Inside the eting room, several cups of black tea had already been set out on the table.
Each place setting included not only a silver spoon, but also a full bottle of jam and a small pot of milk. Germany and Soviet Russia were both, in their own ways, nations that understood tea, yet their habits differed in the details. In France and England, milk and sugar were the usual accompanints. German high society preferred sugar and lemon. Soviet Russia, by contrast, clearly favored jam and milk.
As for Jörg, he preferred to taste the tea itself.
Lia sat beside him, slowly stirring her milk tea, then glanced at his untouched additions and smiled.
"You really drink it plain?"
Her glasses caught the light as she tilted her head.
"That's more like the Japanese rchants than a German aristocrat."
Jörg took a sip of black tea and answered with a half smile.
"Perhaps I am a Japanese person hiding in the upper ranks of Germany. Maybe the only reason I have reached this position is because I learned sorcery in the East."
Lia was amused despite herself. Her lips curved in an easy, unguarded smile.
"Then, Herr Magician, can you predict when I will get married?"
Jörg set down the teacup with complete seriousness.
"When you et the man you love."
It was such a polished answer that Lia laughed softly and shook her head.
Compared to the light conversation on their side of the table, the opposite end of the room was far quieter.
Morr had been watching the exchange with growing displeasure. His cold eyes moved from Lia's smile to Jörg's composure, and the sneer at the corner of his mouth beca harder to hide.
To him, the whole matter remained absurd.
A man from the army, parachuted into the Foreign Ministry as a special envoy, with no formal diplomatic training, no years spent in embassies, no polished apprenticeship at the negotiating table. It was a mockery of the profession. He had already decided he would watch this "young genius" stumble and then rember the sight for years afterward.
Leaning toward Biffar, he spoke in a voice low enough to sound private, yet loud enough to be overheard.
"Did you bring your notebook?"
Biffar gave a small nod.
"Good. Then record every word carefully. If our young hero makes a fool of himself, let there be no chance later to shift the bla."
The barb landed in the room like a dropped nail.
Lia's hand paused for a fraction of a second.
Jörg, however, did not even turn his head. He only raised the teacup once more, as calm as if nothing had been said.
The result was imdiate and almost comical.
Morr had aid to humiliate him, but in the silence that followed, he beca the only awkward figure in the room.
Then the heavy wooden door opened.
The man who entered was enough to pull everyone's attention at once.
Biffar stood up first.
"Mr. Chicherin. It has been so ti."
"Indeed," Chicherin replied with a courteous nod. "The last ti we t was in Berlin, during the discussions over the Economic Friendship Treaty, was it not?"
After a few ritual pleasantries, his gaze shifted naturally toward the one man in the room who had not risen imdiately out of reflex. Jörg stood only after setting down his cup, then extended his left hand first, his expression composed and faintly cordial.
"It is a pleasure to et you, Mr. Chicherin."
Chicherin clasped his hand and studied him carefully.
"Mr. Jörg, our negotiating table has rarely seen a diplomat so young. Germany's diplomacy appears to be growing younger by the year."
In another setting, the line might have been mistaken for a complint.
Here, it was not.
Under the surface, it carried a clear implication: that Germany had perhaps run short of seasoned n and had begun sending boys instead.
Biffar caught it imdiately and was just considering how best to parry the remark when Jörg answered first.
"You flatter , Mr. Chicherin."
His voice remained light.
"But in a broader sense, Soviet Russia itself is also rather young, is it not? Your state has not yet existed for even ten years. On the scale of European diplomacy, that is a very youthful age."
The reply was clean, elegant, and impossible to challenge without exposing the original insult.
For the first ti, Chicherin's eyes sharpened.
This young envoy was not going to be as easy to dismiss as he had hoped.
Still smiling, Chicherin withdrew his hand and took a seat on the sofa opposite them, smoothly guiding the exchange away from introductory fencing and toward business.
"Mr. Jörg, you did not travel all this way rely to sample our tea, I assu."
"Of course not."
Jörg crossed one leg over the other with effortless composure.
