While a boy during World War II, Jonathan Noel was bereft of parents, who were deported, and raised by people he had never known. These made his decisions for him, sending him off to war in Indochina and marrying him to a pregnant girl, who deserted him. Coming to the conclusion that people are not to be depended upon and that he must hold himself aloof from them, Jonathan left his village for Paris in 1954 to become a bank guard. He compensates for his unsettled adolescence by avoiding people and events that may disturb his equilibrium and well-established routine.

His cell-like room provides security, and there he ensconces himself in protection from life's unpleasant surprises.

An unexpected confrontation with a pigeon on the floor of the hall while he tries to slip unobserved to the toilet changes all this, and his day at work becomes a catastrophe. While...