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Being happy together cannot be forced. Clarissa would almost have gone mad in her dream house with Hermann if she had not fully understood the signs, a constant ringing in her head. She now realises that the stage, singing and her career are what are important to her. When Hermann collects her at the station on a beautiful spring day after a week’s concert tour, his hopes for the continuation of their idyll are rudely disappointed. Clarissa can only stay for a few hours, because a new concert tour already awaits her. Hermann, once such a passionate musician, should really understand her, but blind jealousy prevents him. He can already see his beloved Clarissa in the arms of a Spanish conductor. He already suspects her of disloyalty and betrayal. In his delusion he fails to understand Clarissa’s pride. She loves him but, under the pressure of his baseless jealousy she can do no other. She takes flight.
Hermann also takes flight. No one can stop him, not even Hartmut who was present at the unpleasant scene, as he was trying to introduce them to Galina and, totally absurd, help her to get singing lessons. Hermann wanders distractedly around the district, tries to anaesthetise himself with a shopping frenzy, and finally on his return steps onto the brutal pine marten trap which Gunnar had once set behind the house and forgotten. Hermann’s foot is badly injured. He spends weeks in a hospital in Mainz, and finally returns to the house of his lost happiness with his leg in plaster and full of melancholy. The whole life style which he had worked out with Clarissa when the Wall came down, seems to be destroyed. In this situation Hermann finds that he can go back to composing again. After a long break in his composing he writes his “Günderrode Songs” in a single creative burst, at the end of which he is dragged rudely back into everyday life by Tillmann, who finds him there. The doomladen artist tries to establish whether the schism that he feels in himself is affecting the whole world. He can feel that something has changed – but what? He anxiously pays a visit to his home village, but everything seems cheerful. His 75-year-old brother Anton is revelling in success. He had received an order of merit and had thoroughly terrorised his son Hartmut over his affair with Galina, and now he has thrown himself into the management of the Schabbach football club. He even succeeds in leading his football team in a brilliant game to victory and promotion. Everyone seems to be doing well, and even when an earthquake shakes the region in the night, everyone is soon back to normal. Hermann has doubts about himself and all his feelings of impending catastrophe. Then a piece of bad news comes like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. Anton, the successful old man who had been positively brimming with energy, is suddenly pulled out of his arrogant game. He dies of a heart attack. All Hermann’s attempts to at least share his grief with Clarissa fail, because she is unreachable to him. Nor does Hermann find any support among the people of Schabbach and his relatives. Not one of them is prepared to be quiet and think through the situation with him. Instead a stupid argument breaks out over Anton’s deathbed about how the funeral should be. Sentimental arguments are made in favour of a traditional funeral, and Mara votes with Anton’s modern-thinking grandchildren for a cremation. Hermann once again sets out to pursue his dream of love. He suddenly decides to travel to Berlin for Clarissa’s premiere. One way or another he wants to force a decision. The he runs into Gunnar. The whole bubble of his aspirations bursts under the absurdity of Gunnar’s preposterous suggestions and offers of help. He does in fact meet Clarissa but in the confusion of Gunnar’s self-importance, the bustle of the premiere and new jealousies amongst Clarissa’s team it all becomes a farce. Hermann leaves Berlin without settling things with the woman he loves. On his way home he seeks out anything that seems to be left to him. But even his daughter Lulu turns against him. In a panic and out of wrongheaded helpfulness he has her Cologne flat broken into to save his crying grandchild Lukas. Lulu, who had only been out quickly for shopping, is horrified. She had often had need of Hermann’s help, but not today and not in this ridiculous way. After a miserable night in a red-light bar, robbed of his money and his confidence, Hermann runs across his brother Ernst by chance. The Hunsrück autobahn service station becomes a symbol of loneliness for both of the brothers. With Hermann, Ernst can finally talk about Anton, who had been his opponent and rival since they were children. The two grieving brothers need the whole night to explain themselves to each other. It is approaching old age which is troubling them and directing their thoughts towards death and questions of the afterlife. Their misery had made them feel that the whole world had gone off the rails. Anton’s cremation and the burial of his urn is a strain for everyone in Schabbach. A tradition is being broken and the tasteless farewell at the cemetery seems inappropriate to the grief which each of them expresses differently. It is Ernst who, by the tiny grave for the urn, puts it into words. “Anton, if you had been alive such a stupid farce would never have happened“. With Anton, the energetic businessman and patriarch, a part of the old Hunsrück “Heimat“ has also died. On his return to “Günderrode House“ Hermann finds a desperately weeping Clarissa. She became very ill in Spain and had to break off her tour which had just begun. In her troubles, which are now beginning, Hermann, who holds her in bewilderment in his arms, is not likely to be much help. |
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