Germany after the first world war. Economic crisis. Crippled destinies of people and their souls. As one of the heroes of the novel says, "we live in an era of despair."
Three school, and then front-line comrades - Robert Lokamp, Gottfried Lenz, Otto Kester - work in a car repair shop. Robert was thirty. A birthday is always a little sad and drawn to memories. Before Robert are paintings from his recent past: childhood, school, in 1916, he was eighteen, drafted, soldiers' barracks, wounded Kester, the painful death of fellow soldiers from gas suffocation, from severe wounds. Then the 1919 coup. Kester and Lenz were arrested. Hunger. Inflation. After the war, Kester was a student for some time, then a pilot, racer, and finally bought a car repair shop. Lenz and Lokamp became his partners. Earnings are small, but it is possible to live if “the past had not suddenly arisen and the dead eyes did not goggle.” For oblivion there is vodka.
Kester and Lenz solemnly welcome Robert. Lenz gives the command to "stand up" and puts out gifts - somewhere miraculously extracted six bottles of old rum. But the holiday - later, now - work.
Friends at an auction bought an old rattletrap, which was very amusing in appearance, equipped it with a powerful engine of a racing car, called it “Karl” - a ghost of a highway. They work until dusk and, having rolled out the repaired Cadillac, they decide to go to the suburbs on Karl to celebrate their birthday. Their amusement is fooling owners of expensive and luxurious cars, which they pass forward, and then overtaking jokingly. Having stopped on the way, friends are going to order dinner, and then the buick rolls up, which they overtook. It was a passenger - Patricia Holman. Together, they arrange a fun feast.
After a stormy celebration, Robert returns to his den - furnished rooms. People live here, for various reasons, brought here by fate. Hasse’s spouses quarrel all the time over money, Georg Blok is stubbornly preparing for college, although the money accumulated while working at the mine has long run out and he is starving, Count Orlov holds the past by the throat - Robert saw how he turned pale once with the noise starting up cars - to this noise in Russia shot his father. But they all help each other as much as possible: advice, kind attitude, money ... Near the guesthouse there is a cemetery and near the International cafe. Robert worked there for a while as a taper.
Robert makes an appointment with Patricia - Pat, as her friends christened her. He is waiting for her in a cafe, sipping cognac. The cafe is crowded, and they decide to go to the bar. Robert is trying to imagine who she is and how she lives. The bar owner Fred greets them, and Robert begins to feel more confident. In the hall there is one Valentin Gauser, familiar to Robert from the front: he received an inheritance and now he is drinking it. He is happy because he survived. His motto is: no matter how you celebrate, everything is not enough. Robert explains that this is the only person who has made his little happiness out of great misfortune. He does not fit in with a conversation with Pat. In the end, rum does its job, unties the language. Robert escorts her home and on the way back notices that she is drunk. What did you say? Annoying himself for such an oversight, he returns to Fred and pours himself truly - out of chagrin.
The next day, on the advice of Lenz, “a grandmaster in love affairs,” Robert sends Pat a bouquet of roses - without a word, like an apology. Pat is more and more occupied with Robert's thoughts, makes you think about life. He recalls what they were when he returned from the war. “Young and devoid of faith, like miners from a collapsed mine. We wanted to fight against everything that determined our past - against lies and selfishness, selfishness and heartlessness, we became hardened and did not trust anyone except our closest comrades, did not believe in anything other than those that had never deceived us like the sky , tobacco, trees, bread and earth, but what came of it? Everything collapsed, falsified and forgotten ... The time of great human and courageous dreams passed. Trippers, venality, poverty triumphed. ” A new meeting. Robert and Pat decide to ride around the city. Pat never drove a car, and in a quiet street Robert puts her behind the wheel. She learns to move, turn, stop, they feel so close, "as if they had told each other the story of their whole life." Then go to the bar. They meet Lenz there and go together to the amusement park, where a new carousel and a roller coaster are installed. Lenz is waiting for them, and now they are in the pavilion, where they put plastic rings on hooks. For friends, this is children's fun. In the army during the respite they spent months killing time, throwing hats on all kinds of hooks. They win all the prizes from the alarm clock to the pram. The second owner of the attraction repeats everything. The third announces that it is closing. Friends throw rings on wine bottles and load everything into a stroller. Fans crowd follow them. They cheerfully give out all the prizes, leaving themselves wine and a frying pan for the workshop.
Robert's comrades accept Pat into their community. They take care of Robert's feelings, because love is the only thing standing in this world, "all the rest is crap."
Kester recorded “Carla” for the race, and all last week friends checked each screw until late at night, preparing “Carla” for the start. Theo advises to watch out for his Nutcracker, and Lenz assures him that Carl will ask him pepper. This hanger is declared by the class of sports cars. Mechanics scoff at the ruin. Lenz is furious and ready to fight, but Robert reassures him. Cars rush along the highway. All gathered - here and Pat. “Carl” left the start of the penultimate. Now he is the third. Lenz throws a stopwatch. Crackle motors. Pat delighted - Kester is already the second! Before the finish, something happened to Theo with a motor, and Kester, the master of overtaking in corners, is only two meters ahead of him. Victory! Friends are going to make a mess, but bartender Alphonse invites them to his free treat, and they consider it an honor. At dinner Pat is too successful, and Robert invites her to disappear unnoticed. They sit for a long time on a cemetery bench shrouded in fog. Then they go to Robert, Pat is glad of the warmth in his room. She sleeps with her head resting on his arm. He begins to realize that they love him. He knows how to “truly be friends with men,” but he has no idea why such a woman could fall in love with him.
There is no work, and friends decide to buy a taxi at the auction and earn money on it in turn. The first has to go on a flight to Robert. After a fight and treats with vodka, competitors become colleagues, and he is accepted into the ranks of taxi drivers, among which half are random people. One of them, Gustav, becomes his friend.
