On a rainy day in 1947, at a railway station in the English wilderness, red-haired Elizabeth meets a German boy, the son of her dead sister. She is confused, filled with love and fear. What to expect from this teenager, who was a member of the Hitler Youth and probably hates the enemies of his defeated country? But the reality turns out to be much more confusing and complex. That evening, a German boy hands Elisabeth a painting on a torn canvas. In it, a girl with long copper hair walks through the sun, a cafe is hidden under the trees, and a man sits at a table and watches the girl. Elizabeth recognizes herself. But who is this man in the painting, in the corner of which are the initials she knows? And what does her German nephew, whose psyche is clearly undermined by Nazism and war, have to do with the painting of the Jewish artist? Thus begins the finely woven story of two families against the backdrop of the whirlwinds that covered Europe in the twentieth century. This is a leisurely, fascinating story about family secrets, betrayal and love with lyrical and accurately depicted details of the era.