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archway there, so noted for its own overblown operatic bluster. But first, let’s step out onto the Moorish terrace.”
    She followed him in a daze, taking in the abundant national clichés that decorated the rooms (Bavarian, Viennese, Spanish) where patrons dined, drank, gambled, or all three at once. The serving staff were clothed according to their assigned countries, serving the German interpretation of each location’s cuisine.
    Cymbeline and Julius leaned on the carved balcony of Black Forest hunting scenes that divided the Moorish terrace from the main floor. Along the man-made lake was a replica of a Paris quay.
    “And I thought you were going to corrupt me,” said Cymbeline.
    “I said you’d be shocked.”
    “Shall we see what’s upstairs?”
    As they mounted one of the curved stairways, Cymbeline said, “It’s a kitsch palace.”
    “No!” Julius exclaimed as they arrived on the second floor. “It’s France! Next to Vienna!”
    The third floor revealed a Budapest ballroom, with champagne, caviar, dancing, and cabaret. Tucked off in the far corner was a café festooned with enough draping to mimic a Bedouin tent, where harem girls served Turkish coffee.
    The American Wild West Bar, located on the fourth floor, had patrons dancing to a black jazz band.
    “Chicago jazz? In the Old West?” she said.
    “What were they thinking?” He sighed. “It was all so perfect until the jazz. What do you say we return to the Rhineland and I’ll buy you a beer?”
    Back on the main floor they settled into a swan boat, with a Japanese parasol resting against the upholstered bench. They floated on the indoor lake, under the imitation night sky studded with tiny lights,watching boys in lederhosen serve steins of beer to patrons sitting on blankets along the “shore.” Italian opera played in the background.
    Cymbeline opened the oversize parasol, saying, “Do you think someone left this here?” Then she was startled by the sudden clap of thunder and a traveling crack of fake lightning that illuminated the fake night sky, followed by a brief downpour. She laughed as she pulled in close to Julius, who was laughing too. “That was like a one-sided conversation with God,” said Julius.
    “I rather like their interpretation of the Old West as Indians waiting on cowboys. You think it’s a government land issue when it was about tipping all along.”
    The stars twinkled above them in a field of indigo as Julius rowed over to the bank to receive more beer from one of the lederhosen boys. Cymbeline, who rarely drank, was feeling the alcohol. She reclined in the swan boat, relaxed, her eyes closed. Julius trailed his hand in the water. They didn’t speak, but it was a silence of contentment.
    “Aren’t you glad you made me bring you in here?”
    “Oh, my God,” said Cymbeline. “I love this place.”
    “I was being sarcastic.”
    “I know. But I love it anyway.”
    Then she did something a little out of the ordinary; she picked up her camera, saying, “I want to take your picture.” The thing that made the moment unusual was her desire to capture something she never, ever wanted to forget. Her photography was by turns pragmatic and struggling for art, not for memories, not an attempt to record a moment.
    Maneuvering around in the swan boat, given the beer, made her sloppy and apologetic. When she’d finally positioned herself across from Julius, she said, “You’ll have to put down the parasol,” allowing the light from the ersatz moon to catch the planes of his face.
    But the first shot was wrong. She knew it even as she took it. She knew it wouldn’t look like him. “I’m a little drunk,” she confessed.
    “Let me offer a suggestion,” he said. “I’m going to do a mathematical problem in my mind, and when you think I’ve come to the point of the greatest intensity of thought, take the picture.”
    It turned out to be an excellent portrait. But he didn’t look like he was thinking about