Three doors take these refugees from their wartorn home through Greece and England and totally West to California. Obviously, any journey like this one should bring two young single folks together, like this guy and girl, right? After all, it is kind of romantic what they endure together, it seems. The father making Nadia swear to stay with Saeed invites a romantic interpretation, and yet, their ultimate separation is as if the novelist firmly denies that interpretation.
So what is the novel about if not the union of two wandering souls? The novel is about political strife and the horrors of war. The novelist leaves the love story lurking in the background as if to ask the reader whether they will take the story seriously, or whether they will see the drama of two star-crossed lovers as more inherently powerful than the absolute carnage of death and despair. Both of these young people experience the deaths of their family. They are separated from their home, driven away by the certainty of violent death or even torture. The story is not a love story at all.
When they each go through the same doors, they are more like siblings in strife than they are like lovers. Notice how much they depend on other people for survival; they keep each other company and watch each others' backs, and then in Mykonos, a young Greek girl with a heart for the refugees helps to get them into London. They depend on hospitality in London, but eventually, the refugee communities become overwhelming and they find themselves in unsafe ghettos. They must find another door, and by the time they end up in California, they walk away from each other to try and find some semblance of a life on their own.
