190 years ago, in 1831, a cholera epidemic devastated Hungary. Seventeen-year-old Georgina Gruber is trying to get through the months of quarantine together with her close family in their apartment above her father's pastry shop in Vár, Buda. People living today have to deal with eerily familiar problems: the fear of an approaching, deadly disease, panic, restrictions, fake news, epidemic deniers, promoters of various - sometimes life-threatening - cures, and the mysterious disease itself, which is taking its victims ever closer to them. In addition, in their favorite newspaper, the Magyar Kurír, they can regularly read reports on the frightening data of the epidemic: how many people fell ill in different counties of the country, how many of them recovered and how many died. The country's chief physician, Mihály Lenhossék, is also trying to calm the mood through the press, giving lifestyle advice and recommending safe prevention methods or alternative therapies, while asking for unconditional trust in the work of city and national authorities and doctors.
In a world without modern means of communication, Georgina and her family must survive confinement, anxiety, fear of disease and death, and ultimately even infection.
In Janka Fábián's short novel, reading the story of a deadly contagion from long ago, we can find ourselves in strangely familiar circumstances, and we can conclude that the world has changed very little in many respects in 190 years.