A small cargo plane will come down to land, slipping from the level of the horizon. It tips its wings within desert light and then sound stops, it drifts to earth. The final curtain is closing on the Second World War and in an abandoned Italian villa Hana, a nurse, tends to her sole remaining patient. Rescued from a burning plane, the anonymous Englishman is damaged beyond recognition and haunted by painful memories. The only clue Hana has to unlocking his past is the one thing he clung on to through the fire – a copy of The Histories by Herodotus, covered with hand-written notes detailing a tragic love affair.