It was meant to be a thoroughly stimulating, harmonious evening with friends. Jenny and Friedrich, a West German couple now in middle age, have been living in East Germany for the last ten years, together with their two sons, and are invited to dinner by Jenny’s work colleagues, Rolf and Beate from Brandenburg. But now an old girlfriend of Friedrich’s, Tine, has said she’s joining them. A thunderstorm threatens the evening in more ways than one! But that’s not all. Nearby a NATO exercise is underway and a former Soviet soldier, mourning a comrade, is seen hanging around the house.