Overhead, a train had arrived, releasing yet more regiments of Ossies down the steps to the street. Out of indecision, Arkady was swept up by the crowd and marched across the street to the base of the memorial church, gray and shattered as a tree trunk struck by lightning, where backpackers sprawled on the stairs to watch a street magician. A tour bus aimed a broadside of cameras.

The old Berlin had been divided in half and ruled essentially by Russians and Americans. He hardly saw an American tourist now. Maybe he could stay as a statue, he thought: “The Last Russian,” posed as if he were trying to sell a pin of Lenin.

Arkady was Returning over the meadow when he saw four sections of the Wall left standing like gravestones. So Max was wrong, he thought; not everyone wanted to erase the Wall and turn without pause to the money till. Someone thought a memorial was appropriate.

Next to the section was a construction crane with a double jib for tall buildings. About seventy meters up, at the crown of the top jib, the block and tackle held a square basket. Against the sky Arkady saw a figure climb over the edge of the basket and jump. Arms and legs spread, he plunged through the air and disappeared behind the sections.

Arkady walked over quickly. Closer, the sections were each four meters square and elaborately spray-painted with every color of peace symbol, and airbrushed with Christs, gnostic eyes, prison bars, names and messages in different languages. Behind the cement slabs people sat at tables set on gravel. A sign said JUMP CAFÉ.

A truck offered sandwiches, cigarettes, sodas and beer. The customers were bikers, some older couples with dogs leashed to their chairs, a pair of businessmen dark enough to be Turks and a circle of teenagers, the sun sparkling on the rivets of their jackets.

The jumper, a boy in a tank top and fatigues, was swaying upside down a few feet in the air. Arkady realized that he had never hit and that he was connected by elastic cords running from his ankles to the top of the crane. The jib lowered to let him settle on the earth, hands first. He released the cords and staggered dizzily to his feet to applause from the bikers and tribal whoops from his friends.

Arkady was interested in the two businessmen. Their suits were good, but they had massed bottles of beer on their table in a gluttonous volume. They had thick bodies and slouched with their heads tucked in a familiar attitude. Though they sat looking away from him, one of them had memorably ugly hair, long in the back, short on the sides, with an orange fringe on top. Though they didn’t clap, they watched with close attention.