We are in an airplane carrying a young pianist to Warsaw; he is on his way to participate in the famous Chopin Competition. Though he flies economy class, the musician discovers that the man sitting next to him, to whom he has described Poland as a country of anti-Semites and alcoholics, is the Prime Minister himself, traveling incognito. Indeed, upon arrival, a small crowd surrounds the plane shouting “Jew!” Not that the Prime Minister is one, but the protesters cannot come up with any worse of an insult.

Our pianist has been invited by an outstanding musician, Ostreich, who amuses himself by humiliating our hero in a 1,001 ways. He leaves him at the hands of a disabled man who corners him into helping him to the toilets. This disabled man, Zakhor, has apparently survived the death camps, from which he has obviously brought back his horrible stumps.

At the same time, the Chopin Competition continues, ten hours a day, before a maniacal audience. Our hero plays his part, not without tasting the local pleasures: a very concentrated vodka and three women whom he hopes to seduce-a scornful journalist, a virginal Lolita and a half-French bookseller who is preparing her doctorate in nuclear physics.

Quickly, the musician realizes that the Chopin Competition is rigged to the benefit of one of Ostreich’s students, Ergo Zeitos. This same Ostreich has some difficulty admitting his true past. A young, blind Japanese contestant, who had every chance of winning the competition, is found eviscerated in the snow. Everything becomes confused; the present becomes just as enigmatic as the past for those who survived Nazi barbarism.