"I ca primarily to strengthen economic cooperation. To put it more plainly, I ca to make sure every Soviet citizen can afford to drink black tea. As for the rest, they are only minor requests."
"Minor requests?"
Chicherin accepted the cup handed to him by his secretary and lifted an eyebrow.
"Curiously enough, I am more interested in those than in the tea. Please, go on."
Jörg gave a slight nod.
"It is simple. Germany wishes to establish two military research academies and three weapons research institutes on Soviet territory."
He delivered the statent so evenly that it almost sounded administrative.
"We will bear the cost ourselves. Soviet Russia need only allocate a few tracts of land and grant a certain level of operational autonomy."
He spread one hand lightly.
"For a country of your size, that is no more than the lifting of a hand."
There was not the slightest flicker in Chicherin's expression, but neither did he refuse at once.
That alone was already an answer of sorts.
At length, he said, "I cannot personally make that decision, Mr. Jörg. Soviet land belongs to the Soviet people, not to . Whether such an arrangent is possible depends on more than my preference."
He took a asured sip of tea.
"And, if I may be direct, Germany is still bound under the Treaty of Versailles. It is forbidden from rebuilding military power in this manner. If we accepted such a proposal, we would risk inviting precisely the kind of international complications Soviet Russia does not presently need."
His gaze hardened a little.
"With respect, this is not a minor request."
A pause.
"Unless, perhaps, Germany intends to prepare for another war."
Jörg smiled faintly and stirred his tea once with the spoon, more for rhythm than necessity.
So.
They had not rejected the substance. They were bargaining over the price and the risk.
Ti to begin paying.
"International complications are one thing," he said, "and bilateral cooperation another. As long as the work remains confidential, who exactly will co prying through every account book and warehouse ledger?"
He set the spoon aside.
"I will not waste ti with evasions, Mr. Chicherin. If Soviet Russia agrees, Germany can provide a large quantity of basic industrial machine tools. In addition, within agreed limits, Soviet Russia may participate in weapons research and military scientific developnt conducted under the frawork of the project."
He did not lay every card on the table at once.
Instead, he cast out the first real lure.
For a state desperate to industrialize, machine tools were not a trifle. They were the skeleton of future factories, the bones of future power. And that was precisely why Jörg used them first. Better to buy what he needed with the smallest necessary offering than begin by surrendering all the terms.
Chicherin, however, was an old fox.
He did not show any sign of satisfaction.
"That alone is not enough," he said almost lazily. "Not enough to persuade , and certainly not enough to persuade the Soviet state."
His tone remained dismissive.
"And you also ask for secrecy, which only increases the price. This is not so warehouse lease, Mr. Jörg. It is a matter with military consequences."
Jörg was about to continue the exchange and raise the bid only where he deed it useful.
Then Morr spoke.
It was the kind of intervention made by a man who could not bear the thought of silence and wanted to be seen participating in victory before victory had even been secured.
"And German engineers," he said, with a hint of smugness. "The Soviet Union still lacks the technical personnel necessary for rapid industrialization."
The mont the words left his mouth, Jörg wanted to turn and drive the silver spoon through his throat.
Chicherin did not miss a beat.
He seized the line at once, as naturally as if it had been waiting for him all along.
"Yes," he said, nodding in apparent reflection. "That is better. I think the governnt would find such a gesture much more persuasive."
There it was.
The concession was now on the table, publicly spoken, impossible to retract without making Germany look divided, incompetent, or unserious.
Jörg kept his face still, but a cold current passed under his skin.
Morr had not rely spoken out of turn. He had handed over an additional bargaining chip for nothing, and done it at the precise mont when pressure would have extracted sothing in return.
Jörg turned his head and gave him one brief look.
It was not an angry look.
That would have been too generous.
It was the sort of gaze one gives an incompetent subordinate after he has shot off his own foot and called it initiative.
Then Jörg turned back to Chicherin and forced a smile onto his face.
"Excellent. Since we now seem to share a more practical view of cooperation, let us proceed to the next matter."
He said it pleasantly enough.
But the bitterness beneath it was real.
Morr had fed the Soviets a gift.
Now Jörg would have to make sure Germany collected the interest elsewhere.
.....
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