“Been a while since I had any visitors. Maybe I could tidy up a bit. Put things in order before—”

“Don’t put yourself to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” he said quietly. “No trouble at all.” He nodded resolutely. “Matter of fact, I should have done it a while ago.”

He walked away. I found a phone booth and telephoned the Adlon.

I told Noreen some of it but not all. The part about me spilling almost the whole story to Erich Goerz I didn’t tell her. The only consolation there was that I hadn’t mentioned the name of the hotel where she was staying.

She said she’d come right over.

Chapter 22

22

IOPENED THE DOOR WIDE, but not as wide as Noreen’s eyes. She stood there, wearing a red dress underneath her sable coat and looking at me with a mixture of shock and bewilderment, much as Lotte must have looked upon discovering she had arrived in time to find that young Werther had just succeeded in blowing his brains out. Assuming he had any brains.

“My God,” she whispered, touching my face. “What happened to you?”

“I just read a portion of Ossian,” I said. “Second-rate poetry always affects me this way.”

She pushed me gently aside and closed the door behind her.

“You should see me when I’m really affected by something good. Like Schiller. I’m bedridden for days.”

She shrugged off her coat and tossed it onto a chair.

“You might not want to do that,” I said. I was trying not to feel embarrassed about the place, but it wasn’t easy. “It’s been a while since that chair was properly deloused.”

“Do you have any iodine?”

“No, but I have a bottle of kummel. Matter of fact, I think I’ll have one myself.”

I went over to the sideboard to pour a couple of drinks. I didn’t ask if she wanted one. I’d seen her drink before.