Her husband, Walter (Merab Ninidze), reading the ominous signs of the rise of Nazism, has gone ahead to East Africa, and now writes asking them to join him—“and please bring a refrigerator, which we will really need, and not our china or anything like that.” What Jettel brings is a ballroom gown, which will be spectacularly unnecessary. The marriage is a troubled one. Jettel thinks herself in a godforsaken place, and Walter, who works hard but is not a natural farmer, has little sympathy with her. Their sex life fades: “You only let me under your shirt when I’m a lawyer,” he tells her once
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