Berlin, nearly twenty years after the fall of the Wall. Kreuzberg has lost its identity, and so bookseller Alina and writer Wolf move to the green outskirts of the city. By Lake Müggelsee, where the differences between East and West have not yet blurred, Wolf increasingly struggles with the details of their togetherness. Suddenly, Charlotte, a lover from the past, reappears, and he flees, fueled by her overt desire. Once he has left behind the hell of secrecy, Wolf is surprised: his wife not only accepts his affair with the other woman, she even encourages him. Ralf Rothmann has written a novel about the careful merging of East and West and a chronicle of erotic desire, a darkly glowing love story.