From the Introduction: "This is the oral history of how two strangers met on Java right after the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in 1945. Professor de Vries had survived jail and torture, while Mrs. Zweede had never doubted that she would be re-united with her husband. At the long-awaited moment of liberation, each learned that their spouse had died. In the midst of this grief and the chaos of a new war against the Dutch civilians emerging from the camps, the Professor and the planter's widow crossed paths in decidedly unromantic circumstances."