WHEN DANIEL received the letter, at first he thought it came from Hell.
It was a thick envelope, made of yellowish, coarse-fibered paper. There was no sender’s name, but Daniel’s name and address were written in the lazy, almost illegible capitals that were characteristic of his brother’s handwriting. As if they had been written in haste.
But the letter could hardly be from Max. Daniel couldn’t recall ever getting a letter or even a postcard from his brother. On the rare occasions that Max had been in touch, he had phoned.
The stamp was foreign. And obviously it didn’t say Hell, as he first thought with a shudder. The poorly printed postmark read “Helvetia.”
He took the letter with him into the kitchen and left it on the table while he sorted out the coffee machine. He usually had a cup of coffee and a couple of sandwiches instead of dinner when he got home. He ate lunch in the school cafeteria and, seeing as he was single, he never really felt like cooking just for himself later on.
As the old coffee machine rattled into action, he started to open the envelope with a bread knife but stopped when he noticed that his hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold the knife steady. He was having trouble breathing; it felt like he’d tried to swallow something far too large. He had to sit down.
The way he felt about the as yet unopened letter was the same way he used to feel whenever he and Max met. Great joy at finally seeing him, an urge to run up to his brother and give him a big hug. But at the same time something holding him back. A vague, rumbling unease.
“I can at least read what he’s got to say,” he said out loud to himself in a voice that was steady and firm, as if a different, more sensible person were talking through him.
He took a firm grasp of the bread knife and opened the envelope.