Here in a Chinese edition, this is a comic novel set over a few days in a Czech spa town. A trumpeter, a nurse, an American, a doctor who claims to work miracles on infertile women, and a former political prisoner about to emigrate are drawn into a tangle of chance and desire. A pregnancy is announced, and several lives are altered. The book is a dark farce about responsibility, accident and the uneasy mix of good and evil intentions.