Social drama relating an episode from the colonial period. A mother loses all news of her son, after having left him during the war, while they were living in the maquis. Her son Ali, a fighter, was about to flee in front of the French soldiers who were combing the region. The mother had forgotten to provide him with cigarettes as usual. Several years after independence, she had not given up hope of finding her son and asked everyone she met for a cigarette.