An erotic romance develops when a 31-year-old PhD student doing research in Hungary stays at an old villa in the countryside, now an inn, where a young handyman works. Her doctoral thesis is about the way people who were controlled by the Nazis and then the Communists have managed to heal their country and live normal lives. The handyman, whose father was taken away by the Communists and never heard from again, says he is "guilty to be alive," and the PhD student sets out to cure him of that guilt with her affection. A mystery unfolds involving the hidden treasure of the villa, the wealth the old family cached as the country was being taken over by the Communists after World War II. If that precious box can be found, will it contain, in addition to the family's gold and jewels, the secret composition of Franz Liszt that was to crown his career?