M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?

Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.

In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', middle-aged Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. His ex-wife, Louise, asks their estranged son, Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the Canadian healthcare system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while reuniting some of Remy's old friends, including Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude, who return to see their friend before he passes on.