*
Paris is the capital and largest city of France, in the north-central part of the country on the Seine River.
I thought English is a strange language. Now I think French is even more strange. In France, their fish is poisson, their bread is pain and their pancake is crêpe. Pain and poison and crap. That’s what they have every day.
“Du pain?”
The man serves me in a small brasserie nearby Les Halles, with some bread on the little basket.
“Non. Je ne veux pas pain!” I answer. I learn this from French for Beginners by Michael Thomas.
But one minute later, he comes back with a small basket of pain again, asks me:
“Encore un peu de pain?”
“Ça sufficient!” I say, wiping my mouth, stand up.
No more pain in my life.
Only rice makes me happy.
Journey London-Paris was big let down. When I sit on the comfortable chair in the Eurostar, the French-accent-staff announce the whole journey will take two hours and thirty-five minutes. Two and a half hours I will be in the centre of a new country. Europe is so small, I can’t believe it. No wonder that it wants to become a Union. I am so much looking forward to see English Channel. I remember a Chinese man in 2001 who swam cross this Channel to earn national face for Chinese government, but when he reached French seashore he didn’t have visa to arrive. Of course he didn’t have visa, because he almost naked. In China, we all thought that French people don’t understand Heroism. Hero doesn’t need visa. Even a third world hero. Chairman Mao used to swim cross Yang Zi River, biggest river in China, in his very old age. He is of course, a hero.
The train is fast. There are still green fields and white sheeps outside of window. The speaker announce that in five minutes we will be in the tunnel of English Channel. So exciting, I can’t wait. Five minutes later I find we are in the absolutely darkness, deep darkness. I thought the tunnel is made of glass, so it is transparent to be able to see the blue seawater. But there is no difference with London underground. In the long darkness, I wonder if those fishes beside us are blocked by the tunnel and will be confused in the sea. Disappointed, I am finding myself come out from the dark tunnel, and arrive to the French side.
Musée D’Orsay, Paris, a place exhibit lots of work from Impressionists. I-m-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n-i-s-t, and I-m-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n-i-s-m. Longest two words I have ever learned so far. Even longer than c-o-m-m-u-n-i-s-t and c-o-m-m-u-n-i-s-m. There are several paintings from Monet. I stare at these obscure water lilies, obscure gate, and obscure sunrise. The colour and the subject in these paintings are like somebody looking through a dirty window glass. Especially the one about the impression of sunrise, sunrise on the sea. Everything blurred, the wave, the sea, the sun, the cloud are all blurred. Even the colour is blurred too.
Night in a cheap hotel. Forty-five euro including breakfast. The room is so small, like a place for one of Snow White’s seven dwarfs, but the French-style balcony is always better than English one. I sit on the old high-back-chair thinking there must be one thousand dead people used to sit on this chair and spent their hotel time doing strange or boring things. Turn on the desk lamp, I start to write you a letter. But my eyes can’t see anything clearly today; especially I can’t read clearly the trails of my writing. White paper too sharp for eyes, black ink too weak to read. When I look at the dictionary, every word is blurred. The optician in London told me the power of my short eyesight is growing, getting worse. They said I can’t do laser surgery because my corneal are too thin. Will my future is a world of blurness?
I look out of the window. I can see the black clouds at the bottom of the dark sky, and I can see the dim lights in somebody’s house which is not far away from this hotel, and the shadow of trees by the street light. But that’s all, no more details in the street. I remember once you told me about an American eye doctor, who invented Bates Method. He taught those short-eyesight-patients how to use eyes properly. He said keep your vision centered. When you regard an object, only one small part should be seen best. This is because only the centre of the retina has the best vision for detail. Rest of retinal area is less able to pick up fine detail. Does this mean I don’t or can’t use the centre of the retina to see things properly? That I like Monet, Van Gogh and all these impressionists, see the world blurred too?
I want to see you only at the centre of retina and everything else blurred. What am I doing in this busy Continent when I just want see you?
Amsterdam is the constitutional capital and largest city of the Netherlands in the western part of the country where the Amstel River is joined by a sluice dam.
I only stop in Amsterdam for one day. I am going to Berlin. I don’t know why I don’t feel like to stay. I don’t know anything about Holland, and I even didn’t know Holland , Dutch, the Netherland meaning the same place. Why a country have so many different names? Before I thought these three spread somewhere differently in Europe.
There are only two things I know about Holland: first, the Communist Dutch man Joris Ivens made a film called The 400 Million about Chinese against Japanese invasion; second, all the tulips in China are said from Holland. About Joris Ivens, I saw a film camera been exhibited in the Museum of the Revolution in Beijing. It is the camera he gave to the Communists army at late 1930s. Maybe that’s why Chinese Communists started making films since then.
