In April 1957, engineer Walter Faber Sam Shepard is waiting to board a flight from Caracas to New York when he encounters a German traveler, Herbert Hencke Dieter Kirchlechner. A sense of fate threads through the encounter, yet Walter chooses not to board. When a flight attendant spots him still in the terminal, she guides him onto the plane, and soon afterward the aircraft suffers engine trouble and crash-lands in the desert near the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains.
As rescue efforts unfold, Walter discovers that Herbert is the brother of his old Zürich friend Joachim August Zirner, whom he hasn’t seen in twenty years. He also learns that Joachim married Walter’s former girlfriend Hannah Barbara Sukowa, had a child with her, and that the marriage has since ended. Walter writes a letter to his current married girlfriend Ivy Deborra-Lee Furness to end their affair, then lets his memories drift back to Zurich—the young love he once shared with Hannah, including the moment when she told him she was pregnant and he proposed, only to hear her refuse.
Rescued and brought to Mexico City, Herbert continues on toward Joachim’s tobacco farm in Guatemala. Walter, seeking connection, chooses to accompany him on the long journey. In time they arrive at the farm, only to find that Joachim has taken his own life by hanging.
Back in New York, Walter returns to his apartment to find Ivy waiting. She has not acknowledged the letter he sent ending their relationship, so he decides to escape by leaving for his Paris business trip a week early and, this time, to travel by ocean liner instead of flying. On the ship, he meets a striking young woman, Sabeth Julie Delpy (whom he begins to call by name), and a bond quickly forms as they share playful moments—ping-pong on deck, long talks, and a growing sense of love. Before long, the voyage’s end looms, and Walter asks Sabeth to marry him; she remains enigmatic about her answer, and they part without a firm commitment.
In Paris, Walter searches for Sabeth at the Louvre and the two are soon reunited. He offers to drive her to Rome, and they begin a sun-drenched journey south through France and Italy, pausing in Florence and Orvieto before arriving in Rome. On Palatine Hill, Walter is captivated by the sculpture Head of a Sleeping Girl, and a troubling realization settles in: Sabeth is Hannah’s daughter—perhaps his own child. He grows distant, reluctant to reveal what he suspects, while Sabeth grows increasingly upset with his sudden, unexplained aloofness. Walter finally acknowledges that he knew Sabeth’s mother in Zürich during the 1930s.
The couple continues toward Greece, but Walter’s anxiety about paternity gnaws at him. They sleep beneath the stars on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean, and at dawn Walter goes for a swim as Sabeth sleeps. When she is bitten by a snake and wakes in alarm, she is rushed to a hospital in Athens. Hannah arrives to care for her daughter, and Walter stays with her at Hannah’s house, recounting how their paths crossed on the ship and across Europe. Hannah then reveals that Sabeth is indeed his daughter and asks, “Walter, how far did you go with the child?”
> Walter, how far did you go with the child?
Devastated, Walter confronts the truth; Sabeth stabilizes briefly, but her head injury proves fatal. In June 1957, at the Athens Airport, Hannah and Walter share a final, heavy embrace, each aware of what lies between them. Walter sits alone in the terminal, weighed down by fate and the consequences of a life spent wandering between love, guilt, and consequence.
