Harry was fifteen when the aging Herr Messinger and his young and striking wife took up residence at Cloverhill. In impoverished, wartime Ireland, Harry's familym -- poor and Protestant, doubly disadvantaged -- looked askance on the Messingers, but when Frau Messinger picks Harry out of a crowd to run an errand for her, he instantly falls under her spell.

Harry's journeys to Cloverhill, his conversations with Frau Messinger, light up his otherwise dull and dreary life. Her husband announces plans to build a cimena for her, and finds Harry a job there, giving poor Harry the opportunity to escape a destiny toiling in his father's lumberyard. Some 40 years later, Harry finds himself in possession of the crumbling theater, his potent memories of the Messengers enough to keep him warm.