Amsterdam Central station. A large place. A place for temporary stop and for passing by.
So many people here, but nobody will stay here more than one hour.
From platform 15 to 1, I cannot find a place to sit my bum. No, there is no single chair or bench in this Central Station. The passengers hold their pizza in hand and eat it without a seat. The passengers stand and drink paper-cup coffee without a seat. A man, with a huge suitcase and a big rocksack, talk in mobile phone in a strange language. A language without any similarity with other language I have heard in my whole life. He keeps talking in the phone and his face is sad. He talks in the phone for so long, and it seems like he is being sucked by the telewave and disappeared in the phone-zone. In that dark phone-zone it is no seats either.
The train to Berlin will be departure at 8:15 p.m. Five hours to wait. I decide go for a walk.
Outside station so much water. And houses like doll house. In front of one house I meet a man drinking coffee on doorsteps. I stopped to look at house because I saw some familiar leaf with special fragrant. Lush wisterias climbing on a big tree. I always love this plant. It is so Chinese. It was growing everywhere behind our house in my home town. And it is growing in your English garden as well. I put down my heavy rocksack and try to have a rest.
Man on doorsteps looks at me and asks in English, “Would you like a cup of coffee before you start walking again?”
“Oh. Is that convenient for you, to make a cup of coffee?”
He smiles. “It’s no problem. I’ve already made a pot. So I just need to fetch a cup for you.”
He goes back inside of house. Quite dark inside.
We sit on doorsteps and drink a very bitter coffee without milk. I dare not ask him about milk, thinking maybe Dutch man doesn’t use milk.
“I am Peter. And you?”
“Zhuang Xiao Qiao…Well, just call me Z, if you want.”
“Z?” He laughs. “That’s a strange name.”
In England, people tell me if somebody says something “strange” means they don’t like it. So I don’t answer him.
Then he asks me:
“Are you Japanese? Or Philippino? Or maybe Vietnamese? Or Thailandese?”
I a little annoyed: “Why I couldn’t be a Chinese?”
“Oh, are you?” he says, and looks at me meaningfully.
His smile reminds me of you. A bit different. He wears a black leather jacket.
“Do you like plants?” he asks me, because my eyes were still on the wisteria.
“Yes, I like those vines, wisteria. It is originally from China,” I say.
“Oh, really? I didn’t know that.”
He starts to look at the plants as well.
“My father told me that wisteria is very long-lived,” I say. “Some vines surviving 50 years. They climb the trees and they can kill the trees.”
“You know a lot about plants.” He looks at me: “So why are you running around the world?”
“I don’t know.”
“ China is far away from here. And you don’t have anybody travelling with you?”
I nod my head. Not knowing what to say.
People in the street are in a hurry with their bags, they must rush back to have dinner with their family. Everywhere people live in the same way.
“And are you going to the train station now?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you going?”
“ Berlin.”
“ Berlin. A nice city. Have you been there before?”
“No.”
“ Berlin is cool.”
But I don’t want to know about Berlin, I think only of my home. So I ask, “Do you live in this house? Is this your home?”
“Well, not exactly my home. But I rent it.”
“Can I ask what do you do here?”
“Me? I just came back from another country. Cuba. I was there for ten years.”
Cuba? Why Cuba? Live there for ten years as a Dutch? Is he also a Communist like Joris Ivens?
I start to watch him, instead of watching the people in the street.
His eyes meet my eyes.
I look up his home. It is a beautiful old house.
“Don’t you want to change your ticket? Then you could stay with me for a bit until you want to go.” He looks at me sincerely. He is very serious, I think.
I shake my head. I put my empty coffee cup on the stone step. I look at my rocksack in front of me. I stand up and ready to go. But suddenly my tears come out without me noticing.
The man is surprised. He doesn’t know what to say. He gives me his hand and lets me hold it. I hold his hand, tightly. I don’t know him, I don’t know him, I tell myself.
Now the big clock on platform shows 20:08. There are seven minutes left. Sky is pink outside. Waiting and feeling lonely. Now there is no time I can go back to the centre of city.
A big train station is a bleak place. This station is bigger than any station in London. Waterloo Station, King Cross Station are just too normal compare with this one. Travel alone, makes me feel sad when I see all these couples hold each other’s hand and wait patiently.
A floating dust, that must be how God see a little human drifting on the Earth.
I feel difficult without you. I become language handicapped. I got so many problems to understand this world around me. I need you.
