Rosa's start in life is far from auspicious; born only a few days after her father's brutal murder, her first childhood experiences take place against a sound-track of shells and guns. She remembers finding her new home in West Jerusalem so recently vacated by its former Arab owners that there is still a meal on the table. Given a china doll left behind by the previous occupants, she becomes haunted by thoughts of the little girl whose place she has usurped. But her mother is determined that her baby daughter will want for nothing. Rosa grows up to be a voluptuous beauty with a voracious appetite for all sensual pleasures. Though a childhood prophesy leads her to believe that she will have four husbands, nothing prepares her for the extraordinary and remarkably diverse life she is to lead.