Inside, the Hofbrauhaus had a vaulted ceiling with murals and ironwork and lanterns. It was wonderfully warm and smelled very powerfully of burning and stewing animal meat. A veteran brass band in odd hats and thick suspenders was playing two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old polkas, the kind of folk music that was so well worn that it slipped through your ears like pebbles down a stream. Strangers were crammed together at long polished wooden benches and tables, getting full of alcoholic bonhomie. Maya was relieved to see that most of them weren’t actually drinking the alcohol. Instead, they were drinking big cold malts and inhaling the alcohol on the side through little lipid-tagged nose snifters. This much reduced the dosage and kept the poison away from the liver.