“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” Pani Lescovec stood surrounded by her husband, three boys, and about a dozen bags. It turned out they, too, had been promised this apartment—by a genial acquaintance of Pan Lescovec’s, a government lawyer they knew, who had told them the place had been empty for months and that it was theirs for the taking if they would agree to give up their comfortable home in the old city. “Yes, yes, Henryk Duda. Yes, he was the acquaintance.” When I showed Pani Lescovec my key, she shrieked again: “No, no, it can’t be!”
