The Narrator discovers some 8 millimeter footage of a military debacle which he has tried, unsuccessfully, to forget. From the recollections of a Cuban childhood in a world of sugar plantations, horseback rides, and his new friendship with Armando Perez, who even at a young age possesses the integrity and bravery the Narrator desires within himself are darkened by the political turn their country is about to take. In the capital, studying law at the University of La Habana, the political conscience of the two childhood friends develops when they join an organization established by Padre Raul...