Maertens is fifty-four years old. He has begun to lose control of his life and gets silent phone calls from an unknown person. The woman he has had a long relationship with has left him. There is a strange change in the skin on his chest. The writing which has been the focus of his life no longer interests him and he has lost five games of chess in a row to his good friend Bernard. Something decisive is about to happen, he suspects that the cause lies far back in time.
