Europe in the Cold War years was a dangerous place for Harold Bronson and his buddies, draftees commandeered into espionage and counterintelligence. Their low echelon escapades take them to Berlin, Ulm, the South of France, and Zurich. Bronson chooses this time of his life to explore a personal coming out, creating secrets within secrets in a disapproving military. In his off-time, Bronson paints portraits of the other denizens of Schloss Issel, earning money for trips and adventures to Paris and Nice. Always on the edge of life, he taunts the higher-ups with a light-hearted acceptance of life in the spy world of 1957. Real danger is further off from his circle at the Schloss, but it is an insistent melody they can always hear.