The American Isabel Fargo Cole, translator of significant GDR authors, has written a major novel about life at the inner-German border. A young artist couple moves from Berlin to the countryside. A child is on the way - unplanned. The marriage - unconsidered. It is 1973, the village is called Sorge and lies in the restricted zone of the GDR in the Harz mountains. Editha is a sculptor with state commissions, Thomas is a writer who now wants to write the novel about the border. Hasn't Honecker already proclaimed that there are no more taboos in literature? A historical novel is fitting, as the Harz has always been a border, entangled between religious and political spheres of power, Germans and Slavs, man and nature. Thomas is still grappling with the material, but by 1976 the thaw is already over. The little daughter Eli is learning to speak in a world where saying and being are intertwined.