Summary

A one-page prologue describes a man who has been stripped and put in a jail cell, wondering how his life has led to this point.

It is August 1945 in Nagasaki, Japan, and a German expatriate named Konrad Weiss has fallen in love with Hiroko Tanaka, who he initially met when Hiroko was recommended as a translator for him. The couple faces many social pressures in austere wartime Japan, as the German surrender in the war makes Konrad appear suspicious, while Hiroko’s father is a rebellious artist. Because of her father’s war protests, Hiroko has been moved, as punishment, from her job as a teacher to an employee of a munitions factory. However, as Japan runs out of raw resources, the factory increasingly cancels work days.

One morning, when Hiroko is not called in to work, the bomb sirens in Nagasaki go...