“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.