“That’s Goethe, isn’t it?” said Maugham.

“Faust.” I swallowed with difficulty. “Always chokes me a little.”

Maugham nodded. “You’re still a young-looking man, Walter. With a good twenty years of action ahead of you. But don’t fuck it up, dear boy.”

“No, sir. I’ll try not to.”

“I’ve fucked and fucked up a great deal in my life.” He sighed. “Quite often of course they amount to the same thing. Seriously. I’d have been a knight of the realm by now if I hadn’t fucked quite so egregiously. But then I expect you’re used to that. You must see all kinds of egregious behavior down at the Grand Hôtel.”

“Of course. But nothing I can talk about.”

“The rich have time to fuck. But the poor only have time to read about it. They’re too busy trying to make a living to fuck a lot.”

“I expect you’re probably right.”

“And before the war, Robin tells me that you used to be the house detective at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin.”

“That’s right.”

“You must have seen some even worse behavior then. Berlin was the place to be in the twenties. Especially for someone like me. My first play was produced in Berlin. By Max Reinhardt. At the Schall und Rauch cabaret theater. Tiny place.”

“On Kantstrasse. I remember it. Sadly, I seem to remember everything. There’s so much I’d like to forget but try as I might, it just doesn’t happen. It’s like I don’t seem to be able to remember how. It’s not too much to ask in life, is it? To forget the things that cause you pain. Somehow.”

“Bitter and maudlin. I like that, too.” He lit a cigarette from the silver box on the table. We were awaiting dinner and afterward the inevitable game of bridge. “I’ve remembered now. That’s it. ‘Funes the Memorious,’” said Maugham. “It’s a story by Borges on just that very subject. A man who could not forget.”

“What happened to him?” asked Robin.

“I’ve forgotten,” said Maugham, and then laughed uproariously. “Dear old Max. He was one of the lucky ones. Jews, I mean. Got out in thirty-eight, and went to America, where he died, much too soon, in nineteen forty-three. Nearly all of my friends are gone now. Including the wonderful Adlon. My, that was a good hotel. Whatever happened to the couple who owned the place? Louis Adlon and his sweet wife, Hedda.”

“Louis was murdered by the Russians in nineteen forty-five. With his riding boots and waxed mustaches he was mistaken for a German general.” I shrugged dismissively. “Most of the Red Army were just peasants. Hedda? Well, I hate to think what happened to her. The same as the rest of the women in Berlin, I imagine. Raped. And raped again.”