Die Entdeckung der Currywurst

Lena Brück, over 80, lives in a nursing home. It is said that she invented the currywurst. The narrator of this novella visits her to learn more. Lena Brück first talks about very ordinary things and then recounts an extraordinary event: just before the end of the war, she hid a young Marine soldier in her Hamburg apartment and began a romantic relationship with him. Since the deserter has a wife and child he wishes to see again, she conceals from him that the city has surrendered. She keeps him in her apartment, provides him with stories and dishes, prepares wild vegetables, acorn coffee, and fake crab soup—until he loses his sense of taste.