Holding the ticket to Berlin, but I don’t feel like to go. There is no one I can meet in Berlin, and there is nothing I know about Germany. I just want go back to London, to my lover.
Home is everything. Home is not sex but also about it. Home is not a delicious meal but is also about it. Home is not a lighted bedroom but is also about it. Home is not a hot bath in the winter but it is also about it.
The speaker on the platform renounces something loudly. It is 20:11. The train will leave in four minutes. I look around and ready to get on train. Suddenly, somebody is running towards me. It’s him. The man offered me coffee in front of his doorsteps. He is running on the platform, and he is running towards me. I am stepping into the carriage, so I drop my bags on the floor and come out the train again. He stops right in front of me, breathless. We stare at each other. I hug him tightly and he hugs me tightly. I bury my head into his arms. I see my tears wet his black leather jacket. The smell of the leather jacket is strange, but somehow so familiar.
I am crying: “I don’t want to go…I feel so lonely.”
He hugs me, even tighter.
“You don’t have to go.”
“But I have to go,” I say.
The bell rings. The train starts to move. When his back disappears off the platform, I dry my tears. It is so strange. I don’t know what has been happened on me, but something has happened. Now it is over. It is over. I am leaving Amsterdam. There is no way to return. I know I am on a journey to collect the bricks to build my life. I just need to be strong. No crying baby anymore. I pull down the windows, and sit down on my seat.
Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany in the northeast part of the country; formerly divided into East Berlin and West Berlin, the city was reunified in 1990.
“The size of China is almost the size of the whole Europe,” my geography teacher told us in middle school. He drawed a map of China on blackboard, a rooster, with two foot, one foot is Taiwan, another foot is Hainan. Then he drawed a map of Soviet on top of China. He said: “This is Soviet. Only Soviet and America are bigger than China. But China has the biggest population in the world.”
I often think of what he said, and think of how at school we were so proud of being Chinese.
It seems that I can’t stop to keep meeting new people. When I was in London, I only know you, and only talk to you. After left London to Paris, I was still in old habit and didn’t even talk to a dog in Paris. English told that French are arrogant they don’t like speak English. So I didn’t try talk to anybody in France. But that’s good for me. I don’t even need to remember how to speak Chinese there. After Paris, I tired of museums. No more dead people.
Opposite my seat a young man in his black coat and red scarf is reading newspaper. It is of course foreign language newspaper. And I don’t know the writing of that language at all.
Young man in black coat with red scarf stops reading the paper, and gives my presence a glance then back to his paper. But very soon he stops his reading and looks at the views outside of the window. I look at the window as well. There are no any views. Only the dark night, the night on no name fields. The window reflects my face, and my face observes his face.
Only him and me in this small carriage.
“ Berlin?” he asks.
“Yes, Berlin,” I say.
We start to talk, slowly, bits by bits, here and there. His English speaking accent not easy understand.
“My name is Klaus.”
“OK. Klaus,” I say.
He waits, then he asks: “What is your name?”
“It is difficult to pronounce.”
“OK.” He looks at me, seriously.
“I am from China, originally,” I say. I think I should explain before he asks.
“Originally?” he repeats.
“OK, I have lived in London for several months.”
“I see. I am from East Germany.” He stops. Then he says, “Your English is very good.”
Very good. Is that true? If it is, he doesn’t know how mad I have studied English every day, and even now, on the trip.
So, on this train, this new person, Klaus. He is a stranger to me. Train is really a place for films and books to set up the story. And I can feel me and this man we both want to talk, to talk about whatever.
He says he was born in Berlin, east of Berlin. He says he knows everything about East Berlin, every corner, every street. How lucky, this train is leading to his home, his love.
The night train is moving slowly. It is certainly not a fast train. Only non-important passengers would take this train, or holiday maker.
We lie down opposite each other on the couches in the tiny carriage of the train. A strange position, lying there, he and me. We talk more about Berlin.
He says that he is training in Diplomatic Department in Berlin. Before that he was a lawyer. He wanted to change his career and to live in abroad. He says he used to have for eight years a girlfriend who lives in B-a-v-a-r-i-a (B-a-v-a-r-i-a, he spells slowly to me). He explains it is in the south of Germany, but of course I don’t have any idea where is this B-a-v-a-r-i-a. He tells me his girlfriend one day came to Berlin and knocked his door. She told him she wanted to finish this relationship. So he finished it in pain, as she decided. And he decided to change his life and go to work in other countries. I understand Klaus’s story, I understand that feeling want to be far away from the past. I tell him I understand him.
