Joachim von Ribbentrop stood with a thin sheet of paper tilted toward the lamp.

The paper was flimsy Soviet paper always felt cheap to him and carried only a few lines translated by his own man.

The phrasing was careful to the point of cowardice interest in "regional stability," borders as "flexible instruments," the mutual desirability of "quiet in the east while Europe rearranges itself."

He read it twice, then a third time, lips pressing tight.

It was not a letter and not a proposal.

It was a scent.

It was what foxes left behind in hedgerows.

His secretary hovered at the doorway. "Herr Minister, the Propaganda Minister is in the ante-room."

"Let him wait" Ribbentrop said, folding the page and sliding it inside a leather folder. "Five minutes."

He set the folder on the desk and stared at the map pinned to the wall.

The pins marched like small flagpoles Vienna, Prague, Breslau, Danzig.

A red string looped the east.

He raised a finger and traced air over Warsaw, not touching the paper.

"Now," he murmured, to the map or to the rain or to the Soviet ghosts who wrote on cheap paper.

"Now we test."

Goebbels entered without waiting.

He always moved as though the building were his and the world only borrowed it for parades.

He took off his hat and smiled. "Your man made me wait, Joachim. That means you have something interesting, or you are pretending you do."

Ribbentrop's mouth twitched. "You've already been busy. I hear the Poles are barbarians this week."

"This week, last week, and next." Goebbels laid his hat on a chair and leaned toward the desk. "We have found the stories that bite. Poles beating German children, Poles throwing German shopkeepers into the street, Poles sneering at our rightful return to Danzig. We will not shout yet, not until the Führer lifts his finger. For now, we hum. A hum prepares the ear for the song."

"And the song is Poland." Ribbentrop said it like a diagnosis, not a question.

Goebbels's eyes gleamed. "The song is always where the chorus is loudest."

Ribbentrop tapped the leather folder. "There are whispers from the east. Not official. Not even semiofficial. But suggestive."

Goebbels cocked his head. "Moscow?"

"Yes."

The Propaganda Minister's smile thinned. "They are snakes."

"We are not marrying them." Ribbentrop's tone turned flat. "If that is what you fear."

"Snakes can coil only so long before they remember how to bite." Goebbels adjusted his cuff. "Do you want my advice?"

"No," Ribbentrop said, and then, because advice was the coin everyone spent in this building, added, "You will give it anyway."

"Of course." Goebbels's voice dropped. "Do what you must through shadows. But don't let the Führer feel handled. He must discover the idea himself the way a god discovers his own will."

Ribbentrop waved him away. "Send me your drafts for Danzig. Soft for the moment. Half-lies, artfully told."

"Artfully told," Goebbels repeated with satisfaction, as if the compliment had been grander.

He put on his hat and went out.

The door shut.

Rain ticked the window.

Ribbentrop opened the drawer, took out the Soviet page again, and read just the middle line borders are flexible instruments.

He ordered a car and sent a note across town.

An hour later he sat under a stag's head in Göring's ministry.

Göring entered from the doorway.

"My dear Joachim," he spoke, "you look like a tailor who has found cheap cloth and wants to convince the client it is silk."

Ribbentrop didn't bother to smile. "There is cloth in the east. Perhaps not silk. It may, however, cut well."

Göring poured two drinks without asking and handed one over. "The Bolsheviks?"

"Not a hand extended," Ribbentrop said. "A hint of a glove. Enough to signal that if we have business in Poland, they prefer… flexibility."

"Flexibility," Göring repeated. "What a friendly word for carving."

Ribbentrop watched him take a swallow. "You are concerned with fuel and ore and grain. A quiet east means trade. They have what we need while our factories run day and night."

Göring's broad face creased with amusement. "You know how to speak to me. Yes, trade. Manganese, oil, grain. And what do they want? The same as everyone. Time. Land. The taste of fear in their neighbors' mouths."

"Estonia," Ribbentrop said softly.

Göring waved a ringed hand. "They took their little toy, yes. If we go into Poland, they will want a piece. They always want a piece."

"And we," Ribbentrop said, "may let them take one. A small price for a silent frontier."

Göring's eyebrow lifted. "Does the Führer know you are talking this way?"

"Not yet," Ribbentrop said. His throat felt tight. "He will. And if he shouts first, he will listen after. He always does, when the numbers line up."

Göring's gaze slid to the window.

"He hates them. It is not a policy, it is a conviction. That is harder to move than an army."

"Then I will not move it," Ribbentrop said. "I will move around it. We will not call it an understanding with Bolsheviks. We will call it..."

He searched for the right paper word, the kind that slipped past belief and stuck to decision.

"..an arrangement of spheres."

Göring laughed, pleased. "Spheres. Yes. I like spheres. They sound like something a gentleman keeps in his study. Very well. I will not stand in your way. I may even clap if you do not trip."

"I do not trip," Ribbentrop said, getting up. "I place my feet carefully."

He arrived at the Chancellery just after ten.

The building's broad corridors swallowed sound.

Secretaries moved like shadows with papers clasped to their chests.

Adjutant Schmundt waited outside the Führer's office, eyes full of exhaustion.

"He is in a mood," he warned in a low voice. "Prague photographs. He says the Czechs looked like rabbits."

"Rabbits do not build Skoda factories," Ribbentrop said, but he smoothed his tie, felt for lint on his lapel, and pushed his shoulders back.