Peter used the phone while Schiller kept watch on his visitor. Arkady looked up. On the ceiling, fat cherubs with tiny wings were painted in mid-flutter against a plaster sky. Walls of Dresden blue colored the air a somber gray. Oil portraits of ancestral bankers hung between engravings of merchant ships. The good burghers looked embalmed, then painted. On a bookshelf were tomes on international law arranged by year and, in a crystal dome, a brass clock with a pendulum that wrapped itself around a pole. He noticed a black-and-white photograph of rubble and burned walls. A roof had collapsed like a tent on a skirt of bricks. A bathtub was set out on the street as a water trough. People huddled around the tub in the gray uniforms of displaced persons. “An interesting picture for a bank,” he said.

Schiller said, “That is the bank. That’s this building after the war.”

“Very impressive.”

“Most countries have recovered from the war,” Schiller said drily.

Peter finally reached someone on the phone. “Hello.” He checked the letter. “Is Federov there? Where could I find him? Could you tell me exactly when? No, no, thank you.” He hung up and nodded to Arkady. “Some religious group and singers.”

“Federov is a busy man,” Arkady said.

Schiller said, “Your Federov is an idiot if he thinks the Bayern-Franconia Bank considers itself obligated to investigate a German citizen. And only a cretin could imagine Bayern-Franconia joining any venture with a Soviet partner.”

“That’s Federov,” Arkady agreed, as if the attaché’s antics were legend. “All I know is that I’ve been told to clear this up quietly. I understand that the bank is under no obligation to help.”

Schiller said, “We have no inclination to help, either.”

“I don’t see why you should,” Arkady said. “I told Federov he should inform the ministries and get it out in the open. Bring in Interpol, let it go through the courts, the more public the better. That’s the way to protect a bank’s reputation.”

“The bank’s name could be protected by simply removing it from the reports on Benz,” Schiller said.

“True,” Arkady agreed. “But the situation in Moscow being what it is, no one at the consulate is willing to take that responsibility.”

“Could you?” Schiller asked.

“Yes.”

“Grandfather, do you want my advice?” Peter asked.

“Of course,” Schiller said.