At the bottom of the lovely old marble staircase, with the polished wooden rail that I liked to slide down when a child, I found Lisl Hennig in her room. Its door was wide open, for Lisl liked to be able to see what was going on in her domain, but now her eyes were closed and she appeared to be sound asleep. A plate was on the floor beside her, its contents — a half-eaten apple, a segment of cheese and two water biscuits — scattered across the carpet. I stood there for a moment, looking into her darkened study. The way the overhead reading light made a marble-like shine on her dress, the lock of hair falling forward on her forehead, the way her arms rested along the thronelike seat, the newspapers and abandoned lunch around her, made a scene that suggested a litter-strewn Lincoln. Memorial.

This was her den, into which only the privileged were invited and where only her intimates were permitted to sit down. The big ornate clock stood at three-thirty and Wilhelm II waved his sword and scowled menacingly at me. The only incongruity came from a newly installed desktop computer on the side table. Like some sort of contrived comparison the dark screen and keyboard stood alongside the old mechanical adding machine with which Lisl had always calculated the guests' bills. Pinned on the wall behind the table there was a page carelessly torn from a newspaper; a six-column-wide colored reproduction of the Van Gogh Irises that had been recently auctioned at Sotheby's for a record bid of fifty-three million dollars. This news item had commanded worldwide interest; proving, by quantifying the priceless, that everything was possible.

Suddenly Lisl gave a snort and came awake. 'Bernd, darling! Come and give your poor old Lisl a big kiss.' As usual she was instantly awake, and unwilling to admit to having dozed off.

Her name was Liese-Lotte, but as a girl she'd adopted the more germütlich Viennese form of Lisl, and that touch of kitsch suited her. I went and kissed her carefully so as not to disturb the lipstick and the carefully rouged and powdered face. She twisted her head to accept a kiss on each cheek.

'Let me look at you, darling.' She twisted the table light so that, it floodlit me and I stood obediently, feeling an absolute fool, while she scrutinized me from head to toe. She was not admiring me. 'You are ill. You must see a doctor.'

'I'm just hungry,' I said.

'You need proper food. Berlin food. Tonight: Schlachtplatte!'

'That sounds wonderful,' I said and meant it. The huge plate of mixed boiled meats and sausages was something for which I had yearned for a long time.

'I still say you should see a doctor, Bernd. I know when you are ill; I've known you all my life haven't I?'

'I'm okay.'

'It's only you I'm thinking of.' She phoned the kitchen and ordered a snack for me. When she'd done that she picked up a newspaper that was folded into a small bundle to expose the crossword puzzle. 'You have come just at the right moment. I've started doing the crosswords in the English newspapers every day. It is good for my English.' She said this in German, which made me believe that her desire to master English was not a top priority. 'A Christian kingdom ruled by a General? Seven letters ending T H O.'

'Lesotho,' I said.

'There is such a country?'

'In Africa.'

'You have saved my life, darling. You are a wonderful darling, a genius. I was driven almost insane. Lesotho. Ah! That makes sixteen down STOIC. The rest are easy. I will complete it later. Good.' With a sigh of relief she put the newspaper aside and turned to me. 'Now, Bernd. What have you done to poor Werner?'

'Done to him? I haven't seen him for ages. Is he here?'

'You haven't argued again with that wife of his?'

'Zena do you mean?' Zena was Werner's diminutive and combative first wife, to whom he'd recently returned for no reason that I could fathom.

'Yes, Zena,' said Lisl. 'You don't like her. She is . . .' Lisl's arthritic fingers played a remarkably nimble trill in the air as she searched for a word that was both appropriate to Zena's nature and repeatable to Werner. ' . . . touchy. Yes, touchy sometimes, I know.'

'Werner's private life is nothing to do with me,' I said.

Perhaps I put a little too much feeling into this reply, for Lisl said, 'Is this to say I am an interfering old woman?'

'No, Lisl darling,' I said hastily. 'Of course you aren't.'

She looked at me under lowered eyelids while deciding to accept my cowardly assurance. 'It's a pity you didn't find some nice German girl, I've often thought that.' She had often said it too. Werner's marriage and mine were topics she could discuss at length, and about which she could become very emotional. Lisl had been an aunt to me, but for Werner — after his Jewish parents died — she had been a mother. And yet Werner's marriage to the pugnacious Zena had not troubled Lisl as much as my marriage to Fiona. Of course Lisl never criticized Fiona. Her old-fashioned respect for the institution of marriage ruled out destructive criticism. But I knew Lisl very well indeed, and I knew she secretly saw Fiona as a cold and remote foreign woman who had intruded into our cozy family circle.

Lisl was as different to Fiona as anyone could possibly be. Born into a wealthy Berlin family, her girlhood spent in a formal and exclusive world, Lisl had nevertheless inherited the fearless vulgarity and tenacious sense of humor that is the hallmark of the Berliner. Her innate toughness had made her unhesitatingly offer shelter to Werner's parents at a time when hiding Jews usually brought a one-way ticket to a concentration camp. Lisl was generous to a fault, but she was also narrow-minded, chauvinistic and selfish. 'A nice German girl,' she mused. 'And you could have lived here in the city, and got a proper job.' Lisl was fishing for news of my domestic life. I could tell by the look on her face.

'I have a job,' I reminded her. 'And now I'm living in the city too.'

'You always have an answer, don't you, Bernd? A still tongue makes a wise head. Have you heard that saying, Bernd?'

I didn't answer; I just smiled.

But you couldn't win with Lisl. 'It struck home did it, my little remark? A nice German girl. Someone who kept your shirts nice, looked after the children and cooked you proper meals.'

I was working all night,' I said. 'I haven't shaved yet. I put on this old sweater and came down because I was hungry.'

'Don't complain, Bernd. The girl in the kitchen is working as fast as she can.'

'I know, Tante Lisl.' I looked around. 'The hotel is very quiet.'

'We'll be full for the Festival,' she said. 'The best suite is already booked. We'll be turning people away, you just see. Will you be here for Christmas?'

'It seems likely.'

She looked at, me, sniffed loudly and reverted to the subject of wives. 'A warm-blooded German girl would have been better for you. A German girl knows how to keep her man.'

'I'm happily married,' I protested.

'Uggh!' She challenged my claim with a rude sound. 'I know all about that,' she said, pressing a forefinger against the side of her nose in a promise of confidentiality. 'I know all about your ungarische Hure . . . Do you think I have not heard about your adventures living with the Gloria woman?'

It was of course a shot in the dark; an artful ploy calculated to make me protest, and in protesting provide her with more information about both Fiona and Gloria, and my relations with them. I suppose she was puzzled that I'd come to Berlin without my wife. I didn't reply, except to yawn and rub my face wearily.

She didn't leave it at that. 'Your Gloria is staying here in town with her new friend Mr. Rensselaer. Together. Did you know that?'

'I don't think so, Lisl,' I said patiently.