Life is tough for Geyikli clarinetist Huseyin Badem after marrying his true love, Mujgan. He must grab every opportunity that comes his way to take care of his expanding family, even if it means playing clarinet by night for dingy clubs in the area.

A young woman waits for her husband to return from one of his regular business trips. However, he never shows up, and her joyful anticipation of seeing him develops into questioning concern and ultimately paralysing fear. The empty apartment becomes a labyrinth of memory and expectation, its silence broken only by the agonising sound of car engines, none of which announce her husband’s arrival…

In a Turkish mountain village in the 1950s, Saniye develops fatal tuberculosis and suggests her husband take another wife for the good of the family. Six months later she is mysteriously cured and returns to her family's home—and her husband's new wife.