Max said, “Since Irina is going to be busy tomorrow, let me take you around the city. You’ve been to Berlin before?”

“In the army. He was stationed there,” Irina answered for Arkady. He was surprised she remembered.

“Doing what?” Max asked.

Arkady said, “Listening to the American command, translating for the Soviet command.”

Irina said, “Like you at Radio Liberty, Max.”

More and more she was given to sarcastic attacks on Max, and the walls of the bubble would tremble. Yet it was Max’s luxurious car they rode in, his destination they drove to. “I’ll show you the new Berlin,” he told Arkady.

When they reached the city late at night, the rain had stopped. They entered on the Avus, the old raceway through the Berliner Woods, then drove directly onto the Kurfürstendamm. Instead of the homogeneous affluence of Munich’s Marienplatz, the Ku’damm was a chaotic collision of West German shops and East German shoppers. For block after block, crowds in Socialist off-colors milled around display cases of silky Italian scarves and Japanese cameras. Their faces had the tight, poutish look of poor relations. A phalanx of skinheads marched in leather jackets and boots. Street lamps hung on ornate Nazi-era poles. Tables sold pieces of the Wall, with graffiti and without.

“It’s terrible, it’s a mess, but it’s alive,” Irina said. “That’s why the art market had always been here. Berlin is the only international city in Germany.”

Max said, “The city between Paris, Moscow and Istanbul.” He pointed to a sidewalk vendor with a rack of uniforms. Arkady recognized the gray chest and blue shoulders of a Soviet Air Force colonel’s greatcoat. The vendor himself was covered with Soviet military medals and ribbons from his collar to his belt. “You should have kept your uniform,” Max said.

Stas had forced a hundred Deutsche marks on Arkady before he left Munich; he had never been richer or felt poorer.

They passed the Kaiser Wilhelm Church’s shattered, floodlit brow. Looming behind it was a glass tower topped by a Mercedes star. Max left the boulevard and followed a dark, arterial route along a canal. All the same, Arkady’s internal compass began to function. Before they even reached Friedrichstrasse, he knew they were in what used to be East Berlin.

Max turned down the ramp of a garage. As they drove in, the garage lights automatically went on. A smell of wet cement hit their nostrils like the chlorine of a pool. Electrical junction boxes hung by wires from the walls.

“How new is this building?” Arkady asked.

Max said, “It’s still under construction.”

Irina said, “Believe me, no one will know you’re here.”

Max unlocked the elevator with a key. Inside, it had crystal sconces and an unscratched parquet floor. He toted Irina’s overnight bag. Holding his own carry-on, Arkady felt like a workman with a sackful of tools.