Who speaks when someone tells a story from the past? This is the question posed by an author in a small hotel by the sea, where his parents spent happy days decades ago, the last before their separation. He occupies the room they once stayed in and writes about the story of his early years, narrating it with the distance of a writer as a story that feels foreign: He employs the tools and freedoms of the novel to frame the narrative of his sexuality, which is also the story of his budding writing, creating a life legend that remains close to his own painful truth, which includes the failed marriage of his parents. The war brought together his parents, the young actress from Vienna and the talented war veteran from Hanover who had lost a leg and stood before nothingness. All they want is to be.