Synopsis
"Every day it's the same idiotic race. I get up at five, wash, shave, make a coffee and leave, I run to the main square, catch the bus, close my eyes and am seized by all the horror of my present life."Tobias Horvath lives in Switzerland and has been working in a watch factory for over ten years. Every one of his days unfolds in the heaviness of daily routine and the repetition of empty actions. Born "in a village without a name, in a country without importance" in Eastern Europe, he spent his childhood in misery, in the shadow. of a mother who was a thief, beggar and the town's whore.
When, among the many men whom he saw coming and going from their house he discovers who his real father is, Tobias stabs him in the back. Convinced that he has murdered the man, Tobias flees to the West, in a desperate attempt to escape his past. Yet his new life is haunted by nightmares and visions. Oblivious to the attentions of a woman, Yolande, or evenings at the bistro with other countrymen, Tobias seeks refuge in his writing and waits, waits for the coming of an imaginary woman, Line. He searches for her in every woman he meets.
That is, until one day the real Line appears: Caroline, a childhood classmate, who is also the daughter of Tobias' father. Her husband, a university researcher and her infant daughter are also there. Every morning he sees her get on the bus, she works in the factory too. Tobias follows her, spies on her, falls hopelessly in love. Their love seems impossible, yet Tobias refuses to give up....
