The story is told in three parts by the main character, Michael Berg. Each part takes place in a different time period in the past.

Part I begins in a West German city in 1958. After 15-year-old Michael becomes ill on his way home, 36-year-old tram conductress Hanna Schmitz notices him, cleans him up, and sees him safely on his way home. He spends the next several months absent from school battling hepatitis.

He visits Hanna to thank her for her help and realizes he is attracted to her. Embarrassed after she catches him watching her getting dressed, he runs away, but he returns days later. After she directs him to retrieve coal from the cellar, he is covered with coal dust. She watches him bathe and seduces him. He returns eagerly to her apartment on a regular basis, and begins a heated affair. They develop a ritual of bathing and having sex, before which she frequently has him read aloud to her, especially classical literature, such as The Odyssey and Chekhov's The Lady with the Dog. Both remain somewhat distant from each other emotionally despite their physical closeness. Hanna, wrestling with her own guilt, is at times physically and verbally abusive to Michael.

Months later, Hanna suddenly leaves without a trace. The distance between them had been growing as Michael had been spending more time with his school friends. He feels guilty and believes it was something he did that caused her departure. The memory of Hanna taints all his other relationships with women.