Who is the elderly gentleman who interprets Beethoven's sonatas on the piano in such a unique way, playing in public spaces, airports, and railway stations? How did he end up there? Is he waiting for someone to appear? He will give us the answers himself when he begins to tell us a great story, going back fifty years to a completely macabre orphanage.

Sixteen-year-old Joe, born into a wealthy family and an aspiring pianist, loses his parents and little sister in a plane crash in mid-1969, left alone in the world. Until a foster family is found for him, he is sent to an orphanage in the Pyrenees, near the Spanish border. His stay at the institution will confront him with conservatism and the strict rules of the church, deprivations, hypocrisy, cruelty, and betrayal.

At the same time, however, he will test his limits, discover the power of friendship, the value of freedom, and feel the first romantic stirrings for the daughter of a benefactor of the orphanage, to whom he will be called to give piano lessons. Soon he will become a member of a "secret organization" consisting of a group of older residents of the institution, and together they will plan a daring escape...