This story takes place in Tehran, Iran, where 17-year-old Pasha Shahed lives. The year is 1973. One day, on the rooftops where Pasha and his friend Ahmed sit up and talk, Pasha shares his dreams of becoming a professional wrestler. He tells of his adoration for the girl next door, Zari, but Zari is betrothed to Doctor, Pasha's mentor.
Doctor is a university student who moonlights as a political activist. That attracts the attention of SAVAK, Iran's intelligence agency, who puts Doctor on their hit list, constantly seeking to remove him from his role in the community as a political disturbance, probably by killing him or imprisoning him on trumped up charges.
Pasha's friendship with Zari continues to grow, and it seems that Zari wants to be with Pasha as badly as Pasha wants to be with her, but one day, Pasha unknowingly leads SAVAK to Doctor. They infiltrate Zari's home, beat Doctor nearly to death as an example, and then they drag him away. One of the officers tells Zari's family that the man is to be executed, and the family must pay the price of the bullet which will kill him. He is executed by the state for opposing the government.
Pasha cuts forward in time to his stay at a mental ward, struggling to piece together why he can't think straight, nor can he remember how he ended up institutionalized.
Back in the present, Pasha is becoming more outspoken, sometimes forgetting the consequences for getting caught by SAVAK. He learns that despite her feelings, Zari won't be with him, and she makes excuses as for why.
Then Zari does something no one expected; she mourns her fiance publicly (a strictly prohibited crime), but she does so by setting herself on fire and walking into traffic. As she burns alive, Pasha tries to intervene, but he is arrested and—yes—institutionalized.
Now, the end of the novel is written after Pasha's release from the mental hospital. He meets Soraya, and they hit it off, but he begins (in delusion) believing that Zari is still alive. Finally he confronts Soraya, accusing her of being Zari in disguise. She admits that it's true, though this is impossible, and she urges him to continue in his fate of becoming a filmmaker. She promises to marry him one day.
