This is a story of an anguished love affair between two adult children (Ariel and Mira) of Holocaust survivors who cannot get their parents' pain out of themselves. But his anger and his volatility lead her to a kinder, gentler Englishman, Michael. However, she cannot accept his goodness, nor what appears to be a dullness compared to the wildness of Ariel. They become involved in a love triangle, and the seemingly cuckolded man goes mad and wants to punish the woman with a vengeance that is almost Nazi-ish. 

She takes it because she feels she deserves it, having been treated badly by her survivor mother, although she doesn't deserve this kind of rage. But she knows it is born of pain, a pain familiar to her. She knows she has to confront her past. 

"It's because of me," Ariel said, "that you don't want to be alone anymore." 

And maybe that was true. I had had to confront myself with him. The messiness of it, all that need that welled up in me. It had nearly killed me, but not sublimating those needs had freed me to be real, to desire.

These two understand each other's backstory and what has made them impossible in love, until they finally break through and she can purchase a new bed to lie in and live in her truth.