Kulda is waiting for the tank

The gate of a family house in a North Moravian town is a symbolic exit from the prison in the gloomy times of late normalisation, as the property is surrounded on three sides by the walls of the barracks of the Soviet occupiers. For little Matyáš Kulich, called Kulda, who likes to play soldiers best of all, it is also a favourite daily observation point, thanks to which he learns how things work in the world. Under the guidance of a valiant grandfather, ...a Sudeten World War II veteran, he can observe the maneuvers and mannerisms of the occupying troops, to record the movement of their equipment, to infiltrate them as a spy and, above all, to do the enemy all kinds of small harm, even though most citizens are outwardly resigned to the state of affairs.

 But that's only half the story. In a parallel storyline that moves Milan Babík's novel forward almost four decades, we follow a team of Czech combat medics in Ukraine, treating the severely wounded on the Donbas front while trying to bring the team's fallen founder back to his homeland. And as the threads of the fates of the main characters in both parts of the narrative intertwine, so do youth and old age, life and death, play with reality, humour with absurd tragedy and moments of fateful recognition with moments of sheer suffering.

 A lifelong explorer in the field of international relations, he reflects fictionally on what freedom means. And what all must be sacrificed for it today - after years of prosperity and relative global peace - if we are to remain ourselves again.