All the Lights by Clemens Meyer Page A

usually pretty fast. Hey, bring him another beer on me, and a shot of something too, he could do with one.’
    The man with the broken nose turned to the barmaid, then he sat down on the bar stool, making him a head taller than the Dutchman, still standing there perfectly calmly with his left foot forwards.
    ‘Money,’ the man with the broken nose said now, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together right in front of the Dutchman’s face, and then he started humming; it was meant to sound like that seventies song, ‘Money, Money, Money …’ The barmaid put a new beer and a schnapps down next to his half-full glass. He didn’t turn to her; all he could see was her hands. Pale blue fingernails.
    ‘Our Raik,’ said the other man, ‘he’s in hospital now, won’t be fighting for a long time, maybe never again. You’re a clever lad, Holland fighter … You are a clever lad, aren’t you?’
    He didn’t answer. He knew now it was going to be a hard night and he took a deep breath in and out again. In and out again. He felt his legs trembling; he’d fought eight long rounds.
    ‘Raik’d be happy if you thought a little about him.’ The Dutchman looked at the guy with the broken nose, who was rubbing his thumb and forefinger together again. ‘You made good money tonight, didn’t you?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the hard way, with my face.’
    ‘Now you listen to me,’ said broken nose, ‘you, my Dutch friend, have put Raik on ice for a good long while. Who knows if he’ll ever … Raik’s got a wife and a little kid, they’d be really grateful for a little present.’
    ‘No,’ said the Dutchman. He picked up the schnapps glass, held it in his outstretched hand, tipped it and poured the liquid slowly on the floor at the man’s feet. He felt the roll of money in his pocket, he thought of Rotterdam, his wife and the child they were going to have, thought of the boxing club he was going to come in on.
    He slammed the schnapps glass down on the bar, grabbed the beer glass with his left hand and said, ‘No.’
     
     
    He was standing in the little room, right by the window; the curtains were closed. Behind him, he heard his wife in the bathroom; the door was open and he heard her using her make-up and cosmetics stuff, a clinking of small bottles, glass and plastic, running water.
    She started humming to herself now and he closed his eyes for a moment. Then he moved the curtain aside slightly. There was a car outside the house. The window on the driver’s side was wound down, an arm dangling out. ‘Are they still there?’ asked his wife, but it couldn’t be his wife, she was speaking German, and the voice sounded nothing like hers either. ‘Yes,’ he said, pulling the curtain closed again.
    ‘You can wait here till they’ve gone. But no cops – I don’t want any trouble, verstehst du?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No cops.’ He went over to the table and sat down. He wasn’t in Rotterdam, only his wife was there, alone in their little flat.
    He drank a swig of the whisky the barmaid had poured him.
    ‘I’ve got a room upstairs,’ she’d said to him down in the bar. ‘My shift’s over in a minute. You can come up and wait until those bastards have gone.’
    He drank the whisky, feeling himself getting gradually drunk. His neck hurt, his arms and shoulders ached, and he could feel the swelling beneath his right eye pressing against his eyeball. He was tired; he didn’t want to fight any more. He drank another swig, saw the glass trembling, the ice cubes clinking quietly, and he put his other hand on his trouser pocket. Why hadn’t the bastards tried to see to him in the bar? But they’d left when he’d shown them he was ready to use the heavy beer glass in his left hand. ‘We’ll be seeing you,’ they’d said. Now he was sitting with her and waiting. He put the whisky glass down; he was so tired, his head drooped onto his chest; she was standing behind him. She said something but he couldn’t