Irene was a happy child, in the only way a child could be happy during that period, scarred by war, poverty and fear. Even so, she never really understood the identity of the man and woman who sometimes came to visit and occasionally took her to the cinema or out for a picnic, a couple in whose company she always had to behave well and, particularly, never ask questions. Little by little, the reader puts together the fragments of a story of love, abandonment and reconciliation in the setting of Civil War Barcelona, one in which all levels of the society of the day participate. The author narrates the events simply, with tenderness and a touch of humour, showing a reality in which repression and social mores merge with the heroine's will to live.