After nine years in exile, Magdalena returns to Montevideo. She is met by her childhood friend Emilia, with whom she begins a journey into memory. Together they return to their childhood and the adventures they embarked upon with their neighbour Marco when they began visiting the hillside home of Gabriela, the beggar woman who frequents their neighbourhood. When a family of Jewish World War II refugees, moves into a house on the same block, the girls include the only child, Cora, in their group. It is largely under Cora’s influence that Magdalena and Emilia attend a speech given at the University by Ch Guevara. All emerge from the experience changed. Cora has met the Tupamaro leader, Ramiro, with whom she will elope. Emilia has proved her suspicions regarding her mother Lilita, and her involvement with the guerrillas. And Magdalena has witnessed the fatal shooting of a student. For Marco, the consequences of attending the speech are even more grave. His intolerant and domineering father, General Pereyra, demands that he enlist in the Army. Marco immediately sees it as an opportunity of being where he can do most good. He knows that there are men in the Army determined to defend the constitution against those who would take over the country.

Marco does everything he can to shield Magdalena. He has been in love with her ever since he can remember and doesn’t want her to become involved in the Tupamaro movement. When she discovers how U.S. State Department police trainer, Dan Mitrione, has used Gabriela in his experiments with electricity and tortured her to death, Marco realizes that nothing will prevent Magdalena from assisting Cora and Ramiro with their plot to kidnap Dan Mitrione. Emilia, in love with Peter, a British diplomat, removes herself from everything to do with the unrest growing in the country. She attends a party at Peter’s home thinking he is planning to propose. Instead, she discovers that Peter has been investigating her mother and believes that Emilia herself was involved in the recent kidnapping of British Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson. Emilia is arrested and tortured, and released only after Marco includes her in a secret deal between the Military and the Tupamaros for the release of prisoners in exchange for Jackson’s life. Magdalena and Cora are also arrested, and both disappear. Cora forever; Magdalena, until Marco tracks her down and exchanges his liberty for hers.