Also I tell him about you, the man who I love so much, and the man who makes sculptures in London. I tell him my feeling about you-and how you tell me I have to travel alone.
We talk, then sometimes no words, and just listen.
Eventually the sun comes outside of the window.
“We are getting there,” Klaus says.
Berlin has a heavy colour, big square buildings. Like Beijing.
“So where you will stay in Berlin?” he asks.
“Don’t know. Maybe YMCA youth hotel, because I can have discount from my Europe train pass.” I show him my pass.
“I can take you to a YMCA near my flat, if you want.”
“That’s very kind of you. Please. I don’t know anywhere.”
“No problem,” he says, and pulls down his luggages from on our head.
I take my rocksack and follow him, just like a blind person.
The early morning air feels cold, like autumn coming. Occasionally, one or two old mans in a long coats walk aimlessly in the street, with the cigarettes in their lips. Under the highway there is bridge. By the bridge there is a sausage shop, lots of large mans queue there to get hot sausages. They eat purely sausage in the morning! Even worse than English Breakfast. The morning wind is washing my brain, and my small body. This is a city with something really heavy and serious in its soul. This is a city which had big wars in the history. And, I feel, this is a city made for mans, and politics, and disciplines. Like Beijing.
Then I see the flag, drifting on top of a massive building on a big square. Three bars: black, red, and yellow.
I ask Klaus: “Is that your country’s flag?”
He is surprised: “You know nothing about politics?”
I admit: “Yes, I am sorry. I never know it. So many different flags, they confuse me.”
He laughs: “But you’re from China. Everything in China is about politics.”
Maybe he is right. This is a man must know this world very well.
“So it is the German flag?” I guess.
“Yes. It is.”
I stare at the flag, stare at this black red yellow bars.
“Why the black bar on top of the flag?” I ask. “It looks so dangerous!”
He laughs again, but then stop. He raises his head and looks up the flag as well. Maybe he thinks I am not so stupid.
Black bar of flag is powerful and heavy blowing on top, and I feel a little bit scared. In a reasonable designing, the black bar should be at the bottom, other wise…it might cause bad luck. It might cause the whole country’s unfortunate.
As I remember, there is another country also has black bar on national flag, which is Afghanistan. But even Afghanistan put the black bar on the bottom instead of top.
I look up the sun through the flag, and the flag seems like a dark spot of the sun.
Through Alexanderplatz station, we are heading to east Berlin. I follow him, like a blind man following a stick. It is seven in the morning. We stand in front the YMCA Hotel. The door is not opened yet. We ring the bell. A man comes opening the door with his sleepy eyes, and he tells us that there is no vacancy until this afternoon.
So we leave YMCA, with our luggages. Standing in the middle of the street, Klaus says I could come to his flat if I want. Is very close to here.
“OK,” I say.
Klaus flat is very tidy. White plain wall, double bed with blue colour bedding, bare wooden floor without carpet, white-tile-pasted bathroom, small tidy kitchen with everything there, writing table with a leather chair, wooden wardrobe and a book shelf. That’s all.
No woman’s make up or perfumes in the bathroom. No any sign of woman anyway.
He makes a pot of coffee in his small kitchen. No milk, he opens the fridge and says. We drink the coffee, and he puts some sugar in. I don’t want any sugar. I can see there are only a piece of sad butter and two boring eggs in his fridge. He says he will leave Berlin next year, then start his diplomatic job. He grabs a pen and writes down address of flat and nearby tube station. And he gives it to me. Don’t get lost he says.
Then he opens the wardrobe and changes his tops. There are at least twenty different colour’s shirt and ten different ties hanging inside. And it seems they are all being ironed by someone properly. Who ironed his clothes? He puts on a grey-silver-colour-suit, and a dark-red-tie.
“You can leave your bags here, so you can walk around in Berlin. I’ll be back this evening from work.”
So I say yes, yes, yes to him, to Klaus. He seems nice man, no harm, only warmth. I can trust him. We walk to bus stop where goes to his office. Several office man and woman in suits and with black leather bags also waiting. Then the bus immediately coming. He kisses on my cheek and says see you tonight at home. It is so naturally, just like in a Western TV, a husband says goodbye to his wife every morning when he leaves to work. I see him disappear with the bus. And I have a strange feeling towards him.
Now I am alone, wandering around in the city of Berlin. I feel really naked. I care about nothing of this city. I have no love or hate whatsoever towards this city.
What I should know about Germany? The Wall? The Socialism? Or the Second World War? The Fascist? Why they hated Jews? Why Auschwitz is not set in their own country? The history text book in China told us a little about Germany, but very confusing.
