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For four decades, from 1916-1958, family gatherings at the Batrakani household are an excuse to gossip, eat molokhiya and tell endless stories. Their family fate is entwined with that of their adopted land, Egypt, as it is caught in the upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century.
The Batrakanis are Greek Catholic, French-speaking Syrians living in a Muslim Cairo run by the British. Destined always to be influential observers from the balcony and never participants in the crowd, they are birds of passage: aloof outsiders in the eyes of ordinary Egyptians, and, to the British occupiers, an isolated community of Levantine merchants.
Georges Bey Batrakani is the patriarch and a pillar of the Greek Catholic community. He is driven by the need to achieve the wealth necessary for the luxury he craves. His chosen method is to manufacture the tarboosh, or fez, worn by every member of the Egyptian establishment, regardless of race or creed. As long as the tarboosh holds sway, the Batrakanis and all they stand for can flourish. When revolution comes in 1952, everything must change. Egyptians take the reins of power in Egypt for the first time since the Pharaohs, and the tarboosh becomes an anathema; the Batrakanis, their love affair with Egypt at an end, must move on to a new exile elsewhere.
