Emmy Marryat is determined to go home. Her English friends think she's crazy to go back after what happened, crazy to take such risks, crazy to expect to find the same country, the same city, the same people. The land Emmy knew has simply gone; the country divided by the Communism that has taken over after the ravages of a world war. But she is still receiving letters from the ghosts of that country, and return to it - and to them she does.
Emmy and the Ivanescu family are determined that they will not allow politics to intervene in their friendship. But, behind national barriers sustained by constant threatening gestures, impartiality itself appears to have become a treason. And Emmy must discover how to translate tragedy into opportunity and the shadow of separation into a means of grace.