Worldly, Jewish, at one time a standout on his legendary Greenwich Village basketball team, an American classical guitar teacher seeks a new life in Portugal after the death of so many friends. But what he calls the viral eclipse over sexuality pursues him even there, when Antonio, his most talented and beloved student, tests HIV-positive and threatens to give up on life at just twenty-four. Desperate to show the young man that he still has a future, 'the Professor' arranges a car trip across Spain to Paris, hoping to be able to convince a leading virtuoso there to begin preparing his protege for a concert career. Antonio's estranged father, Miguel, a stonemason by trade, insists on coming along with them, and en route the three fall into a triangle of adventure, personal disclosure, violence, and at last a strange redemption.