New York City, 1972. Jaryk Smith, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, and Lucy Gardner, a southerner newly arrived in the city, are in the first bloom of love when they receive word that Jaryk's oldest friend has died under mysterious circumstances in a rural village in eastern India. Travelling there to collect his friend's ashes, Jaryk finds himself enmeshed in the chaos of local politics and efforts to stage a play in protest against the government-- the same play that he performed as a child in Warsaw as an act of resistance against the Nazis. Jaryk must decide how to honor both the past and the present, and how to accept a happiness he is not sure he deserves. -- adapted from jacket