The novel has mainly two characters: Yasemin (an amateur piano-player and church organist with a passion for music - we “hear” music playing in her head throughtout the novel - and very strong compassion for street children; and her husband Mehmet, a professor of social anthropology, whose interest is population control in hunter-collector societies, and whose hobby is painting. They are relatively newly married. For both, this is a second marriage.
These two characters are the narrators throughout the novel (except for their cat, Osman, an occasional narrator); the novel proceeds either in dialogues or the characters’ inner thoughts in the form of stream of consciousness. The novel is based on the relationship of this couple; we learn about their past marriages, their past experiences (Mehmet’s father was a colonel), and gradually we get to see the actual reasons underlying their current marital problems, their lack of communication, their alienation, their frustrations, his inability to show her his love, her inability to trust him - for they are both locked in their own inner worlds.