Brotsher and sister Mirek and Jana grew up together in the small town of Policka. The murder of their much-hated father, staged as an accident, only serves to intensify their already strong emotional bond. Over the years the older dominant sister gradually loses her influence over the brother, an influence that has allowed her to easily destroy all his attempts at finding a love relationship. Jana, who sought an escape from feelings of guilt and the small-town boredom of her life in wild excursions to Prague, finally gets married to a doctor named Josef; the careworn Mirek in turn looks for a way out with a lonely waitress named Olga. The story takes place on two time planes - the seventies, when the protagonists go through their stormy adolescent years, and the nineties, when their long-twisted characters push them one last time into fateful conflict.