Stefan Balsiger is a congenial, average councillor to the Swiss embassy in Havanna. While accompanying an US senator on his mission in Cuba, he makes a botch of so many things, that a minor blunder by the Senator turns into a serious incident, which intensifies into a second Cuban crisis - thanks to further entanglements by the media, police, and diplomats who represent the arch-enemies USA and Cuba. Only one person can eventually solve the crisis: Stefan Balsiger himself.

A beach, a couple strolls, a woman comes out of the water.

In the autumn of 1970, Juan, a Spanish poet living in Paris working for UNESCO, returns on vacation to his hometown, Burgos. The city is under heavy police and military surveillance due to the so-called Burgos process, a summary military trial against a group of ETA members and other militants against Francisco Franco’s regime.

Spain, 1944, a country in turmoil, times are hard. Almost bankrupted by his late father's gambling debts, Ricardo, is forced to scrape a living as a shoe-shine boy, in order to care for his recently widowed sister and to keep them in their family home.