School teacher Ben du Toit has been insulated all his life from the horrors of apartheid in his native South Africa. That is until an incident hits close to home which soon exposes him to the truly arbitrary and violent nature of the system he has so long benefited from. When the son of his black gardener is arrested and beaten as a result of a protest in Soweto, at first he imagines the police must have had their reasons. However, the boy is picked up again, and this time he doesn’t come back. Ben promises his servant that he will look into the incident, and with the help of Ian Mackenzie, turns into a radical firebrand, alienating himself from his white friends and neighbors, as well as members of his family. Based on the novel by André Brink.