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Truman—how’s he doing? I mean, how the fuck do I know? He hasn’t done anything yet.”
    Jake grinned at him. “Make something up. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
    The serving man placed the soup in front of him, looking surprised when Jake thanked him in German.
    “You know what he said today? In Berlin? ‘This is what happens when a man overreaches himself.’”
    Jake thought of the miles of debris, reduced to the lesson for the day. “Who’s your source? Jimmy Byrnes?”
    “Sounds just like Truman, don’t you think?”
    “It will, if you use it.”
    “Got to fill the air somehow. You remember.”
    “The old graveyard shift.” The 2 A.M. broadcasts, timed for the evening news back home.
    “Worse. They kept Berlin on Russian time, so it’s even later.” He took a drink, shaking his head. “The Russians—” He turned to Jake, suddenly earnest, as if he were confiding a secret. “They just went all to hell here. Raped everything that moved. Old women. Children. You wouldn’t believe the stories.”
    “No,” Jake said, thinking of the bayoneted chairs.
    “Now they want reparations,” Tommy said, rolling his deep radio
    voice. “I don’t know what they think’s left. They’ve already grabbed
    everything that wasn’t nailed down. Took it all apart and shipped
    it home. Everything—factories, pipes, toilets, for Christ’s sake. Of
    course, once they got it there they didn’t know how to put it back together, so I hear it’s all sitting on the trains, going to rust. Useless.“
    “There’s your story.”
    “They don’t want that either. Let’s not make fun of the Russians. We have to get along with them. You know. They’re touchy bastards.”
    “So what do they want?”
    “Truman. The poker game. Who’s a better player, him or Uncle Joe? Potsdam poker,” he said, trying it. “That’s not bad.”
    “And we’re holding the cards.”
    Tommy shrugged. “We want to go home and they want to stay. That’s a pretty good card.”
    The serving man, hovering in a frayed suit, replaced the soup with a gray stew. Salty, probably lamb.
    Tommy picked at it, then pushed it away and took another drink. “So what are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know yet. I thought I’d look up some people I used to know, see what happened to them.”
    “Hearts-and-flowers stuff.”
    Jake spread his hands, not wanting to be drawn in. “The poker game then, I guess.”
    “In other words, sit around with the rest of us and do what Ron here says,” he said, raising his voice. “Right?”
    “If you say so, Tommy,” Ron said, shooting him a wary look across the table.
    “Handouts. We can’t even get near the place. Stalin’s afraid somebody’s going to take a potshot at him. That it, Ron?”
    “I’d say he’s more afraid of being quoted out of context.”
    “Now, who’d do a thing like that? Would you do that, Jake?”
    “Never.”
    “I can’t say I blame him,” the congressman said, smiling. “I’ve had a little experience in that department myself.” His manner was looser now, a campaign geniality, and Jake wondered for a second if the stiffness on the plane had been nothing more than fear of flying, better hidden than the young soldier’s. His wide tie, a dizzying paisley, was like a flash of neon at the uniformed table.
    “You’re Alan Breimer, aren’t you?” Tommy said.
    “That’s right,” he said, nodding, pleased to be recognized.
    “War Production Board,” Tommy said, a memory display. “We met when I covered the trust hearings in ‘thirty-eight.”
    “Oh yes,” said Breimer, who clearly didn’t remember.
    “What brings you to Berlin?” Tommy said, so smoothly that Jake saw he was working, the line to Ron only a way of reeling Breimer in.
    “Just a little fact-finding for my committee.”
    “In Berlin?”
    “The congressman’s been looking at conditions all over the zone,” Ron said, stepping in. “Technically, that includes us too.”
    “Why not