I’ve never understood why grown-ups tell children that it pays to be obedient. If I’d been a model daughter, my name would now be carved on a gravestone alongside those of my mother’s parents – Grandma Elsa and Grandpa Ervin who died long before I was born. Or of Grandma Ludmila and Grandpa Mojmír, at whose grave my mother and I used to light candles in brown tubs at the far end of the cemetery.
On Sunday afternoons, if the weather was nice, my schoolfriends would go for a walk in the park or take a stroll around t
