A spirited American exchange student. A sixty-year-old invalid. An enigmatic Berlin gentleman. A riveting Cold War secret.
Spunky Maddy McAllister, a twenty-one-year-old exchange student in Berlin, Germany, has a journalism career to launch. Stalwart Katia Mahler, a sixty-year-old invalid from the former East Berlin, has a story to tell. Enigmatic Oskar Schultmann brings together the journalist and the storyteller. Maddy’s task: to document Katia’s story.
Cultures and generations clash as the young American and the German matron strive to understand each other’s present and past. Maddy learns more than a personal history; Katia receives more than a memoir. And always in the background is Oskar, who is drawn into the story in ways he never intended.
Peek over the Berlin Wall as Katia’s story comes to life through the scribbled notes of a girl struggling to grasp the significance of what she has written for her own life as well as for future generations.