I only know they have sausages, different taste sausages sold under the bridge. And people eat the sausage with a wooden stick in the street. I remember this morning a very noble-looking man in front of sausage shop, and was eating tomato-sauce-covered-sausage with his office files under his arm. That’s my understanding of Berlin.
It remind me so much of Beijing. The city is in square shape. Straight long street, right, left, no wandering. And some more bigly square building blocks. It must need a dictator like Chairman Mao to make a city like this. But of course this city look much more older than Beijing. Big buildings in Beijing came out from last fifteen years-or I would rather say: last fifteen days. Most of trees standing in Beijing streets are new trees, which being planted maybe no more than five years. History in Beijing doesn’t exist anymore, only empty Forbidden City for tourists taking photos.
I pass by that sausage shop under bridge again. The steams come out from the food. It smells good. It seduces me to want have some sausages too. I give three euros to the man in the shop, and he kindly gives me a big pack of hot sausage, with green mustard and red sauce by the side. It look exactly like a lump of shit. But it tastes good.
My body is in Berlin, but my heart is left in London, left for you. I don’t feel myself together. All I want do is find some internet café write emails. I cannot stop thinking of you.
You wrote me from London this morning, or maybe you wrote from last night:
“Although our bodies are separated, I still feel as if I am with you.”
I write to you back immediately. I say it is too lonely on the road on my own. I don’t see the point.
But you write me back:
“In the West we are used to loneliness. I think it’s good for you to experience loneliness, to explore what it feels like to be on your own. After a while, you will start to enjoy solitude. You won’t be so scared of it anymore.”
I read this email again and again in internet café not knowing your exactly meaning.
In café by big street I go and sit read some pages of Intimacy hoping it make me feel close to you. The cheese cake I just had is sticking on the cover of the book. It is very depressed book, I don’t understand why you want me to read. It is about a middle-aged man leave his wife and children, to abandon his family life. Is that how you feel living with me? Is that the reason you sent me off to travel the Continent explore my solitude? I feel angry. I put down book, looking around the room.
Is a modern café, the red and black colour chairs and tables are all in geometry shape. So much designing here, it almost feels uncomfortable. I want you suddenly turn up in front of me, and take off my clothes and squeeze my body and hold tightly. Oh, I want to make love with you, make love with you right now, right here. Only making love can wipe out this loneliness. Only making love can touch the soul. I want you hold my body painfully tight. I feel hurting when you squeeze my body like that, but at the same time I feel contented. It’s strange. Pleasure could be so painful.
I wander around for whole day. In the big shopping mall watching people. In the stagnant park watching people. In the meat market watching people. Lots leather here on people’s clothes. Even in the Starbucks, the sofas are leather sofas. How come so much leathers being produced in this country? A long day of leatherness. Sit and walk and dream. Eventually it comes to the evening. I walk back to Klaus flat. Yes, no mistakes, the exactly right street, and the exactly right gate, and the exactly right door number. Because I got this Berlin map from London, from you. I wonder when you have been to Berlin and where you stayed. Your life before is twenty years ahead of me. No wonder you have so many stories, so many secrets.
I press the doorbell, nobody comes. Again, and again, I press it. Then the door opens. Klaus looks terrible. His body leaning against the door and his knees almost reaching the floor. He falls in front of me.
He is in high fever. He vomit often. He has diarrhoea. He spits out when he comes back from bathroom. He is terribly ill. He even vomit up on bed before he rushes to toilet.
I am so scared. What happened? Did he eat something bad? Will he die? Although I only know this man nine hours on night train, I have small responsibility to his life now. But what I am going do?
I sit on his bed and give him a glass of tap water. He drinks but straight goes to bathroom to spit out. He lies down on bed again, and says sorry to me. I hold his hand. I lie down beside him and feel his body is like burning. Then he rushes to toilet again. Vomit, till nothing can be taken out from his stomach anymore.
“Give me a piece of paper, and a pen,” he says.
I find pen and paper on his table.
“Please, go out and buy me this kind of water, with a red star and a lion on the label.” He writes down the name of the water: Gerolsteiner Stille Quelle.
I can’t believe what he wrote. What a German! Water can have such a complicated name!
I come back with four big plastic bottle of water. He drinks. Gerolsteiner Stille Quelle. Slowly. Then he lies back to the bed, half sleep. I return to bathroom to fetch a wet towel, and fold it to put on his head.
