Clemens Meyer: All the Lights

He tore the letter open, he tore it open so roughly that he broke the butterfly, and then he was holding a sheet of A4 paper in his hand, densely covered in writing. The writing was so small that he got up again to fetch his reading glasses from the front room. He had to look for them for a while; they were on the windowsill. He put them on and peered over the lenses out of the window. It was night now, and he saw the dark houses opposite, lights only burning in a couple of windows. There were lots of empty places round here. He tugged the curtains closed and went back into the kitchen. He sat down and drank a mouthful of coffee. The coffee was just right now, not too hot any more, and he drank another mouthful.

He gave a loud cough before he started reading.

Dear Frank,

It’s been a while since we heard from each other, and it’s been even longer since we’ve seen each other. Three or four years? I can’t remember exactly. Before you start puzzling or look all the way to the bottom, where I’ve written ‘With best wishes, Wolfgang’, I can’t help laughing now because I’ve only just started writing.

He put one finger on the line he was reading and smoothed the paper with the other hand. Wolfgang. He only knew one Wolfgang, his old schoolfriend Wolfgang, who he’d grown up with round here. What on earth was Wolfgang doing in Cuba? He’d been out of work, just like him, he’d been waiting, just like him. Two years ago or so Wolfgang had called him from Berlin, said he had better chances of finding work there.

You’ll be wondering what I’m doing in Cuba. It’s all muddled up in my head, because I’m on my way to South America. Brazil. Remember how we used to dream of Brazil? Pelé, the great Pelé. The white Sugarloaf Mountain and the girls on the beach, remember that? We were ten back then, the 1970 World Cup. That was in Mexico. Brazil versus Italy in the final. We watched it at my uncle’s bar. And the semi-final too, West Germany versus Italy. That was a great game, 4–3 for Italy, I remember it really clearly because my uncle threw a bottle of spirits at the screen after extra time. Rudi had a bet on that Germany would be world champions. You do remember my Uncle Rudi, don’t you? That little bar down by the park. Is the building still there? What’s in there now? Uncle Rudi sold his bar in summer ’89 and went to the West. But you probably know that yourself anyway.

So you still live in our part of town, that’s good, someone has to keep the flag flying, even when times are hard.

Frank, I’ve got rich. No, don’t worry, I haven’t robbed a bank like I joked about once, years ago. I don’t think I could have done it, just walked into a bank and pulled out some gun. Even if I’d been out of work to the end of my days, I’d have tried to get through it with decency.

Frank, I’m almost a bit embarrassed to write to you from Cuba that I’ve got rich. I heard things aren’t going all that well for you, and you’re still my oldest and best friend, even though we haven’t seen each other for so long, and I hope my letter gives you strength and courage. One of the old guard has made it!

But you know I’ve always been a bit boastful, so I have to backtrack a bit. I haven’t got really rich of course, but it’s more money than I’ve ever had in my life. If I invest it well and spend it a bit carefully I’ll probably be able to live off it a few years, but you know me, I’ve never been that good with money and I’ll probably never learn to be, even though I’m trying not to spend it like water. But I want to see a little piece of the world and tell you about it. I’m forty-six now, like you, but I don’t want to start on about how time passes, because you know that just as well as I do. I’m just drinking thirty-year-old rum, do you remember, thirty years ago, maybe a bit longer even, we got really drunk for the first time. We puked our guts out in Uncle Rudi’s bar, but I still like thinking about that night, and I am right now, as I’m drinking this wonderful rum, it’s really dark in the glass, almost black. I’m sitting on the balcony, in a small hotel right on the sea. A beach I’ve never seen the likes of, all white, and the sea’s green and then further out it goes blue again. Turquoise — I’d only seen it in photos. And I want to write about the evening sun, which is so huge, but I can’t help thinking of us sitting at Uncle Rudi’s bar and drinking that cheap blended rum and imagining we were in Rio de Janeiro drinking the very finest rum with fresh mint in it, with the sea and Sugarloaf Mountain outside, and coffee-coloured Brazilian beauties dancing tango on the beach. Tango in Brazil. And we were happy somehow when we daydreamed like that, even though we usually puked really badly afterwards. Yesterday I was in a bar in Havana where they had over a hundred kinds of rum. Some of the bottles from before we were even born. And cigars, the very finest Cuban cigars, hand rolled, I’ll try and send you one but I don’t know if it’ll get through customs. But to stop you wondering, I’ll tell you how I came into the money. Uncle Rudi died. He didn’t get much money for his bar back then. He really wanted to go to the West, and six months later the Wall came down but he never came back, and nobody knew what he was doing. He never wrote either, I didn’t even know he was still alive. And then I get a letter, and then I find out that my Uncle Rudi, the crazy old geezer, had a thriving bar in Hamburg. Can you imagine Uncle Rudi behind the counter of a good, posh bar? I couldn’t either, but that’s just how it was. All those years, Uncle Rudi had a smart little bar on the Kiez, and he put money aside. You know my parents have been dead for over ten years now, he was my mother’s brother, and Uncle Rudi never married and never had children either. He never got in touch in all the years, but I was in his will, just me. And I bet there would have been much more money left if he hadn’t had such a grand lifestyle, but you know Uncle Rudi. It’s nearly dark now. If only I could describe this huge red sun on the ocean. I have to get a camera, I didn’t even think of that, but it is my first big trip.

There’s a little road down in front of the hotel, where real vintage cars drive past sometimes. There are hardly any new cars in Cuba because of the embargo. I’ve never seen such amazing vintage models, Chevrolets with big hood ornaments, ancient black Fords, some of the cars are put together out of several parts of different makes, but they drive.

Frank, I wish I could shake your hand. Say hello to everyone when you’re walking round our part of town. I’ll write again soon, no matter where I travel next.

Your old friend, Wolfgang

He was on the balcony between the empty beer bottles. They clinked quietly whenever he moved. He had folded up the letter and was holding it in one hand. He looked at the dark houses, blue light flickering in a few windows now. He held a glass in the other hand, cheap Jamaican blended rum, he’d gone to the all-night garage specially and bought himself a small bottle, even though it cost almost three times as much as at the shops. In winter, he sometimes had rum in the house, because he liked to make himself a hot toddy when he was cold, but it wasn’t even autumn yet. He took a swig. The stuff tasted terrible; he never drank it straight usually but that didn’t matter right now. He raised his glass and moved it to and fro in front of his face, and the rum moved in the glass and looked almost black in the darkness. He had turned out the light in the kitchen, the balcony door was pushed to, and he heard the quiet hum of the fridge. He was still holding the letter tightly in his left hand, he had taken it along to the garage, had held it so tightly all the way that he could see his fingerprints on it as he stood in front of the spirits section and put the letter in his jacket pocket and took the bottle off the shelf with his damp and trembling hand.