East Germany. Summer, late 70’s. Three years after her boyfriend Wassilij’s apparent death, Nelly Senff decides to escape from behind the Berlin wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic memories and past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life in the West. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij’s mysterious disappearance. Is he still alive? Was he a spy? Plagued by her past and fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.

Jonathan is 23; he and his aunt, Martha, work on their farm. Jonathan also devotes himself to looking after his father Burghardt, who has cancer. But his father stubbornly sabotages all of his son’s efforts to care for him. Jonathan finds it increasingly difficult to cope until they hire a young caretaker, Anka, to help. Jonathan and Anka fall in love; her experience of working at a hospice helps Jonathan to gain a new insight into his father’s situation.
The story takes another dramatic turn when Ron, Burghardt’s long-lost friend from his youth, re-appears — and a well-kept family secret is uncovered.