The visit to Miami, Florida in November was a memorable experience to me, a dip into the tropics away from Germany,  the realm of eternal clouds with dawn and dusk ever in mutual eye contact.

The scenery featured coconut palms and banana, with leaves 6 meters long. I faced a spotless clean city without hustle and bustle, in contrast to any other big city of the US. The natives, fluent both in English and Spanish, preferred the latter. My wife and I stayed at the South Beach a block away from the long and broad stretches of shining sand, devoid of the rush prevalent in European beach resorts. The tourism business was low key.

The international Book Fair was on the Dade College campus downtown. The lane hosting the booth of our publisher had the coincidental name “Berlin Wall Way”! I signed away some 65 copies with brief talks with the readers, about fifteen queueing up all the time. I got a break for a drink only after an hour. From their names, many of them strange to me, I noticed half came from all over South America besides Mexico. Only one pair came from Germany plus a female student from Kerala, India. The international interest was evident indeed.

Encountering the readers was indeed an experience dear and rare, as they smiled in the glare to share the air and the moment with me, in contrast with all those readers imagined by me in the past, imported from the future during the lonesome hours at my desk, as my nervous fingers performed for them, those friends of tomorrow crowding in my house with their brows in frowns, or with a mere scowl, or a groan or a howl. On this day, they were like the palm trees here and now, well-wishers in vivo; I reposed in their shadow. Wow!