Tsippy Silberberg is only in Tel Aviv to collect an old suitcase unexpectedly willed to her by a distant aunt. So, when an odd old woman named Bella Kugelman barges into her hotel room and starts telling her stories, Tsippy is more than a little bit annoyed. But Mrs. Kugelman's strange and wonderous tales soon win over Tsippy in spite of herself; tales of the Polish town of Bedzin before the war and its many inhabitants. As she watches the town come back to life in Mrs. Kugelman's words, Tsippy finally pieces together her aunt's strange bequest and starts to see her own place in the story unfolding before her.