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room.
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    "We've been expecting you ever since the thing collapsed," the brother said when they sat down. "All the emigres have already come home, or at least put in an appearance. No, no, that's not a reproach. You know best what's right for you."
    "There you're wrong," said Josef with a laugh. "I don't know that."
    "Did you come alone?" the brother asked.
    "Yes."
    "Are you thinking of moving back for good?"
    "I don't know."
    "Of course you'd have to take your wife's feelings into consideration. You got married over there, I believe."
    "Yes."
    "To a Danish woman," said his brother, hesitantly.
    "Yes," Josef said, and did not go on.
    The silence made the brother uncomfortable, and just to say something, Josef asked, "The house belongs to you now?"
    In the old days the apartment had been part of
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    a three-story income property belonging to their father; the family (father, mother, two sons) lived on the top floor and the other two were rented out. After the Communist revolution of 1948 the house was expropriated, and the family stayed on as tenant.
    "Yes," answered the brother, visibly embarrassed. "We tried to get in touch with you, but we couldn't."
    "Why was that? You do know my address!" After 1989 all properties nationalized by the revolution (factories, hotels, rental apartments, land, forests) were returned to their former owners (or more precisely, to their children or grandchildren); the procedure was called "restitution": it required only that a person declare himself owner to the legal authorities, and after a year during which his claim might be contested, the restitution became irrevocable. That judicial simplification allowed for a good deal of fraud, but it did avoid inheritance disputes, lawsuits, appeals, and thus brought about, in an astonishingly short time, the rebirth of a class society with a bourgeoisie that was rich, entrepreneurial, and positioned to set the national economy going.
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    "There was a lawyer handling it," answered the brother, still embarrassed. "Now it's already too late. The proceedings are closed now. But don't worry, we'll work things out between us and with no lawyers involved."
    Just then the sister-in-law came in. This time that collision of gazes never even occurred: she had aged so much that the whole story was clear from the moment she appeared in the doorway. Josef wanted to drop his eyes and only look at her later, secretly, so as not to upset her. Stricken with pity, he stood up, went to her, and embraced her.
    They sat down again. Unable to shake free of his emotion, Josef looked at her; if he had met her in the street, he would not have recognized her. These are the people who are closest to me in the world, he told himself, my family, all the family I have, my brother, my only brother. He repeated these words to himself as if to make the most of his emotion before it should dissipate.
    That wave of tenderness caused him to say: "Forget the house business completely. Listen, really, let's be pragmatic—owning something here is not my problem. My problems aren't here."
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    Relieved, the brother repeated: "No, no. I like equity in everything. Besides, your wife should have her say on the subject."
    "Let's talk about something else," Josef said as he laid his hand on his brother's and squeezed it.
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    They took him through the apartment to show him the changes since he had left. In one room he saw a painting that had belonged to him. When he'd decided to leave the country, he had to act quickly. He was living in another town at the time, and since he needed to keep secret his intention to emigrate, he could not give himself away by doling out his possessions to friends. The night before he left, he had put his keys in an envelope and mailed them to his brother. Then he'd phoned him from abroad and asked him to take anything he liked from the apartment before the state confiscated it. Later on, living in Denmark and happy to be starting a new life, he hadn't the