It is very late, and I am hungry. The man lying on the bed is breathing difficultly. I open fridge and decide boil the only two eggs. Finding the pot, filling the water, switch on the gas, putting in the eggs…Look, I can make something in this German kitchen, though it’s uncomfortable to cook in some stranger’s home. There are some tea bags there, so I make tea. I add some sugar this time, as I am too hungry.
After eating two eggs with salt, I come back his bed. I feel his temperature is still rising. I get up to find his telephone. But I don’t know which number I should dial. 999? 911? 221? 123? Is Berlin system like London or China? I give up the telephone and come back to him. I take out the sweat-soaked towel on his forehead and cool it again in the cold water. I am thinking one moment he was so tidy like his bachelor’s flat, but another moment he is so messed and fucked up. I don’t understand Germans. I switch off the light and lie down beside this man.
I feel so tired by walking around in Berlin whole day. I pull over bits of his duvet to cover my body. Quickly I fall into my dreams.
I am waking up by his heat. It is so hot. He is sweaty and everything on the bed is wet and sticky. He says something not clear:
“Can I have some water…?”
His breathe is heavy and difficult, like he is running at the end of a marathon.
Then he says: “I feel very very cold.”
I find another duvet in his wardrobe. But now I am too hot under both these duvets. I take off all my clothes, only have my pants left. And I get into the bed again. Underneath two covers of duvet, he hugs me, but still shivering. I let him hug me. I see my leopard-pattern bra lying on the floor, and I feel a bit strange.
His face turns to me, and murmurs, very unclear:
“Stay with me…”
I hear him. And I am not sleepy anymore. He lies beside me, with the fever. I hug him. He holds my naked body.
We sleep like this, so close, until next morning…
The second day, he is feeling better, but is too weak go out. I tidy the bathroom, flush the toilet, and clean the tissues by the bedside. He drank three bottle of water since last night, now only one bottle left. I make some tea, and add some sugar in his cup. My rocksack is still on the floor, without opening it yet.
“Do you know last night you said something to me?” I want to remind him, to find out.
“I’m afraid I can’t remember much about last night. My mind was blown up. I must look like shit,” he says, a little embarrassed.
“So you don’t remember anything about last night?” I am bit disappointed.
“I remember I asked you to buy some water. And you looked after me. Thank you so much. I thought I was going to die.”
“That’s OK. I was a bit scared, actually.”
He drinks his tea, slowly. I don’t know what do next. Should I leave? Should I stay? I feel like want to stay with this man.
“Do you think maybe I should spend more time in Berlin?” I ask. I wish I didn’t ask like that. I hate myself.
“Well, I don’t know. It is your decision. Look, thank you so much for everything you did, especially considering you don’t even know me. The thing is, I have to go to the office this afternoon…”
He looks distant to me from last night.
“Do you think you might come to London one day?” I ask, keep hating myself.
“I don’t know,” he says vaguely.
“What about China?”
“I think that’s very unlikely…” He laughs.
There is no reason for me to stay here in this bachelor’s flat anymore, not even stay in the city of Berlin. I will leave Berlin right now, immediately.
I send you a postcard:
My dearest,
I am leaving Berlin. I really want to go down to somewhere more warm. I don’t know if I like to travel on my own. I see all the lovers and families on the train they travel together on their holiday. For me it is not a holiday, it is something like homework from you to me. I wish you are happy.
Love,
your Z
It is a postcard with the picture of Berlin Wall. Messy drawing everywhere on the wall. It is ugly.
Sitting on bus to station, I can still smell my body having sweat from Klaus fever last night, and I ask myself: Did I fall in love with him? I don’t know Klaus, the man in east Berlin, but I feel close to him. Look, now I have my own privacy, and I don’t know if I would tell you when I come back to London.
Venice is the capital of the northeast Italian region of Veneto; built on 118 alluvial islets.
I arrive in Venice after hours and hours sleeping on train. Walk out from station, there are waters everywhere, or say, river, or should say canals. I don’t know if these waters are part of sea. But it is midnight, and very dark. Bad time. It mean I have to pay a hotel for over night staying, and I don’t know where am I now. I hope I can search twenty-four-hour café to kill the night before the morning starts, then I can find hotel for tomorrow more easy.
On the wall of St. Lucia train station, there are some posters hanging there, both in Italian and English, and also in characters like India language. The English says: “Venice Asian Art and Culture Festival.” I notice it is during this week. That a good thing for me. There are several people also just coming out from station, and looking in map. They argue something on the map, probably argue in Italian, or maybe French, or maybe some other Europe language I not understand.
A man in that group comes to me: “Parla Italiano?”
I shake my head.
“English?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Do you know where is the party?” He looks friendly.
