Set in 1963, in the latter days of the Polish post-Stalinist thaw. Jerzyk, is a teenager who is keenly interested in the life of his father, a retired postal administrator and his father's closest friend, Mr Traba, a failed lutheran clergyman, alcoholic and would be Polish insurrectionist. One drunken afternoon, Mr Traba and the narrator's father decide to take charge of their lives and do one final good turn for humanity, travel to Warsaw and assassinate the Polish head of state and they decide to involve Jerzyk in their plan.