Summary (without spoiler :-) Berlin, the summer of 1945. Mathilde Tegge, the wife of Gestapo officer Franze Tegge, meets Camillo Baumgartner, a vagabond gypsy tight rope walker and circus artist, when he saves the life of her only daughter. She is immediately attracted to this mysterious stranger, and he seems drawn to her. She doesnt know that Camillo is a man with a mission. He has been searching for Mathildes husband, the man he blames for the murder of his entire family when they were deported to a concentration camp. Mathilde’s daily life is a struggle to survive, haunted by memories from the trauma of war. She scrambles for bits of food, stands in long lines for bread, and labors endless hours to clear away the ashes of her destroyed city. Yet even as she remembers her husband, she begins to dream of Camillo. Mathilde is falling in love, torn between the desires of her heart and duty to her husband who, though officially missing in action, may be alive or dead. Unexpectedly, when Mathilde tries to tell Camillo how she feels, he pushes her away. Camillo has learned that Franz is still alive, and assumes that Mathilde has been covering for her husband. He is angry, and to his surprise, broken hearted. In spite of his hatred for the murderer of his wife and son, he has fallen in love with this woman. An enraged Camillo tells Mathilde why he sought her out, his lust for revenge. And he reveals to her that her husband is still alive. To keep Mathilde and his daughter safe, Franz could not tell his wife that he had survived the final battles of the war. He made a deal with the U.S. Secret Service, to get his family to safety in America. In return, he has infiltrated a clandestine group of former Nazis to betray their plans for escape from Berlin to South American through the notorious Rat Line, an escape route through the Vatican. Mathilde soon learns that each of her men is planning to betray the other. Franz will have Camillo and the Nazis arrested by the Americans, and Camillo will have Franz and his evil Nazi companions captured by the British. She is the only one who knows what is really happening. Their lives are in her hands, and Mathilde must choose. Will she save her husband and be faithful to her marriage vows regardless of the crimes he has committed while in the Gestapo? Or will she betray her husband and save Camillo, the man she loves, in spite of the problems that they would face. No one, neither gypsy or German, would tolerate love between a vagabond gypsy man and a virtuous German woman. Mathilde is faced with an agonizing choice, with wide-reaching consequences….
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 12:36:21 +0000
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