Tomek is 14 and a good student. He's interested in astronomy and plays football to please his father. The only thing is, he lives in a poor little border town plagued by unemployment, whereas across the river lies Germany with all its relative affluence. Tomek meets Marta at a disco and falls in love with her. He starts to think up ways of earning money in order to keep her interested. He approaches a pimp who seeks out local boys for his German clients. Tomek has no idea of the brutal fate which awaits him.

Luke, a GP is about to get married to vivacious Katherine. On the surface everything is perfect, but as the wedding preparations intensify Luke is plagued by nightmares that throw him into chaos. Unable to sleep he visits a hypnotherapist. They travel down deep into Luke's subconscious mind and a mysterious world of forests, witches and fire is revealed. He attempts to reach out to Katherine but she is lost in the fever of the preparations and is blind to his disquiet. In the midst of this chaos, Amelia enters his life, she seem so familiar and something deep in him unravels.

Successful doctor Artur Planck, his wife Clara and their two daughters are seeking shelter from the Nazis storming Poland. They find a safe house in the farm of Emilia, their local grocer who is all alone after her husband fought for his country and never returned. Amidst the horrors of the war that surrounds them, an impossible love triangle erupts as Emelia uncontrollably falls in love with Artur. Such a fragile arrangement is sustained by love - or is it just the will to survive? The answer to that question may not even be made known to those who make it out alive.

Set in the early 1950's, during the Stalin's Personality Cult. The story opens in a provincial town. Tomek's father, a former member of the Home Army is arrested so the mother is left with the task of raising two kids alone. The neighbor upstairs commits suicide when her husband is also arrested and transported to the prison camp. It's winter so the kids keep their hands warm at school by hand-beating themselves. The teachers at school are mean, narrow minded idealists, When they ask the kids who goes to church on Sundays, the whole class stands up to defeat the purpose of the propaganda lesson. Tomek is sent to the training school in the summer. There he absorbs most of the ideology pumped into his head, and when his father is released from prison he finds another boy he has left.