Erneste is master of the Blue Room in a grand hotel in Switzerland. He is the 'perfect waiter', a model of order in every way, and his private life seems to embody the qualities he brings to the job. But inwardly this polite, dignified, withdrawn man has been caught in the grip of an overwhelming passion that began many years before, in the summer of 1935. Going down to the lakeside back then to meet new staff members off the boat, Erneste sees a tall young man, Jakob, standing there with two nervous young country girls, and falls hopelessly in love with him. For Jakob the affair is just a fling, a fleeting step on the way to better things. But for Erneste it is true love. When the great German writer Julius Klinger arrives at the hotel, seeking sanctuary from Hitler's Germany, his gaze, too, lights on Jakob. One morning three decades later, Erneste receives a letter with a US postmark from Jakob asking for help. It is a call that means Erneste must engage with the world again and risk discovering the truth behind his memories of the great love of his youth. Shifting skilfully between two eras, Sulzer's tense, moving and elegantly written novel is a small masterpiece about the joy and pain of being in love.