A German-Jewish widower, Bernhard is devastated by the loss of his wife. As he disconsolately walks the streets of Jerusalem, Bernhard considers Oskar Kokoschka, Gandhi, analysis, his Arab neighbors, the Messiah, nerves, and the inner life of his friend Gustav the plumber. Bernhard reads that Hitler has invaded Poland and recalls married life in Berlin and the beauty of his wife Paula's neck.

As the Danes smuggle out their Jews to Sweden, he goes with Gustav to see "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." On another trip to the movies they "see the dust cloud that rises from the ground where previously there had been a Japanese city, and climbs higher and higher in the sky, and they say almost in unison, 'Wie ein Riesenpilz' (like a giant mushroom)." As his hero tries to come to terms with his grief and the disasters of WWII, Yoel Hoffmann shows the slow remaking of an inner world.