The events of the novel date back to 1946 and take place in Wurzburg am Main, destroyed by American aircraft after the SS command, disregarding the will of the powerless population, rejected the Americans' demand to surrender the city without a fight and signed a defense order. Few have any housing left. People mostly huddle in the basements of the ruins.
Johanna, an orphan girl of twenty-one years old, lives in an abandoned goat shed, three square meters in size, standing on the banks of the river. Her mother died a long time ago, and her father, an avid Nazi, whose beliefs Johann had never shared, hanged himself before the arrival of the American army, leaving his daughter a letter in which he once again cursed her for lack of any patriotism in her. One evening by the river, she meets an American soldier Steve. Young people fall in love at first sight. A little later, seeing that Johanna has nothing to heat her shed, Steve builds a furnace for her, which indescribably touches the girl. On these same days, she herself was not her own from joy and amazement, for the first time in five years she met Ruth Fardinging, a childhood friend. After the death of the girl’s parents, clogged with clubs in the square, her. they drove to Auschwitz, and then, together with two other Jewish women, to Warsaw, in a brothel for German soldiers. On the night before the liberation of Warsaw, the house was destroyed by a bomb, and most of its inhabitants died. Others have laid hands on themselves. Neither one nor the other happened to Ruth, but she looked as if dead. A year after the war ended, she finally managed to get to her hometown, although she did not know why she was going there, because the one who ordered her parents to be killed told her that her younger brother, seven-year-old David, was also killed.
David actually survived. He is already twelve years old, and he is in a society called "The Disciples of Jesus." Its members make sure that the surplus taken by them from speculators and simply prosperous people falls into the hands of the poorest citizens. The society consists of eleven people. Each of them took the name of one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. The twelfth boy, the son of a forensic investigator, left society in anger because he did not want to be called Judas Iscariot.
Johanna calls David, telling him that Ruth is back, his friend, nicknamed Already present, was running to warn the girl about the return of her ex-husband Martin, now a young doctor. Martin offers Ruth, who has nowhere to live, to live with him. Now he lives in a wooden gatehouse, where masons once kept their tools. The man who killed Ruth’s parents is Zwischenzal. During the war, as a member of the Nazi party, he was the head of the quarter, and now has become a fairly large speculator, his house is outside the destruction zone. One evening, the “Disciples of Jesus”, in the absence of a speculator, climb into his house, transport all his supplies to his church cellar, which at the same time serves as their headquarters, and compile a complete list of all goods seized from Zwischenzal, which is pinned to the gates of the American administration building. The speculator is arrested at night.
Everyone in the city knows about the fate of Ruth, and many do not understand why she returned. Martin's presence in his house threatens trouble at work, up to and including dismissal. Members of the Nazi youth squad led by former SS non-commissioned officer Christian Scharf allow themselves particularly arrogant attacks on Ruth.
After two months of living in his hometown, Ruth begins to show interest in life. She resumes her painting classes. Among her works are landscapes, drawings on the themes of a concentration camp and a brothel. Martin wants to leave a place in the hospital, marry her and move to the suburbs, in Spessart, where no one will care about Ruth with them. The girl, however, is categorically against the wedding. She loves Martin and that is why she cannot imagine intimacy with him after all that she had to transfer from men.
Her friend Johanna is not easy to build her relationship with Steve: too many divides their people. However, love wins. During their next meeting, when the girl learns about Steve’s upcoming departure to America the next day and realizes that she might never see her beloved again, she surrenders to a rush of her feelings. Later, she happily learns that she is expecting a baby. The correspondence of young people is full of love and tenderness. Steve in America is waiting for the ban to be lifted, which does not allow Americans to marry Germans, to return to Germany for his bride and take her to her.
The minions of Christian Sharf are developing plans for several sabotage sorties into the city and the arson of the guard of Martin. However, they are unable to carry them out due to the intervention of a person who is aware of their intentions and each time prevents them from being carried out. Not knowing that this man is Peter, the leader of the Disciples, and mistakenly mistaking his friend Oscar, who openly speaks about the madness and destructiveness of their goals - the restoration of Nazi Germany - they drown him in the river, disguising the crime as an accident . Peter, who did not see the crime itself, but who knows what Scarf and Zeke did, commits them to the Americans. The Nazis were arrested, but after a few months, without proving guilt, the German investigating authorities released them. They, having realized by that time that Peter was a traitor in their ranks, set up a death trap on his roof. Peter, however, manages not to please her. He informs Sharf and Zeke that he wrote several copies of the letter about how an attempt was made to deal with him, and put them in good hands. If anything happens to him, this letter will go to the investigating authorities and the perpetrators will be tried. The Nazis leave Peter alone. Now they have more important goals: their squad is expanding, and, seeing how relations between America and Russia are deteriorating, as the Germans are impoverished, they are preparing for a decisive blow.
A little later, there is a court hearing about the activities of the disciples of Jesus. Nobody knows who is in it, but the guys have already managed to annoy too many and many testify against them. The captain of the American administration is sympathetic to these advocates of justice and wants to use the court to establish a fund for the poor. Subsequently, however, his venture crashes.
Zwischenzal, who is undergoing this case, is released, without even considering that he killed Ruth’s parents, there are two witnesses who, from the very end of the war, want to testify. They are dismissed from them. Then Ruth calmly kills his enemy and falls into the dock. The court raises the question of the moral side and impartiality of the legal system of post-war Germany. The jury refuses to pronounce the sentence on Ruth, thereby declaring the girl innocent.
The “disciples of Jesus” make the final raid on the new warehouse of Zwischenzal and go all together to the American captain who has attacked their trail. The captain takes the word from them that they will never again be engaged in their "noble" business, and lets them go home. Boys dissolve their society. By that time, it had replenished with two more members, including one girl.
Johanna dies in childbirth. Ruth marries Martin, takes his girlfriend’s newborn daughter and leaves for Spessart with her husband. Soon, Steve arrives for the child, having already obtained documents that allow him to adopt a daughter, and takes her to America. Ruth, who has become attached to the child, cries in despair on her husband’s shoulder. Martin reassures her, kisses her, which before, after her return, she never let him. Now, Martin’s dream does not seem so unattainable: Ruth, meeting him in front of their house with his own child in her arms.
