I was greeted by a large stuffed bear. The bear’s jaws were open and its paws were in the air, and I guess a person coming through the door was supposed to feel under attack or something, but to me the bear looked as if he were conducting an ursine choir to sing “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” Otherwise the place was almost empty. The floor was a checkerboard of cheap linoleum. Tables with neat yellow cloths were ranged around the orange-colored walls that were a picture gallery of river scenes and characters. In the far corner, underneath a large photograph of the River Spree logjammed with Sunday canoeists, sat a man in a cloud of foul-smelling cigarette smoke. He was reading a newspaper that was spread over the whole table, and he hardly looked up as I came over and stood in front of him.

“Hey,” I said.

“Don’t make the mistake of pulling out that chair,” he murmured. “I’m not the type who likes to jaw with strangers.”

He wore a mid-green suit and a dark green shirt with a brown woolen tie. On the bench next to him were a leather coat and hat and, for no reason I could see, a substantial-looking dog lead. The flat, yellowish cigarettes he was smoking were not Russian, however; they were French.

“I understand. Are you Herr Goerz?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Stefan Blitz. I was told you were the man to speak to about getting work on the Olympic site.”

“Oh? Who told you that?”

“Fellow named Trollmann. Johann Trollmann.”

“Never heard of him. Does he work for me?”

“No, Herr Goerz. He said he heard it from a friend of his. I can’t remember his name. Trollmann and I, we used to box together.” I paused. “I say ‘used to,’ because now we can’t. Not anymore. Not now that there are rules about non-Aryans in sporting contests. Which is how I come to be looking for a job.”

“I’ve never been a sporting man myself,” said Goerz. “I was too busy earning a living.” He looked up from his newspaper. “I can see the boxer in you, maybe. But somehow I can’t see the Jew.”

“I’m a mischling. Half and half. But that doesn’t seem to make much difference to the government.”

Goerz laughed. “No, it certainly doesn’t. Let me see your hands, Stefan Blitz.”

I held them out in front of him, showing off my dirty fingernails.

“Not the backs of your hands. The palms.”

“Are you going to tell my fortune?”

His eyes narrowed as he pulled on the last few centimeters of the foul-smelling cigarette. “Maybe.” Not touching my hands, just looking, he added, “These hands look strong enough. But they don’t look like they’ve done much real work.”