In Cape Town (South Africa), an old professor dies of cancer. Ms. Curren, who has spent her entire life battling lies and atrocities, but is virtually isolated from the real horrors of the apartheid regime, is now forced to force herself to come to terms with the untruths that reign around her. In a long letter to her daughter, who fled to America long ago, the heroine lists the strange events of recent days. She writes about a fire in the black town next door and discovers the bullet-riddled body of a local employee's son: a teenage activist holed up in her home, killed by security forces. In a moment of despair, the only person with whom she can share her pain and anger is a homeless alcoholic who suddenly appears on her doorstep.