that he knows that might be difficult for her—Isma told him about Adil.

Aneeka is shocked to learn that Isma told Eamonn about Adil, and asks what else Isma told him. Eamonn assures her that no one will judge her for her father’s mistakes—even Karamat. Eamonn says that Karamat believes “you are what you make of yourself,” unless you’re his son. Eamonn explains that his sister gets all the expectations, while he is indulged. When Aneeka asks if he minds that, Eamonn says he minds a lot.

Aneeka says that she understands what Karamat said about Adil, but that it makes him seem unforgiving. Eamonn acknowledges that he can be unforgiving, but he isn’t always. When he asks Aneeka if she wants him to ask Karamat about Adil, she says no. He is relieved, though he knows eventually he’ll have to bring up the issue if their relationship is going to continue seriously.

Weeks go by and Aneeka and Eamonn build a routine together, and he withdraws from his friends. He does attend one dinner with his friends, where they joke, “twenty-something unemployed male from Muslim background exhibits rapidly altered pattern of behavior, cuts himself off from old friends,” and wonder if they should be concerned. They jokingly note that at least he’s drinking (though Eamonn thinks that he barely drinks anymore because Aneeka doesn’t want to kiss him when he does). Eamonn realizes at the dinner how tired he is of his friends.

Occasionally, Aneeka turns cold, or sad, or angry, in a way that unsettles Eamonn. One day, she receives a Skype call and runs out of the room. When he goes to look for her, he hears her in the bathroom, saying, “I’m making sure of things here.” He goes back to the living room, alarmed, and when she comes back it seems like she’s been crying. When he asks who she was talking to, she doesn’t answer, simply kissing him and laughing manically. He is put off by this reaction, but she acknowledges that she’s acting a little crazy, and when she puts a hand on his cheek he feels that all obstacles between them are surmountable.