I nodded and handed back the ice bag. “Thanks, mister.”

“Give him my regards if you see him. The name’s Buckow. Like the town, but uglier.”

I FOUND MRS. CHARALAMBIDES STANDING in front of the KaDeWe, staring intently at a new Bosch gas-engine washing machine with a built-in wringer-roller. She wasn’t the kind of woman I could ever imagine using a washing machine. She probably thought it was a phonograph. It looked a lot like a phonograph.

“You know, when reason fails, a fist comes in very handy,” I said.

She met the reflection of my eyes in the window glass for a moment and then stared some more at the washing machine.

“Maybe we should buy it so that fellow in the gym can wash his mouth,” I offered feebly.

Her mouth stayed tight, as if she were trying not to spill what was really on her mind. I turned my back on the window, lit a cigarette, and stared across Wittenbergplatz.

“This used to be a civilized place, where people always behaved with courtesy and politeness. Well, most of the time. But it’s people like him who make me remember that Berlin is just an idea that a Polabian Slav had in a swamp.”

I snatched the cigarette from my mouth and stared up at the blue sky. It was a beautiful day. “Hard to believe on a day like this. Goethe had his own theory about why the sky is blue. He didn’t believe in Newton’s idea that light is a mixture of colors. Goethe thought it was something to do with the interaction of white light and its opposite: darkness.” I puffed hard for a moment. “Plenty of darkness in Germany, eh? Maybe that’s why the sky is so blue. Maybe that’s why they call this Hitler weather. Because it contains so much darkness.”

I laughed at my own idea. But I was babbling.

“You know, you really should see the Grunewald Forest at this time of year. In the autumn, it’s very beautiful. I thought we might take a drive out there now. As it happens, I also think it would be very useful for your newspaper story. Apparently the Turk is living there now. In a tent. Like a lot of other Jews, it seems. Either they’re just hardened naturalists or the Nazis are planning to build another ghetto. Maybe both. Tell you what. If you’re willing to try naturalism for a while, then so am I.”

“Do you have to make a joke about everything, Herr Gunther?”

I threw away the cigarette. “Only the things that really aren’t very funny, Mrs. Charalambides. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much everything these days. You see, I’m worried that if I don’t make jokes, then someone will mistake me for a Nazi. I mean, have you ever heard Hitler tell a joke? No, neither have I. Maybe I’d like him better if he did.”

She continued staring at the washing machine. It seemed she wasn’t ready to smile yet. She said, “You provoked him.” She shook her head. “I don’t like fighting, Herr Gunther. I’m a pacifist.”

“This is Germany, Mrs. Charalambides. Fighting is our favorite means of diplomacy, everyone knows that. But as it happens, I’m a pacifist, too. As a matter of fact, I was trying to turn the other cheek to that fellow, just like it says in the Bible, and, well, you saw what happened. I did it twice before he actually managed to put a hand on me. After that I had no choice. According to the Bible, anyway. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. That’s another thing it says. So I did. I rendered him. Unconscious. Hell, no one likes violence less than I do.”

She tried to keep her mouth steady, but it wasn’t working now.

“Besides,” I added, “you can’t tell me that you didn’t want to hit him yourself.”

She laughed. “Well, all right, I did. He was a bastard, and I’m glad you hit him. All right? But isn’t it dangerous? I mean, you could get into trouble. I wouldn’t want to get you into any trouble.”

“I certainly don’t need your help for that, Mrs. Charalambides. I can manage it quite well on my own.”

“I’ll bet you can.”

She smiled properly and took my injured hand. It wasn’t exactly tiny, but it was still frozen.

“You’re cold,” she said.

“You should see the other fellow.”

“I’d rather see the Grunewald.”

“It’ll be my pleasure, Mrs. Charalambides.”

We got back into the car and drove west along the Kurfürstendamm.

“Mr. Charalambides…” I said, after a minute or two.

“Is a Greek American and a famous writer. Much more famous than I am. At least in America. Not so much here. He’s a far better writer than I am. At least that’s what he tells me.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Nick? When you’ve said he’s a writer, you’ve said all there is to know about him. Except maybe his politics. He’s quite active in the American left. Right now he’s in Hollywood, trying to write a script and hating every minute of it. It’s not that he hates the movies or even the studios. It’s just that he hates being away from New York. Which is where we met, about six years ago. Since then we’ve had three good years and three bad ones. A bit like Joseph’s prophecy to Pharaoh, except that none of the good and the bad are consecutive. Right now we’re going through one of the bad years. Nick drinks, you see.”

“A man should have a hobby. Me, I like model train sets.”

“It’s more than a hobby, I’m afraid. Nick’s made a whole career out of drinking. He even writes about it. He drinks for a year and then he gives up for a year. You’ll think I’m exaggerating, probably, but I’m not. He can stop drinking on January the first and start again on New Year’s Eve. Somehow he has the willpower to last for exactly three hundred sixty-five days doing one or the other.”

“Why?”

“To prove he can do it. To make life more interesting. To be bloody-minded. Nick’s a complicated man. There’s never an easy explanation for anything he does. Least of all, the simple things in life.”

“So now he’s drinking.”

“No. Now he’s sober. That’s what makes this a bad year. For one thing, I like a drink myself and I hate drinking alone. And for another, Nick’s a pain in the ass when he’s sober and perfectly charming when he’s drunk. That’s one of the reasons I came to Europe. To have a drink in peace. Right now I’m sick of him and I’m sick of myself. Do you ever get sick of yourself, Gunther?”

“Only when I look in the mirror. To be a policeman you need a good memory for a face-your own, most of all. The job changes you in ways you don’t expect. After a while you can look in a mirror and see a man who looks no different from any of the scum you’ve put in jail. But lately I also get sick when I tell someone the story of my life.”

At Halensee I turned south, onto Königsallee, and pointed north out of the window. “They’re building the Olympic Stadium just up there,” I said. “Beyond the S-Bahn railway to Pichelsberg. From here on in Berlin is just forest and little lakes and exclusive villa colonies. Your friends the Adlons used to have a place down here, but Hedda didn’t like it, so they bought a place near Potsdam, in the village of Nedlitz. They use it as a weekend place for extra-special guests who want to escape the rigors of life at the Adlon. Not to mention their wives. Or their husbands.”

“I suppose the price of employing a proper detective is his knowing everything there is to know about you,” she said.

“Take my word for it. The price is a lot cheaper than that.”

About eight kilometers southwest of Halensee Station I stopped in front of the prettily situated Hubertus Restaurant.

“Why are we stopping?”

“An early lunch and a little information. When I said the Turk was living in the Grunewald, I neglected to mention that the forest covers almost eight thousand acres. If we’re ever going to find him, we’re going to have to pick up some local knowledge.”

The Hubertus was something out of a Lehar operetta: an ivy-clad, cozy villa with a garden where a crown prince and his young baroness might stop for a quick knuckle of veal on their way to some grand but doom-laden hunting lodge. Surrounded by a chorus of rather well-fed Berliners, we did our best to look like a leading man and his lady, and to hide our disappointment at our waiter’s ignorance of the local area.