Afrikaner Juan van Tonder, bon vivant of Cape Town, decides to change his life as a result of a traumatic event, and establishes a children home in a remote South African village - Pomfret. The past however still returns in painful memories. Gradually the film unveils the motivations that have led Juan to Pomfret. Is he a saint? A fugitive? Lunatic? Or perhaps Juan, accepting a disgrace of the Apartheid, tries to pay the debt?