In her ninth-floor apartment, Sitt May lives alone. From her balcony, well into her eighties, she gazes down at Beirut, observing its condition and transformations. Her two sons are away, having entrusted her care to the building's doorman, Youssef, and the family doctor, Daoud. One day, May is startled by a voice calling her name. Who could it be? How could they have entered at dawn, with the apartment locked not by one door, but by two? A novel about the traps of memory, the bruises of the heart, and the reluctance to get involved, even with a cat.