“What party?” I say.
“You are not here for this Asian festival? There is party tonight. We are going there now. I hope it’s not too late.”
The man speaks very unclear English, but he seems very keen on Asian.
“No, it won’t be too late. It will be too early,” one of his friends says.
“Come along with us if you want,” the man says. “We can get you in.”
I am hesitating. Should I go? If I can’t find that twenty-four-hour café it could be a solution.
“Maybe I come later?” I say, putting on my heavy rocksack.
“OK,” says the man. “If you decide to come just tell them you know Andrea Palmio and they will let you in.” His friends are waiting behind for him to go. “By the way, the place is called Pachuka, and you need to take the boat to Lido…”
He pass me piece of paper with the Pachuka name on. Then they disappear with his sincere voice.
Lido? I know Lido Holiday Inn Hotel. It is the very expensive hotel in Beijing and Shanghai. Only foreigners live there, and Starbucks inside of those hotels in China. But, here, is the party also in Lido? Is it posh hotel too? Why I need take the boat to get there? Confused by all these thoughts, I walk alone to the waterbank, indecisive. Maybe I should go and pretend I am one of the famous Asian artists in the party. Westerners can’t tell the difference of a group of Chinese. In their eyes, we all look the same. I decide ask someone the way to this Lido.
Taking the night boat, I am heading to the other side of Venice. I feel like living in the old time of south China, that people have to take boat to get to other places. I am staring at the water. Is this the sea? A real sea? I can’t even see colour of water in the dark. It is very different the sea on pictures or in the film. It is also very different what you described me. I don’t think anyone want swim in this water. Also, the sea is being stopped again and again by the city. How could be possible a city still stands here without sinking? I thought a sea is boundless. I am disappointed. I want tell you immediately how I’m feeling now. Chinese always say West culture is a blue culture, Chinese culture is yellow culture. This because West from the sea, and China comes from the yellow sand.
I don’t understand the sea.
One hour later, I stand in front of “Pachuka.” From the outside it looks like a large restaurant or a night club. Neon lights everywhere. There are two very big men in the black suits, stopping everybody in front of the door. Some fashionable looking Italian mans and high-heel womans get in, with the invitation tickets holding in their hands. There are several India womans dressed up like queens or princess, also get into the door. It must be a really posh place, I wonder. I am glad I come here. But right now I can’t remember that man’s name. Why Western names are so difficult remember? So I wander around the door with my rocksack on shoulders and try to recall that name back. Antonia? Anthony? Andrew? Alexander? Antonioni? Which one sounds more closer?
Encouraging myself enormously, I walk to the door man: “My friend asked me come here. He is inside.”
The door man answers in very rude and bad English: “Sorry. It is a private party.”
“Yes, I know. But my friend invites me to come, and he is just inside the party,” I insist.
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Antonia, Anthony, no, Andrew. Maybe Antonioni…You know I am a Chinese and I can’t pronounce your country’s name.” I am embarrassed myself.
“What does your friend do?”
“He is…he is the manager of the artists.” I just open my mouth randomly. I don’t know him at all, and I don’t think he is a manager of the artists.
One of the doormans takes it a little serious and goes inside to ask somebody. One minute later he comes out:
“Sorry, we can’t let you in.”
“But he invites me here. I should get inside!” I am pissed off.
“Sorry Signorina,” the door man says emotionlessly. “No invitation, no entry. Basta.”
A posh car arrives, and three people come out with strange costumes and shining shoes. The bounce men say Signori to them, and they walk straight into the door. The music is loudly coming out from the party, and laughings. Nobody wants to take me in or even look at me a second. Why I don’t look like one of the Asian artists? I wish I wear skirt, or some old-fashioned stupid traditional Chinese costumes.
I wander outside of the Pachuka like a wild night dog, no where to return. Then I see a very big and very long car arrives abruptly. Shit, it’s a Cadillac! Comes out eight. Yes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight young womans. All blonde, with shining long golden hair. They wear the same miniskirt, and the same tight silver tops look just like bras. The silver miniskirts are so short people can see half of their bottoms. They are extremely slim, shapey, and all wear white high-heel long boots. They look like giraffes from the same giraffe mother. These sexy machines, leaded by a woman manager, their high-heels click the sandy ground: cha, cha, cha…They line up and one by one walking into the door. Two door mans fix their eyes on these girls body, like being deep frozen, can’t move. What are these sex machines doing in this “private party”? Lap dancing? None of them are Asians. Or they will just drink champagne with posh mans guests?
