This novel deals with the relationship between a 67 year-old white woman in the terminal stages of ALS (motor neuron disease) and her coloured caretaker Agaat. The acute helplessness of the mute and completely paralysed patient makes extraordinary demands of her caretaker, who goes about her duties with a mixture of infinite tenderness, sadistic precision and a desperate and passionate undertow of anger about the past, as well as sadness of the anticipated loss of her "mistress". Through flashbacks and lyrical intermezzos, the history that leads up to this situation is revealed.
