“Here we are at last,” he said, turning off the road. He drove onto a gravel driveway that led between two clumps of lofty pines and across an empty green field at the end of which stood a three-story wooden house with a roof as steep as Garmisch’s famous ninety-meter ski jump. The first thing you noticed about the place was that one wall was covered with a large heraldic coat of arms. This was a gold shield with black spots, and three main devices: a decrescent moon, a cannon with some cannonballs, and a raven. It all meant that the suit of armor from whom Henkell was probably descended had enjoyed shooting ravens, by the light of the silvery moon, with a piece of artillery. Beneath all this decorative nonsense was an inscription. It read “Sero sed serio,” which was Latin for “We’re richer than you are.” The house itself was nicely positioned on the edge of another field that descended steeply into the valley, affording the occupants a superb view. Views were what counted in this part of the world and this particular house enjoyed the sort of view normally obtained only from an eagle’s nest. Nothing interrupted it, except a cloud or two. And perhaps the odd rainbow.

“I guess your family have never suffered from acrophobia,” I said. Or poverty, I felt like adding.

“It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?” he said, pulling up outside the front door. “I never get tired of looking at that view.”

Neat piles of logs framed the front door like so many cigarettes. Above the door was a smaller version of the coat of arms on the exterior wall. The door was the robust kind that looked as if it had been borrowed from Odin’s castle. It opened to reveal a man in a wheelchair with a rug on his lap and a uniformed nurse at his shoulder. The nurse looked warmer than the rug and I knew instinctively which one of them I’d have preferred to have had on my lap. I was getting better.

The man in the chair was heavyset with longish, fair hair and a beard you might have picked for an important chat with Moses. The mustaches were waxed and left his face like the quillions on a broad-sword. He wore a blue suede Schliersee jacket with staghorn buttons, a Landhaus-style shirt, and an edelweiss collar-chain made of bits of horn, pewter, and pearl. On his feet were black Miesbacher shoes with a high heel and a fold-over tongue. They were the kind of shoes you wear when you want to slap someone wearing leather shorts. He was smoking a briar pipe that smelled strongly of vanilla and reminded me of burnt ice cream. He looked like Heidi’s Uncle Alp.