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On May 6, 1945, Archie and Samad’s tank breaks down in a tiny Bulgarian village near both Greece and Turkey. Their captain calls a halt while they wait for help and gives Jones and Iqbal permission to go into the village. Archie and Samad find a café and spend three hours drinking.
Summary: Chapter 8, Mitosis. At O’Connell’s, their usual hangout, Samad tells Archie about his infatuation with Poppy and bewails his moral failure. Samad feels that he can no longer direct his sons toward the right path and therefore must send the boys back to Bangladesh.
When Archie arrives, Samad explains that ever since the afternoon on the park bench, he is plagued with visions of his sons when he is with Poppy. Mickey tells Archie that Samad can either send his sons to be raised traditionally in India, or accept that they have been and will continue to be corrupted. Samad decides to send his sons to India.
Archie is seventeen and Samad nineteen when they are assigned to the same English Army tank on a mission through Eastern Europe. Rather than fight, they restore destroyed equipment and paths. Archie drives the tank and Samad is the radio operator.
Archie and Samad met in 1945 when they were part of a tank crew inching through Europe in the final days of World War II, though they missed out on the action. Their friendship was cemented when Archie, acting at Samad's behest, apparently executed an escaped Nazi scientist whom they had been tasked with turning over to the authorities.
- Zadie Smith
- 2000
Archie and Samad fight s'more until Samad tells Archie that he wants to know what kind of man Archie is, and challenges Archie to kill the doctor. Samad goads Archie until he releases Dr. Sick from his handcuffs and walks him away from the road with a gun to his head.
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Archie enters, greets Mickey and the other two regular patrons, Denzel and Clarence —“rude, foul-mouthed octogenarian Jamaicans”—and finally meets Samad, who tells Archie about seeing his sons while on the date with Poppy.
