On the Day of the Dead, 1 November 1939, Jacques Laruelle, a French film director, and Dr. Arturo Vigil, a Mexican physician, chat and relax over drinks at the Hotel Casino de la Selva on the outskirts of Quauhnahuac (Cuernavaca). They recall the events of a day, exactly one year earlier, but we learn few details other than that Vigil had had a horrible hangover and had been concerned about the health of "the Consul" with whom he had apparently been drinking.

Laruelle, who is leaving Mexico the following day, walks toward his house on the Calle Nicaragua and thinks of many things. He remembers meeting the Consul's half-brother, Hugh, and how despite his initial dislike for him, they had been drawn together by an "unassimilable catastrophe" involving the Consul. He also recalls his passion for the Consul's wife, Yvonne.

As he crosses the barranca that runs through the town, he thinks of "finality" and "the abyss…waiting for you around the corner." This also leads into a memory of his childhood friendship with Geoffrey Firmin (the Consul) when they had spent two summers together in France and England.

Laruelle continues walking, avoiding his house and his unfinished packing. He turns instead toward town. To escape a sudden rainstorm, Laruelle takes refuge in a theatre showing Las Manos de Orlac. He and the manager, Senor Bustamente, speak briefly about the Consul whom Bustamente thinks may have been an American spy. Sr. Bustamente returns a book Laruelle had left behind eighteen months earlier. It is a book of Elizabethan plays the Consul had loaned him.

Laruelle recalls a story the Consul had told regarding an incident aboard the S.S. Samaritan that had led to Geoffrey receiving a medal for "conspicuous gallantry" during the war.

A long unmailed letter Geoffrey had written to Yvonne in the spring of 1938 falls out of the book of plays. Laruelle reads it and we learn of Geoffrey and Yvonne's divorce, his hopes and dreams and despair. Laruelle burns the letter in the flame of a candle.