Zoltán had no idea that we’d met his wife, and that she was the one who sent us out to bring him back. He’d tried to keep us away from his house, and yet we’d ended up going there not once, but twice, putting the people he loved in danger. This paled, however, in comparison to József’s murder. József, his companion in hell. I dreaded telling our brother the news of how he’d died. How long could we put off breaking it to him? Watching him and György, the warmth of their reunion, was almost unbearably moving. Each of them had lost so much, but now they’d revived their connection and I just thought they deserved time, the consolation of shared memories and shared tears unencumbered by the ugliness of reality. We could dole out reality in small doses, couldn’t we? Save the worst for morning, a
