All the Lights Read Online Free Page A

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.
    As he walked back home he held the letter in his left hand and the bottle of rum in his right like a small club. Grown men and teenage lads walked past him towards the garage, some with empty cloth or plastic bags, some looking at the ground, others looking him right in the eye and barging into him slightly, but he broadened his shoulders under his jacket, walked along the middle of the pavement and held the letter at chest level so that everyone could see it, as if they’d understand then that his old friend Wolfgang was sitting by the sea in Cuba, watching the big red evening sun and drinking rum with all his money. ‘… and I hope my letter gives you strength and courage. One of the old guard has made it!’
    He turned around and saw the neon lights of the garage, a good