A Swedish cargo ship is in the winter of 1938 at the dock in Gdynia in Poland, waiting to depart with coal to Sweden. In a tavern in the port…

The film follows a number of people in an apartment building during a night full of dramatic events and entanglements.

Jan-Erik Widgren meets the lonely Bertha Olsson, a woman struggling with alcoholism. Though Bertha is already linked to Caligula, Jan-Erik’s heartless teacher, she begins a relationship with the boy anyway….

When the old colonel Hummerborg dies, he leaves his fortune and estate to his trusted housemaid Hanna. But the colonel’s relatives try everything to have the last will canceled.