As the hours passed, he told her about Rudy and Jaak, about Max and Rodionov, about Borya and Rita. To him it was an interesting tale. He remembered his walk with Feldman, the art professor describing the Revolutionary Moscow that had been. “The squares will be our palettes!” We ourselves are palettes, Arkady thought. Possibilities. Inside Borya Gubenko was a Boris Benz. Inside an Intourist prostitute known as Rita was the Berlin gallery owner Margarita Benz.

Irina said, “The question is, who can we be? If we get out alive. Russian? German? American?”

“Whatever you want. I’ll be putty.”

“Putty is not what comes to mind when I think of you.”

“I can be American. I can whistle and chew gum.”

“Once you wanted to live like the Indians.”

“Too late for that now, but I can live like a cowboy.”

“Rope and ride?”

“Drive cattle. Or stay here. Drive on the autobahn, climb the Alps.”

“Be a German? That’s easier.”

“Easier?”

“You can’t be American unless you stop smoking.”

“I can do that,” Arkady said, although he lit another cigarette. He exhaled and watched the smoke.

He screwed the cigarette out on the floor, put his finger to her lips and motioned her to move away. It had taken him a moment to realize that the shift in the smoke was air stirring under the door. Stairwells produced suction, though he wouldn’t have felt the draft if he hadn’t been lying down.

He put his ear to the floor. See, he could live like an Indian. He heard the easing of shoes in the hallway.

Irina stood against a wall, not trying to hide or get small.

Around his carry-on bag, Arkady saw the light at the bottom of the door, a white bar fading at one end.

He pressed his stomach into the floorboards. If he were any flatter he could slide under the door himself. He glanced at Irina. Her eyes watched him like hands keeping a man from falling off a cliff.

The door swung open. Light fanned in and a familiar bulk stepped across the threshold.

“You could get killed that way, Peter,” Arkady said.

Peter Schiller kicked the bag aside. He snorted at the sight of Arkady. “Is this a shooting range?”

“We were expecting other people.”

“I’m sure you were.” Peter saw Irina, who returned his stare undiminished. “Renko, we have Russians running all over Berlin. We have two dead mafiosos at the Europa Center, cut up by someone who looked like you. What happened to your back?”

“I slipped.” Arkady got to his feet and shut the door.

“Arkady was with me,” Irina said.

“How long?” Peter asked.

“All day.”

“Lies,” Peter said. “This is a gang war, isn’t it? Benz is connected to one of them. The more I know about the Soviet Union, the more it sounds like one endless gang war.”

“In a way,” Arkady conceded.