 In Paris, a woman is making enquiries: Why did leftist Alfred Katz simply disappear in 1938? In that year, Alfred, worker and poet, is politically active in a Parisian Trotskyite cell. Hitler s Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union has heightened the tension between local supporters of Trotsky and Stalin. Alfred attends a wild party being held by surrealists, even though his association with artists creates trouble for him within the cell. There he meets Mila, a glamorous and uninhibited prostitute from the brothel called the "Sphinx". Alfred soon meets Mila s other lover too, Félix... An American comrade and her Belgian companion arrive to establish a direct link between the cell and Trotsky in Mexico. As prominent Trotskyites begin to die or disappear, Alfred and Mila marry. Has an agent of Stalin s secret police infiltrated the group?