At Montreal's huge Sunday flea market, an elderly man is stricken when he finds a crude locket in a box of jewelry at one of the booths. While recovering, he explains that it was a gift to his beloved wife, who disappeared from their Kiev home in 1941 during the German occupation. He has been searching for her ever since. It is now 1982.
After that first encounter, Elia comes back to the flea market every Sunday to tell his story. It's the tale of a young Jewish mane risking his life to find his beloved. Elia recounts hiss earch for his pregnant wife through war-torn Eastern Europe, barely escaping death at Babi Yar, encountering suspicious partisans, posing as a Nazi soldier, witnessing the destruction of the Polish ghetto, and ending up in a concentration camp. The war over, he follows his wife's trail to Montreal--where it fades away. But three women are moved by his story and join the hunt. At the story's unexpected end, readers will believe that love and hope can in some way survive horror and inspire good.