[1] The novel is about Tawfiq, a Tunisian immigrant in France who visits his brother Ibrahim's house in Al-Basatin district of Tunis in Tunisia, for the summer holidays.
[3] The novel tells the story of Tawfiq, the narrator, a Tunisian immigrant who works as a professor of history and geography in one of Paris secondary schools who spends his summer vacation in the apartment of his brother Ibrahim and his wife Yusra in one of the condominia of al-Basatin district of Tunis and prepare their son's Wael room for him to stay in for the duration of his stay in Tunisia.
Their third brother, Bashir, visits them twice in Ibrahim's apartment, who is a doctor and owns a domesticated to raise chickens in Beja and becomes a prominent member of the Constitutional Democratic Rally Party.
Then Tawfiq meets Yisra's sister, Leila, who asks him to pass on her someday to accompany him to his apartment by her car.
Tawfiq regrets his act, but when he sees his brother, Ibrahim, accompanied with his teacher friend, enticing two prostitutes in the café of the International Hotel and taking them to an old building to sleep with them, it made him feel less guilty.