He is first in Pat's apartment. This is the former property of her family. Now Pat is only a tenant of two rooms, where everything is tastefully arranged and recalls past wealth. Pat treats him to rum and talks about his life. About hunger, about the year spent in the hospital. There are no relatives left, money too, and she is going to work as a seller of phonograph records. Robert is upset and somewhat confused: he does not want her to depend on anyone. But what can he do ... Maybe his landlady, Frau Zalewski, is right, who, having once seen Pat, said that she needed another man - solid and wealthy. Sad if that turns out to be true ...
Robert sells the refurbished Cadillac to the lucky trader Blumenthal. Having received the check, he flies to the workshop with a swallow. Friends are dumbfounded by such a commercial success. Infrequently, he falls to their lot. After a successful deal, Robert takes a two-week vacation, and he and Pat go to the sea. On the way they stop in the forest and roll on the grass. Pat considers cuckoo cries and counts a hundred years. That is how much she would like to live. Kester warned the hostess of the hotel, the maid of honor, Müller, who had been living with him for a year after the war, about their arrival. They settle down and go to the sea. After an hour of swimming, Robert lays on the sand and remembers how at the front during a short rest the soldiers just basked in the sand without ammunition and weapons in the summer of 1917. Many of them were soon killed. In the evening, a walk on the Citroen. Pat suddenly feels weak and asks to go home. The next day, Pat began to bleed. Robert calls Kester, and friends find Dr. Jaffe, who treated Pat. Crazy race on the highway at night, sometimes in continuous fog. The doctor stays for a few days. In two weeks, she can already return home.
Jaffe introduces Pat to the medical history of Pat and insists on re-treatment at the sanatorium. He takes it with him to go around and shows the sick. Many are recovering. Just don't show Pat your anxiety. So Pat does not get bored, Robert brings her a wonderful thoroughbred puppy - this is a gift from Gustav.
There are no taxi passengers at all, and Gustav drags Robert to the races. Robert miraculously wins. Beginners are lucky, and this is very handy! "Carla" is preparing for new races, going to run it in the mountains. In their eyes, an accident occurs. They deliver the wounded to the hospital and agree to repair the bent car. We have to beat off the order from four brothers who also saw the accident. The eldest of them was already sitting for the murder. A fierce fight, but the brothers are defeated. In the workshop, they immediately begin repairs - money is needed.
It got colder and it rains continuously. Jaffe calls Robert and asks immediately to send Pat to the mountains. In the sanatorium, he agreed with his friend about everything, and there she was expected. In the mountains, blue sky, snow and sun. There are many former patients on the train; they travel again. So, come back from here. They stayed together for a week.
And at home a new trouble. The owner of the car, which they hardly recaptured from the brothers, went bankrupt, and the car with all the property was put under the hammer. The car is not insured, so they will not receive anything from the insurance company. The workshop will have to be sold. They have no choice but to auction all the property.
Robert has dinner at the Internationale and meets all his friends there. Involuntarily, with Lilly, a prostitute whose wedding they had recently celebrated magnificently, her husband demanded a divorce when he squandered all her money, outraged by her past, hitherto unknown to him. Robert calls the sanatorium and finds out that Pat is in bed. From chagrin, he gets drunk. Kester puts him behind the wheel of the Karl and makes him drive out of town at a frantic speed. Fearing a break, he resists, but Kester insists. Wind and speed knock out the hops, and the stress passes.
The city is excited. On the streets, demonstrators, gunfights. Lenz went to the rally in the morning. Robert and Otto, worried, go looking for him. They get to a meeting of fascist fellows. Having listened to a little speaker who “hail” poured promises “on people's heads”, friends understand that these people are small servants, officials, accountants, workers fascinated by the fact that someone thinks about them, takes care of them, taking words for deed . “They don’t need politics, they need something instead of religion.” This is what the fascists play. Friends find Lenz in the crowd, take him away from the police and the thugs. Everyone goes to the car. Suddenly four guys appear, one of them shoots at Lenz. Kester tries unsuccessfully to catch them.
Killed Lenz, who went through the war and knew how to laugh so well ... Kester swears revenge on the killer. Alphonse joins the scum.
In a suburban cafe, Robert sees a killer. However, he slipped away before friends decided what to do. Kester leaves to search for the killer. He doesn’t take Robert with him - because of Pat. However, the bastard Alphonse was the first to track down and kill him. Robert finds Otto Kester and reports that the retribution is complete. Together they go to the guesthouse, where they are waiting for the telegram Pat: "Robbie, come soon ..."
There is not much money, and they decide to ride the Karl, it’s not just a car, but a true friend. And again he helps them out. In the sanatorium, the doctor talks about miraculous recoveries in the most hopeless cases. Kester is silent. They have experienced too much together to try to comfort each other. In the village below, they have lunch. For the first time in recent years, Pat is leaving the sanatorium; she is glad about freedom and friends. They drive out of the village to the crest of the first ascent and from there admire the sunset. Pat knows that she will not see this anymore, but hides from friends, as they are from her. Snowfall at night, and Kester must return home. Pat asks to send greetings to Gottfried Lenz, they did not have the heart to tell her about the death of a friend. Money came from Kester. Robert understands - Kester sold "Carl." He is desperate. Lenz killed, Karl sold, and Pat?
And Pat can no longer listen to doctors and asks Robert to let her do what he wants. She has only one desire - to be happy in the remaining time.
March, and the mountains began to collapse. Patients do not sleep, get nervous and listen to the rumble in the mountains. Pat weakens day by day, she can no longer get up. She died at the last hour of the night. Hard and painful. Squeezed his hand, but did not recognize. A new day is coming, but it is already gone ...
