lucia, now married to an american orchestra conductor, meets max again by chance. he is now a night porter at a hotel in vienna, and a reluctant member of a group of former ss comrades who have been carefully covering up their pasts by destroying documents and eliminating witnesses to their wartime activities. max has an upcoming mock trial at the hands of the group for his war crimes. the group's leader, hans fogler, accuses max of wanting to live 'hidden away like a church mouse'. max wishes to remain hidden, but he voices support for the group's activities. memories of the past punctuate max and lucia's present with urgent frequency, suggesting that lucia survived through her relationship with max – in one such scene, lucia sings a marlene dietrich song, "wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte" ("if i could make a wish"), to the camp guards while wearing pieces of an ss uniform, and max 'rewards' her with the severed head of a male inmate who had been bullying her, a reference to salome.