In Times of Fading Light Read Online Free PDF

Charlotte predicted.
    However, there turned out to be practically no countryside at all near Puerto Ángel.
    They did once go to nearby Pochutla—in another truck carrying coffee—and visited the Chinese store there. Wilhelm stalked abstractedly through the store, which was stuffed to bursting with wares, and stopped in front of a large, polished, spiral seashell.
    “Twenty-five pesos,” said the Chinese salesman.
    A steep price tag.
    “Oh, you’ve always wanted one of those,” said Charlotte.
    Wilhelm shrugged his shoulders.
    “We’ll buy it,” said Charlotte.
    She paid without haggling over the price.
    Another time they went to Mazunte on foot. The beaches were all much the same, with the sole difference that the beach in Mazunte was covered with dark patches. They found out why when they saw fishermen removing the shell from a huge turtle while the creature was still alive.
    They didn’t go to Mazunte again, and they stopped eating turtle soup.
    Then, at last, New Year’s Eve came. The men of the village had been loading coffee all day, with much shouting and noise. Now they had been paid their wages. By three in the afternoon they were all drunk, and by six they were senseless. All was quiet in the village. Nothing stirred, there was no one in sight. Charlotte and Wilhelm had lit a little fire, as they did every evening, using the wood that the mozo gathered for them for a few pesos.
    Darkness fell early; the evenings were long.
    Wilhelm smoked.
    The fire crackled.
    Charlotte pretended to show an interest in the bats swooping past like shooting stars in the firelight.
    At midnight they drank champagne out of water tumblers, and they both ate their grapes: it was a local custom to eat twelve grapes as the New Year came in. Twelve wishes—one for each month.
    Wilhelm ate all his grapes at once.
    Charlotte wished, first of all, for Werner to be still alive. She used up three grapes on that wish alone. Kurt was alive, she knew; she had heard from him by mail. For reasons that he didn’t mention in his letter, he had ended up in the Urals somewhere, and now he was married and still living there. But there was no news of Werner. In spite of Dretzky’s efforts. In spite of Werner being reported missing to the Red Cross. In spite of her petitions to the Soviet consulate—the first of them had been made six years ago.
    “Keep calm, citizen. Everything will take its course.”
    “Comrade, I am a member of the Communist Party, and all I want is to find out whether my son is alive.”
    “You may be a member of the Communist Party, but that doesn’t give you special privileges.”
    Pig-faced bastard. I hope they shoot you. And she bit on another grape.
    And I hope they shoot Ewert and Radovan as well, why not? One grape each.
    Another grape was used to convert their fate into typhoid fever. The kind that can be cured. Another grape to have Ewert’s wife, Inge, who had recently become editor in chief, infected by the typhoid fever too.
    Suddenly there were only three grapes left. She must go carefully with them now.
    The tenth: good health for all her friends—who exactly were they? The eleventh: for all who were still missing. She wished them well every year.
    And as for the twelfth grape ... she simply ate it. Without wishing for anything. Suddenly it was gone.
    Anyway, this was pointless. She’d wished five times already for them to go home to Germany in the coming year, and it had done no good. They were still here.
    Still here—while back there in the new state, positions were being handed out.
    Two days later they flew back to Mexico City. The editorial meeting was on Wednesday, as usual. It was true that Wilhelm had not been reelected to the management committee, but he retained his old functions on the Demokratische Post; he drew up the balance sheet, managed expenses, helped with the makeup of the journal and the distribution of the print run, which had shrunk to a few hundred copies.
    Charlotte,