A husband and wife spend a week apart over the Hanukkah holiday: Daniela visits her widowed brother-in-law in Africa to revive memories of her sister with him but, in ways she cannot begin to understand, he has been left wounded and raging after an earlier tragedy - a death by friendly fire.
Her husband, Amotz Ya'ari, stays behind in Israel, rushing between his engineering company, their grandchildren and his father. Life in the Ya'ari family is full, complicated and humorous, but beyond it lies a fragile society deeply uneasy with itself and badly scarred, with each family harbouring its own ghosts.
Ever-creative, A.B. Yehoshua's short, interwoven chapters create a duet-like narrative which penetrates deeply into human relationships and taps into the psyche of his country.