A waiter and almost a gentleman

FictionErneste is a waiter, "a reserved, rather pallid man of medium height and indeterminate age with the impeccable manners of a patient and perceptive employee - almost a gentleman". That use of the word "almost" is important; this careful, subtle narrative succeeds through nuance and gesture, which are repeatedly countered against emotional trauma with devastating revelations.

Swiss writer Alain Claude Sulzer, in this, his alluringly cinematic second novel and first to be published in English, has with Erneste created a character who lingers in the memory as one who has endured a life-altering grief. Erneste is a shadow, a self-trained observer committed to his craft and consumed by a secret.

As the novel opens in 1966, Erneste is working in a restaurant, "the most dependable member of an ever changing staff". Sulzer immediately establishes the personality of his central character, a man set in his ways and solitary, with neither a telephone nor a television for companionship. It is as if he has imposed a state of exile from life upon himself.

It is all very choreographed and exact, a bit like Erneste, "who liked being a waiter and had never aspired to any other profession". Within a few paragraphs the waiter emerges as a solitary, self-contained victim who has decided disciplined routine is his only salvation. Sulzer's formal, period prose, in a translation from the German by John Brownjohn that occasionally - but only occasionally - falters into a jarringly contemporary idiom, is remarkable for the Proustian deliberation and intensity with which it enables Sulzer to pursue his theme, that of emotional desolation.

Early in the novel, the comparisons are obvious. Kazuo Ishiguro's 1989 Booker-winning The Remains of the Day and, most of all, there is the prevailing influence of Thomas Mann, particularly in the tone and atmosphere. Sulzer introduces a mood of dignified, despairing acceptance. Erneste's life of duty appears unrelenting yet he is content within it - it sustains him and provides some form of protection. This balance is threatened with the arrival of a letter from someone named Jakob, who Erneste has not seen for more than 30 years, yet this Jakob - who asks "Have you thought of me from time to time?" - is looking for help and asks Erneste to approach Klinger, a person apparently known to both of them.

Strange and urgent, as well as clearly suggestive of a former relationship, the letter is important. In a way it contains the entire story. Sulzer develops the wider narrative of the novel through a series of flashbacks. The dull daily routine of Erneste's present life is contrasted with his earlier years, when he worked at a wonderful lakeside hotel. There, he experienced his one great defining passion. Alongside the private romance, which is described with tender explicitness, is the sense of a Europe in chaos waiting for the war that will change everything. The Grand Hotel becomes a sanctuary of sorts, the visitors arrive with all the pomp of privileged guests, yet there is also an uncertainty about them. These tourists are but one step away from becoming refugees.

AS WELL AS the rumours of war, there is the heat, the dazzling, suffocating heat. Sulzer evokes a hazy summer in which there is no air, the staff and guests move as if in slow motion. The prose is evocative of a specific time, while also catching the essence of a love affair shifting from the initial tentative signals, through to affirmation and on to an ease that is companionable yet remains forbidden and sexual. Erneste is already an experienced member of the hotel staff when a young German, Jakob, arrives. It is Erneste, protective and kindly, who takes over his training and helps Jakob quickly assert himself as a useful employee. The relationship between the two young men soon becomes close. All of this is handled very well by Sulzer, who carefully walks a tightrope between the tender and the erotic.

Yet all the hints are there; for Jakob the hotel represents a salvation from military service. But Erneste's happiness is not to last. From the outset it is obvious that Sulzer is not particularly interested in the mysterious, he is far more concerned with the ways in which people respond to situations. His great passion of some 30 years earlier for Jakob has left Erneste suspended in an emotional paralysis, intent on detached self-preservation.

Interestingly, and true to his detachment, he does not leap into action; having delayed reading the letter, he doesn't rush to answer it. A second one from Jakob soon follows the first. Again, Sulzer is interested in responses - in this case, Erneste's lack of action - and he makes this reaction interesting. Then, he decides to reply, and make clear that he will not approach Klinger, a famous writer, on his behalf. He intends the letter "to reduce Jakob to silence forever . . . he would mention that torment only in passing. The more casual their tone, the more effective his words would be". But he doesn't write the letter; instead he goes to see Klinger. Something happens, something sufficiently brutal as to further shock the reader. It also redirects the course of the narrative, allowing Erneste to discover further truths. It is an ingenious shift, and from this point on Sulzer introduces a number of daring twists, all of which lead not only to the expected confrontation but to a further revelation, which succeeds in adding yet another dimension to the emotional and sexual complexity that is Jakob.

Throughout the narrative, which is as measured and as architecturally conceived as anything by Henry James, Sulzer evokes the longing, while avoiding the melodrama of a love story defeated by multiple betrayals. The technical skill, which is considerable, never obscures the heady emotional weight. It is as if we have been presented in the character of Erneste, an individual so hurt as to have been bled dry - the reality of how dangerous and unforgiving love can be.

Cool and rather brutal for all its surface elegance, the story is complicated and unfolds like a table cloth being shaken and spread out across a table. The facts are interesting and always plausible, yet Sulzer's real achievement is to explore a level of grief experienced and endured that has become almost, but not quite, desensitised. When encountering a writer as precise as Sulzer, that "almost" is important - no, it is crucial - in an insistent work such as this melancholy, shocking tale that burrows as deep as pain itself.

Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times

A Perfect Waiter By Alain Claude Sulzer, translated by John Brownjohn Bloomsbury, 211pp. £12.99