15, 16, and 17 Summary and Analysis

After recovering, Kovály realizes she will need a death certificate to arrange her life. She receives a bureaucratic runaround—she cannot receive a death certificate without a coroner's report; she cannot receive a coroner's report without party permission. She briefly takes their refusal to mean Margolius has not been executed—such false hope is fruitless, however. Two years later a death certificate is finally issued—date of death December 3, 1952; date of issue January 5, 1955; cause of death suffocation by hanging; place of burial none. Some years later she learns that the bodies of all the men had been cremated and their ashes had been dumped onto an icy roadway on the outskirts of Prague to provide traction for the automobile carrying the men charged with their disposal.

Now associated with a convicted traitor, Kovály is evicted from...