How the story ends

I woke up this morning just before 6 o’clock (not on purpose, obviously). I looked at my phone and immediately wondered what had gone wrong with the mission because the screen said “15 missed calls”. But I quickly determined that those calls were actually part of a different story, which I will not go into here.

About 10 minutes later, I received a text message from A.

He was so nice, did not even look at the money, and handed me the becherovka saying that he couldn’t take it! I am so happy and relieved. This was worth getting up so early! Radim & you especially have made my day!!

Radim was the conductor’s name.

As I later told A. in an email, I actually found it very satisfying to have achieved something in the “old” way. It may have been time-consuming, but then so is making bread by hand (also v satisfying).

And A. took the time to explain to me why she needed Kolja. I found it interesting, so here are A.’s words.

for the second year in a row i am teaching about communism and postcommunism in central&eastern europe to a group of american students on a semester-long exchange program - figuring that 1) students would die of boredom if i lectured at them at every single class, and 2) a picture (or many) is worth a thousand words, i put three films on the syllabus: man of marble (poland, soc-realism), kolja (czech republic, transitioning), & goodbye lenin (germany, nostalgia).

and no film shows late communism and the revolution into postcommunism better than "kolja"!!

And there you have it - a story with a happy ending.