It's the early 1980s in a Maltese village. Middle-aged Carmen has spent her entire adult life in servitude and subservience to her brother, Francis, the village's dour Catholic priest, and the church. She has quietly and secretly been holding onto a wartime memory to survive emotionally. The townsfolk "see" her but pay her no attention in she literally being a non-entity. After Francis suddenly dies, Carmen is provided no support from the church in life after Francis, she basically kicked out of the rectory where she has lived that entire adult life with only her few possessions that fit into a small suitcase. The townsfolk are awaiting the arrival of the new priest, the brother of a young woman named Rita. While she is in love with the bell ringer Tonio, Rita is destined to a life like Carmen in servitude to her brother and to the church. Not knowing what to do or where to go, Carmen finds some guidance literally from a pigeon as to that life post-Francis to the secret benefit to the village, although not always without incident to herself. That new life is both as a Christian and as a human woman with womanly feelings hearkening back to those wartime memories.—Huggo