Ulrich Köhler
Encouraged by her father who hopes to save her from a life in the provinces, Jette is about to spend a year volunteering overseas. But love stands in the way of her father's plans, and she no longer knows what she wants.
Armin, in his fourties, is a freelancer with lots of time and little money. He’s not really happy, but can’t picture living a different life. One morning the world looks the same as always, but mankind has disappeared.
Ebbo and Vera Velten have spent the better part of the past twenty years living in different African countries. Ebbo is the manager of a sleeping sickness programme. His work is fulfilling. Vera, however, feels increasingly lost in Yaounde’s ex-pat community. She can’t bear the separation from her 14-year-old daughter, Helen, who is attending boarding school in Germany. Ebbo must give up his life in Africa or he risks losing the woman he loves. But his fear of returning to a land now remote to him increases with each passing day. Years later. Alex Nzila, a young French doctor of Congolese origin, travels to Cameroon to evaluate a development project. It’s been a long time since he set foot on this continent, but, instead of finding new prospects, he encounters a destructive, lost man. Like a phantom, Ebbo slips away from his evaluator.
A new house in a new town could mean the beginning of a phase of domestic bliss for a small family. Nina, a doctor, has taken a few days off. Her husband Frieder is busy laying tiles, while their daughter Charlotte plays in her new room. But Nina is having her doubts; she stands about in the half-empty rooms, feeling thoroughly alienated. Suddenly, without saying a word, she decides to leave...
