In the summer of 1957, during the Algerian war, the Senegalese sub-lieutenant Souleymane Fall discovers among the bushes a young girl, Fatima, stunned, her eyes bulging with fear. He rapes her. This misfortune gives birth to a son with very black skin. A few years later, in Senegal, Souleyman's father, a practicing Muslim, demands that his son find and marry Fatima, "his sister in Islam".