Shortly before Christmas 79-year-old Alfred Warner arrives at Berlin's busy central train station to meet his granddaughter Brynja for the first time When she fails to arrive Alfred afraid & alone is taken in by a stranger Julia who quickly realises that there is something remarkable about him Worried sick Alfred discovers that his granddaughter is lying in a coma in a Berlin hospital following an unexplained accident & may take months to fully recover After the sympathetic Julia insists he stays at her home for Christmas Alfred becomes increasingly anxious & announces that his time is running out & that he has only six days left to live He knows this because the voices he has been listening to for his entire life have told him so Alfred insists he must tell Julia his life story in the hope of saving Brynja's life after he is gone If Brynja does recover she must finally learn the truth about the voices & so over the ensuing six days he pours out his extraordinary tale He tells Julia how at the age of six he began to hear voices how soon afterwards he was tragically orphaned & of his terrifying ordeal at the hands of the Nazis as he grew up during the rise of the Third Reich He also recounts how he was conscripted into the German army & how his life changed when he was captured & imprisoned in a POW camp in Scotland Upon release he built a new life for himself in Britain meeting the love of his life & raising a family However as we learn his path through life's rich tapestry has undulated in some very unexpected ways It has been a most uncommon life but the one constant during each stage of his journey are the voices which accompany him voices which for other members of his family including Brynja have been far less benign Now Alfred's final duty is to make sure that Julia understands so that Brynja does not become yet another family tragedy