In this novel, a morgue, a clinic, and an interrogation room where a woman accused of murdering her husband are questioned. On the other side of the city, veteran freedom fighters plead to have the fabricated charges of collaboration against them dropped. Two distinct events unfold, their connection revealed as the novel chronicles half a century of Algerian history, from World War II to the early 1990s, including the War of Independence and its aftermath. It unveils unspoken social crises such as the generation gap, the chasm between parents and children, failed marriages and the escape into clandestine relationships, the hardships of motherhood, and the donation and trafficking of human organs. In this novel, people from a remote, outlying town are armed with hope, their fates tied to a man arriving from the capital.