“This towel is coming off in two seconds. You’re welcome to stay—”
“Okay, okay, I’m going.” She smiled. “I like to leave a little something to the imagination.” She gathered up her things, slinging the holster belt on her shoulder, and went to the door.
“Don’t forget the rain check,” he said.
She turned to him. “By the way, a piece of advice? Next time you ask a girl for a drink, don’t tell her about the other one. Even if she asks.” She opened the door. “See you around the campus.” Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
CHAPTER TWO
Dinner was surprisingly formal, served by the gray-haired woman and a man Jake took to be her husband in a large corner room on the ground floor. A starched white tablecloth was set with china and wine goblets, and even the food-standard B rations of pea soup, stewed meat, and canned pears-seemed dressed up for the occasion, ladled out of a porcelain tureen with ceremony and garnished with a sprig of parsley, the first green Jake had seen in weeks. He imagined the woman snipping off pieces in the muddy garden, determined even now to keep a good table. The company, all men, was a mix of visiting journalists and MG officers, who sat at one end with their own whiskey bottles, like regulars in a western boardinghouse. Jake arrived just as the soup was being served.
“Well, here’s a sorry sight.” Tommy Ottinger, from Mutual, extended his hand. “When did you blow in?”
“Hey, Tommy.” Even balder than before, as if all his hair had migrated down to the trademark bushy mustache.
“I didn’t know you were here. You back with Murrow?”
Jake sat down, nodding hello across the table to the congressman, sitting between Ron, clearly on caretaking duty, and a middle-aged MG officer who looked exactly like Lewis Stone as Judge Hardy.
“No broadcasting, Tommy. Just a hack.”
“Yeah? Whose nickel?”
“Collier’s.”
“Oh,” Tommy said, drawling it, pretending to be impressed, “in depth. Good luck. You see the agenda? Reparations. You could nod off just thinking about it. So what do you know?”
“Not much. I just got in. Took a ride through the city, that’s all.”
“You see Truman? He went in this afternoon.”
“No. I saw Churchill, though.”
“I can’t use Churchill. They want 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 Berlin?” Breimer said to Tommy, curious.
“Well, industrial capacity’s your field. Not much of that left here.”
“Not much of that anywhere in our zone,” Breimer said, trying for a backroom heartiness. “You know what they say-the Russians got the food, the British got the factories, and we got the scenery. I suppose we have Yalta to thank for that too.” He looked at Tommy, expecting a response, then switched gears. “Anyway, I’m not here to see factories, just our MG officials. We’ve got General Clay tomorrow, right, lieutenant?”
“Bright and early,” Ron said.
“You’ll want to see Blaustein over in Economics,” Tommy said, as if he were helping to fill the schedule. “Remember him? He was the lawyer from Justice at the trust hearing.”
“I remember Mr. Blaustein.”
“On the other hand, you weren’t exactly best friends.”
