His destination was the Tea Room, which served tea six days a week. On Sundays, it was converted into a chapel, and prayer services were held for the local farmers and ranchers. Robinson found the table he was looking for. It was far from the entry, pushed all the way into the corner, where the windows overlooked the mound of earth that was scheduled to become a swimming pool.

He had never met these men before, which was important, for he could always claim he did not know who they worked for. Each of them was well shaven and slender and young. As lunch progressed, and drinks were ordered, some of them quoted what he had written years ago, toasting him, and saying, “Good work, my friend.” They toasted the health of Chaplin early in the lunch, and praised his work, and then said, “Of course, he had a great deal of help,” and after the third drink, Robinson was aware of himself saying the words “You don’t know the half of it.”

One drink later, one of the men said, thoughtfully, “What’s astonishing is that the man is such a tower of strength. It’s as if he has no weaknesses.”

“Oh?” said Robinson. “Oh?” He wiped the corners of his mouth.

And from there, the afternoon became a blur.

25

Life under the new occupying force (which stressed, like many occupying forces, that it was planning to leave as soon as something-or-other happened—citizens of Russia had learned how to hum along without learning the lyrics) found its own daily rhythm. Along the bustling Troitsky Prospekt, three blocks from the wharf, the buildings had saloon-style doors, and wooden planks that extended over the open sewers. The streets were made of mud, and atop that, slush, and atop that, ice and blotches of something brown that smelled like shrimp that had died in an old boot. Citizens shuffled by, eyes tearing in the wind, red hands in bruised gloves, and they carried mackerel dressed in newspaper. Knots of White Russians hovered around café chess games, looking up whenever a pretty girl walked by, in case she was an heiress who needed marrying.

A saying spread among the 339th—“If I owned Russia and hell, I’d rent out Russia and live in hell.” The snow was different from Detroit snow: It was malevolent. It smelled like ketchup and melted like syrup. The men swore it had a soul, and that the soul wanted to kill them.

They walked through the evil snow in cursed footwear.