The narrator of Si Yussef's ("Mr." Yussef's) story is Lamin, a young university student in Fez. One gloomy day, he encounters the subject of his tale in Ashab's caf? in Tangier. They continue to meet for the next twelve days--exactly four weeks and two days before Si Yussef's death. Si Yussef had grown up in the neighborhood of Amrah and had guided tourists around Medina as a child. He became a bookkeeper with the only soap manufacturer in Tangier...