During a protest against French occupation, Mr. Wahib kills a French soldier and gets exiled to French Guiana. He escapes after years of exile and runs into a Belgian guy, Leopold, who is about to become the Belgian ambassador in Syria. On their way to Damascus, a friendship grows between them.
The work assumes as its setting the city of Damascus between the 1940s and the close of the 1950s. Thus the work plays out within a thrilling social context.