Laura is a woman of many parts: she is a wife, a daughter, a mother, a rock musician, a mistress, and a hospital personnel administrator. As a wife, she is none too happy, as she is locked into a union with an unenterprising and unfaithful man who is the son of a national hero. She has a brief affair with a younger man who seemingly has time to follow her around from place to place, and she is considering reviving her career in a defunct rock band, at the behest of its leader, an old friend. However, the most absorbing part of her life is her work at the hospital, where she discovers evidence of great and small injustices perpetrated by the heavy hand of the state. In one especially moving moment, she travels with a doctor she is trying to persuade to retire, as he revisits the site of the now-vanished buildings where he was held prisoner for many years without ever being charged or tried for any crimes.