50 pages • 1 hour read
Anthony MarraA Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 28-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary
When Sonja returns to the hospital after visiting Akhmed’s village, for the first time in a long time, there are no patients. Sonja tells Havaa that they will probably never see Akhmed again. She also explains that the same thing happened to her sister Natasha because “she wanted a share of the national suffering, to blame the Feds for the fact that her sister didn’t love her enough to say good-bye” (369). Sonja takes Havaa back to her apartment even though Sonja has been living at the hospital and hasn’t returned to the apartment in a long time. Sonja shows Havaa to Natasha’s old room and tells Havaa she can stay there. Havaa opens her blue suitcase for the first time and starts to unpack. Along with her clothing, Havaa has souvenirs from the dozens of refugees who stayed at her house. One of the items is the Buckingham Palace Guard nutcracker, which Sonja recognizes as the one she gave to Natasha.
Over the years, Sonja raises Havaa. Havaa eventually attends college to study science, gets married, and has a son. She dies at the age of 103 in the same hospital where she was born. Neither Sonja nor Havaa ever find out what happened to Natasha.
Chapter 29 Summary
Akhmed is taken to the Landfill and placed in Pit B, the same pit that holds Dokka. The other prisoners can tell that the two men know each other, “but whether they were brothers, or friends, or rivals, or enemies, none could say” (378). Dokka and Akhmed embrace, and even though no one is sure exactly what they say, some overhear them saying “Havaa” and “she is safe.” Akhmed begins treating the prisoners’ wounds, and they call him the doctor even though he doesn’t do a very good job. A few days later, Dokka and Akhmed are summoned out of the pit for interrogations. Their fate is never explained.
Chapters 28-29 Analysis
These concluding chapters explain what happens to some of the novel’s main characters. As Sonja asks Havaa what she remembers about Natasha, the text cuts to flashforwards of the future that reveal the long life Havaa will go on to live. The flashforwards allow the author to explain what happens to the characters in the novel without interrupting the flow of the present scene. Furthermore, the final chapter is told from the point of view of the other prisoners in Pit B at the Landfill. Even though Dokka and Akhmed’s names aren’t used, they are referred to as the man with no fingers and the doctor, allowing the reader to understand that this passage refers to Dokka and Akhmed. Even though Dokka and Akhmed’s exact fate is never revealed, they are briefly reunited at the Landfill and realize that Havaa is safe, which is the one thing they both wanted most of all.
As Havaa pulls souvenirs from her suitcase, various items are described, such as:
a silver ring that had made a thirty-eight-year-old mother of two feel like the most glamorous woman in Grozny. An address book that an unfaithful husband had given Havaa so his wife’s ghost wouldn’t find it among his possessions. A dried seahorse that a father gave his six-year-old daughter in lieu of a pony. (372-73)
Though brief, the descriptions show that these objects once belonged to human beings, making the characters feel real even though they never appear on the page. People are often reduced to victims or statistics in wartime, and these descriptions of the objects that were important to them represent how many lives are affected by war and violence.
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By Anthony Marra
