Chapter summaries As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow Zoulfa Katouh

Chapter 16: Blue Dreams and Difficult Choices

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

A flashback shows Salama at a café with friends before the war. She studies for pharmacy exams, bickers with Shahed, Rawan, and Layla, and notices a boy with green eyes (Kenan). Salama wakes in the present, exhausted. She goes to the hospital, meets the smuggler Am, and pays him the first installment of $500 for boat passage to Germany. Am confirms a boat will leave in a month for Tartus, then to Italy and Munich. Salama tells Kenan about the opportunity and asks if he wants his siblings to join. Kenan asks Salama to accompany them while he stays behind to document the war. Salama negotiates two extra seats with Am. A bombing later overwhelms the hospital; Salama works until collapsing. Kenan catches her and takes her outside, letting her rest. He gives her his jacket and asks her to tell him something good. Salama shares her childhood dream of seeing the color blue in Layla’s painting. They sit in silence, sharing a moment of fragile peace.

Key Events

  • Salama remembers a pre-war afternoon at a café with friends, where she first saw Kenan.
  • She wakes in the present and goes to the hospital, where she gives Am the smuggler $500 of the agreed payment.
  • Am reveals the boat will leave in a month via Tartus to Syracuse and then Munich.
  • Salama tells Kenan about the boat and offers to take his siblings.
  • Kenan asks Salama to escort his siblings while he stays to film the war.
  • Salama negotiates two extra seats with Am, threatening to withhold the Panadol and gold.
  • A bomb filled with shrapnel hits a building, causing many casualties.
  • Salama works tirelessly in the hospital and collapses from exhaustion.
  • Kenan catches her, takes her outside, and gives her his jacket.
  • Salama shares a dream of seeing the color blue from Layla’s painting.
  • They sit side by side, enjoying a quiet moment before the next disaster.

Character Development

Salama is forced into a leadership role, bargaining with Am and deciding who gets to escape. Her negotiation shows growing pragmatism, but her collapse afterward reveals the emotional toll of survival. The flashback contrasts her youthful optimism with the present trauma, and her decision to share her dream of blue with Kenan hints at a lingering hope she tries to suppress.

Kenan appears torn between duty and desire. He immediately agrees to send his siblings but refuses to leave himself, citing his promise to his father. His earlier light—his smile and gentle manner—is weighed down by guilt. The moment he holds Salama and later asks her to tell something good shows vulnerability, and his decision to stay despite the danger underscores his internal conflict.

Am remains a shadowy figure—calculating and cold. He agrees to add extra seats only after Salama pressures him, and his threat to involve the military reveals the danger she still faces.

Khawf (fear) is not physically present in this chapter, but his influence is felt: Salama thinks of him when she doubts whether happiness is worth the risk.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Survivor’s guilt and deserving happiness. Salama and Kenan both struggle with feeling unworthy of a future after so many deaths. Her question “Do we even deserve to see them?” about colors is really about permission to live.

The color blue as lost possibility. Layla’s painting of a quiet sea symbolizes Salama’s pre‑war dreams—worlds she wanted to explore. Now blue is associated with frostbite and death, but Kenan’s gentle response suggests the color might return.

Opposing roads: leaving versus staying. Kenan’s decision to stay and document the war contrasts with Salama’s plan to flee. The chapter explores whether one choice is more noble than the other.

Memory and the present. The flashback to the café contrasts starkly with the war’s reality, showing how memory offers both comfort and pain.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 16 marks a turning point in Salama’s escape plan: the boat is now real and scheduled. It deepens the moral complexity as she decides whom to save. The romantic tension with Kenan intensifies, but the chapter refuses easy comfort—the massacre after the negotiation undercuts any hope. Finally, the shared moment outside the hospital gives the story a rare pause, allowing characters to be vulnerable without immediate crisis, making the impending separation more poignant.

Study Questions and Answers

  1. Why does Salama negotiate extra seats for Kenan’s siblings?
    She sees Kenan’s guilt and knows he cannot be persuaded to leave. By offering to take his siblings, she respects his duty while still trying to protect those he loves. Her actions also reflect her growing sense of responsibility beyond herself and Layla.

  2. What does the color blue represent in the conversation between Salama and Kenan?
    Blue symbolizes the peaceful future Salama once imagined—a world of travel and beauty. Now she associates it with death (cold, frostbite). Kenan insists the color can return slowly, hinting that healing and hope are still possible, even if undeserved.

  3. How does the chapter use the flashback to the café to illustrate Salama’s emotional state?
    The flashback shows Salama as carefree, surrounded by friends and focused on exams. It underscores how the war has stripped away that innocence. Waking to the present with tears and sweat emphasizes the gap between who she was and who she has become, and the one moment of respite with Kenan bounces between longing and loss.

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