A woman and her lover meet in a restaurant, tailed by a detective. Nearby, lawyers are having a business dinner when armed men enter the building. Elsewhere, Francisco is a drunk tormented by the town's taunts. His wife Berta, a selfless woman, constantly wonders if she should suffer a life with a man that beats her. A young man arrives in Paris where suddenly there are cries of confusion: an earthquake? Victims of circumstance and chance, this book paints characters whose lives are about to change dramatically.