Jack’s Brasserie in Bern, founded in 1911, is the canteen of Swiss power. Here, between chandeliers and white tablecloths, five minutes’ walk from the federal parliament, corporate lobbyists schmooze politicians — insofar as it’s necessary to charm Swiss politicians into helping corporations.
Giuliano da Empoli is an Italian whose bestselling debut novel about Russia’s political elite, written in French, appears in English as The Wizard of the Kremlin. But his mother is Swiss, and he holidays near Bern in Interlaken. “I’ve been coming to Jack’s for 40 years,” he says in his near-perfect English, “my father used to take me.” We’ll come back to his father, who inadvertently introduced him to questions of violence and power.
Da Empoli is a neat, slight figure, dressed like the timeless European intellectual, in a dark roll-neck sweater. In Jack’s this winter’s day, in this city where all the destruction of last century never happened, it could be 1924. We get a quiet table at the back, with wealthy Swiss chatter buzzing soothingly around us. Our nearest neighbour is an outsized dog lunching from a silver bowl.