Set in the tea plantations of Assam in northeast India, where a young woman quits her studies to marry a wealthy man whom her father owes money. The monotony of her days is broken by the arrival an old university acquaintance.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
South America, 1960. A lonely and grumpy Holocaust survivor convinces himself that his new neighbor is none other than Adolf Hitler. Not being taken seriously, he starts an independent investigation to prove his claim, but when the evidence still appears to be inconclusive, Polsky is forced to engage in a relationship with the enemy in order to obtain irrefutable proof.