Sohrab takes Hojir prisoner and stands him on a height above the Iranian camp to name the tents: whose is that one, and that one. What he is really asking, tent by tent, is which of these is my father.

Hojir answers everything except that. He lies about the one tent that matters, and he takes the consequences of lying rather than hand a stranger the thing he is asking for. The whole tragedy turns on that refusal, and he never learns what it cost.