Aboard a cargo ship sailing from Brazil to the German Democratic Republic in the mid-1950s, two men strike up a conversation: newly-qualified doctor, Ernst Triebel, and engineer Franz Hammer, two GDR citizens of contrasting character, brought together by chance on an Atlantic crossing. During the next three weeks Triebel will relate to Hammer what amounts to his life story. Hammer, a reluctant sea passenger, is initially uninterested, but once...