In Times of Fading Light

Of course it can’t be true. Probably a trick of his senses. Self-deception.

Mexico lindo y querido
si muero lejos de ti
que digan que estoy dormido
y que me traigan aqui

The song is over. He realizes that tears are running down his cheeks. The musicians laugh. The singer asks him: “Americano?”

“Aleman,” says Alexander quietly.

“Aleman,” repeats the singer out loud, for the benefit of the others. “Ah, Aleman,” they say.

They stop laughing. Nod appreciatively, as if he had come all the way from Germany on foot. The singer claps him on the shoulder.

“Hombre,” he says.

Alexander walks away. The musicians wave.

He walks slowly. He is singing. There are fewer people in the street now. He buys a beer. The tears dry on his cheeks. He breathes the night air in; it is cooler now. Maybe only because the body warmth of the crowd has gone? The police whistles have fallen silent. There are no stars to be seen. He is in Mexico. How many years has he been sure that he would never, ever in his life, set foot in this country? Now he’s here. Now he is walking through the city. All self-deception. The Wall. His cancer. Who says I have cancer? Suddenly, when he thinks back, the whole thing strikes him as insane. The diagnosis is a mere assertion. The hospital a deranged machine churning out names of diseases. What kind of disease? Some kind of pH values, some shit like that. Oh, to go away. Simply tear himself away from this sick and sickening world…

Well, here I am. I salute you, great city. I salute the sky, the trees, the potholes in the asphalt. I salute the women selling tortillas and the musicians. I salute all of you who’ve been waiting for me. I’m here. I bought myself a hat. That’s the start.

Should he have given the musicians money?

That suspicion is the one thing that makes him a little uneasy as he falls asleep.

The dogs wake him in the morning. What dogs? He looks out of the window. Sure enough, there are two large mongrels on the roof of the neighboring building, one with a shaggy coat, one smooth coated. What are they guarding up there? The chimney? The roof?

Five thirty, too early to get up (although in Germany—he works it out—it would be 12:30 p.m. now). He pulls the covers over his head, it doesn’t help. The windows have no double glazing, the frequencies are piercing. A howl first, then some barking. One dog is the howler, the other the barker. The howler begins it, the barker joins in: Woohoo—woof, woof.

He gets out of bed to see which dog is howling and which is barking. The shaggy dog is the howler, the smooth dog the barker.

A pause. He’s waiting for it now: Woohoo—what happened to the woof, woof?

He remembers the Ohropax earplugs. He still has some in his toiletry bag; Marion took them to the hospital for him when she visited. Plastic Ohropax plugs, a newfangled idea. But better than nothing.

When he is lying in bed again, something occurs to him: Marion! He forgot to call her. Well, he didn’t forget, but he didn’t get around to it… the Ohropax plugs crackle reproachfully in his ears. The silicon material stretches, and has a tendency to work its way out of his ears again… he’ll write to her, he thinks. Dear Marion, he will write, you will probably be wondering… I’m in Mexico because I… yes, because I what? On my Granny’s trail… oh, wonderful! Dear Marion… And how is he going to explain why he didn’t call her?

Dear Marion, I can’t exactly explain anything. All of a sudden I’m in Mexico. A good thing I have the Ohropax, there are dogs on the roof here… but to be honest, these newfangled earplugs crackle. Next time, please, if possible… or sleeping tablets. Because of the dogs… Woohoo… which was which again? One howls, and the other’s voice is quieter now. Hear that? In the background. Beyond the crackling… Woohoo… what happened to the… to the… woof… woof…

He wakes to find the room bathed in bright sunlight. It is 8:00 a.m. He gets up, showers. Looks at himself in the mirror for a while. Wonders whether to shave. Puts his new hat on. What does he see?

Well, what did he expect? A man in a hat. Aged forty-seven. Pale. Unshaven.

He looks older than he is.

He looks more dangerous than he is.

That satisfies him for now.

The hotel breakfast room is too sterile for him. Too European. He breakfasts in the cafe opposite. An old establishment, with almost the atmosphere of a Viennese coffeehouse, the one incongruous feature being the naked, bright white neon tubes illuminating the whole place. In their light the waitress looks yellow. He asks for a typical Mexican breakfast. He gets something unidentifiable, mushy. Red and green. However, the coffee is good, topped up from a metal pot. Almost viscous, you have to add milk.

And now for Mexico City by day. He has always imagined the city as colorful, but what they call the historic center is gray. It looks much like any big city in southern Spain, apart from the fact that all the buildings tilt at an angle. The damp subsoil, he reads in the Backpackers’ Guide, was already giving the ancient Aztecs problems.

He also reads that the Mexicans don’t call it Mexico City themselves, but DF, Distrito Federal.

And he reads about the mariachi bands that will play a serenade in the Plaza Garibaldi for anyone who wants. This square, he reads, is very much a tourist area, and prices are correspondingly high.

A temporary hall is just being erected in the main square, the Zocalo, a hall large enough to make you fear the imminent advent of a touring production of Holiday on Ice. He looks around the Metropolitan Cathedral, praised in the Backpackers’ Guide as a masterpiece of Mexican Baroque, wanders around the ostentatious nave, stands staring in astonishment at the indecent splendor of a heavily gilded altar twenty meters tall.

Next to the cathedral is the Templo Mayor, the great temple of the old Aztec city, or rather its pitiful remains. Destroyed, plundered, flattened by an earthquake, witness to the battle of two cultures, one peacefully Christian, the other the bloodthirsty Aztec culture demolished within a few months by Hernan Cortes with slightly over two hundred soldiers (and a clever policy of alliance, of course). From the ruins of the temple you can see the back of the cathedral, and note that stones from the temple were used to build it.

At the side of the square stands an indio in a magnificent feather headdress. There are two more Mexicans inside a chalk circle in front of him, and as he murmurs incantations he is clouding their minds with incense. Ten or twenty people are watching: old people, young people, couples. The indio is naked, short and stout, with blue lips.

Four children in a side street, making music. That’s to say, three of them are making music: one plays a clarinet, two are clumsily beating drums, and a little girl in pants rather too short for her is walking around, holding out a hat to passersby. The girl can’t be more than five. Her expression is furtive, ashamed. Alexander gives her a few pesos, wonders whether he ought to give her what he thinks he owed the musicians in the Plaza Garibaldi. But he doesn’t. He is afraid of making a fool of himself—in whose eyes?

He takes the Metro to the Insurgentes station. Itinerant street vendors get in and out. Shouting, selling CDs of terrible music bawled out of battery-driven players. Alexander castigates himself for not giving the children money.

Up aboveground again, the Avenida de los Insurgentes—the Avenue of the Insurgents. An ordinary street, more normal than the center, and dirtier, but this too is not what he imagined Mexico City would be like. People,