Hungary, autumn of 1989. When biologist Maria Wagner from East Berlin crosses the Hungarian border and feels Western soil under her feet for the first time in her life, her only desire is to travel to Paris as quickly as possible to see her daughter Theresa again after 15 years of separation. But their reunion in Paris is not as happy as Maria had hoped. Theresa, who has come to meet her mother at the Gare de l`Est, appears standoffish and not interested in this woman who has so suddenly entered her life. Gradually, Maria learns that her daughter has never got over the fact that, when she was 11 years old, her mother had entrusted her to the care of a stranger, French diplomat Gustave Durieux, who had taken her to Paris with him. Theresa has never forgotten that her mother had pretended Gustave would merely take her on a holiday to Paris and that she had withheld from her the fact that it would be a journey of no return.