Hinrich, who is missing an "e" to become the more elegant Heinrich, finds a letter with a black border in his mailbox on a sunny May day. Who could have died? Hinrich dares not open the envelope. Since his wife died nine years ago from a fall from 43 meters, he has been living alone. His time as a cultural correspondent for a major newspaper in Frankfurt is behind him. Thus, his days are filled with memories of Irene, the beloved mother of his daughter Naomi, who was a translator of demanding Italian literature. There were the summers they spent together in Italy, their trips to Rome and Pompeii, where they could stand for hours in front of the famous frescoes of the Villa dei Misteri, trying to decipher their meaning. And there was their love for cinema; they appreciated the melancholy of black-and-white films but were also seduced by something lighter.