Khatia Steiner is a virtuoso cellist with a promising international career before her. But her trajectory is brusquely interrupted when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. The disease affects the young woman’s relationship to her body, to music and to her relationship, to the point that it calls her very view of existence into question when she begins to wonder, who am I really?

As she begins the course of treatment under the well-meaning but powerless gaze of her partner, Antoine, a photographer, Khatia winds up caring for her grandfather, Lucas Steiner, an old Jewish man who is starting to lose his memory. An unexpectedly close relationship blossoms between them, despite the older man’s reluctance to confide himself and his indifference to music. Yet before he passes away, he leaves his granddaughter a photo of a woman cellist whose face has been erased.

Convinced that the mysterious photo contains an important message, Khatia tries to uncover the secret that will help her feel grounded in life once again. In this novel, family history and historical events, laughter and tears, and a quest for both one’s roots and oneself all intertwine… and are accompanied by music.

Confronted by a life-threatening illness, a young cellist begins to search for her roots, in which music, family secrets, and historical events intertwine.