I must have stayed in front of door nearly an hour watching all those fascinating guests. Then I see a taxi coming. And a man comes out from the taxi. That is him, the man I met two hours ago! Why did he arrive so late? Are Italian mans all like that?
“Antonia!” I shout.
Perhaps right name because he doesn’t correct me, or maybe he didn’t understand I am actually shouting his name.
He walks to me and apologise:
“I am very sorry about this. My friends changed their mind. They wanted to go somewhere else instead. In fact, it was better than this party. Let me take you to the other place.” His English accent is almost inunderstandable.
“All right.”
I don’t want to tell him I wait here for so long. It would be not cool to let him know. So I follow him and get into his taxi.
Inside of taxi, so close, I can see his face clearly. He looks bit formal in his plain suit and black leather Made-in-Italy shoes. His hair is very few in the middle of his head. He seems sincerely but a little boring, if I can judge like that.
“So what you do?” I ask.
“I am an avocado,” he replies.
“Avocado?” I am surprised to hear. Is a fruit also a job? “Please explain me,” I ask.
“If you are going to be put into prison, you can hire me to help you in the court,” he says.
“Ah…is like a lawyer?”
“Yes! Yes! Avocado is lawyer.” He is pleased that I understand.
“What about you?” he asks.
“I am…just a tourist. Actually I am studying English.”
“In Venice?” His interests are aroused.
“No. No. Studying English in England,” I say.
“Oh, your English is good.”
“Thank you. But why you are to do with this Asian culture festival?”
“Because of my friend. He gives legal advice to this organisation so he said, ‘You must come along too.’”
“I see.”
Not another avocado!
The taxi stops in front of a disco. Behind the disco is really the open sea. Is like a big pond full of black ink. I feel dangerous, as I think it’s very easy to fall into that black pond.
It is a public disco, not “private party.” It is already 2:30, the endless night. The music is so loud. American disco, it is too much for me. Lots of teenagers dancing inside. I want to leave immediately. But Antonia pull my arm into the dancing floor, and I see his friends are all there shaking their shoulders and tingling their heads. So we are dancing right in the middle of the floor, everyone tripping over my rocksack, and my head being hit heavily every single second by the crazy music. Oh, I can’t dance like that, this is not my culture. My movements must be really ugly. It is a battle between the violent music and my boney body. And Antonia, he looks OK. He seems enjoying the music. His dancing style is a bit serious, but I am sure it better than mine.
I am getting so bored. So bored in the crowds. I can just stand there and fall in sleep like a horse.
“Are you OK?” Antonia dances towards me. His dancing almost like a slow walking.
“I am bit tired. Actually I want to go,” I say.
“Really? Where you stay?”
“I don’t have a place to stay yet.”
“You don’t? So where you are going to go now?” Antonia is talkative in the extremely loud music.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if you want, you can stay in my hotel. My room has two beds.”
“Really?”
“Yes, no problem.”
The taxi puts us in the middle of nowhere. Suburb, definitely suburb. There is a very simply looking hotel in front of us.
“Look, the sea is just over there.”
I look to where Antonia is pointing but there is only inky darkness.
“Do you see it?” he asks.
“Kind of,” I say.
He presses the door bell. I feel embarrassed. It is already half past four and if the hotel people know he brings a Chinese girl back, what they will think?
He presses the bell again.
“You know the man inside, his ears are not very good,” he explains.
“OK,” I comfort him.
Eventually there is a very old man opens the door. He even doesn’t bother to raise his eyes to look. He says, “Buona sera” and then straight back to his room to sleep.
Antonia’s room is in ground floor, just by main door of hotel. I am thinking tomorrow morning the reception will discover me easily and shame me.
He opens the room, and switches on the light. Then he shouts something like swear in Italian. He is scared.
“What is it?” I ask.
“There are some little animals here,” he shouts.
“Where?” I can’t see anything.
“Here! Look the floor!” He points. There are some ants, big ants. They are moving around.
“Oh, just some ants.” I comfort him again and start put my feets on the ants, crush them with my shoes.
Antonia looks disturbed deeply. He runs into bathroom and pulls some toilet paper out. He kills rest of ants with paper, and flushes the paper into toilet.
There are two single beds. He didn’t cheat me at all. I remove all my clothes, only left underwear. My pyjamas bottom of rocksack and don’t want unpack. I cover myself tightly while he is in toilet brushing and flushing. Two minutes later he comes out and looks around for several seconds. He must be surprised to see how quick I am inside of the duvet. Then he asks:
“Should I turn off the light?”
“Yes. See you tomorrow,” I say.
In the darkness, I hear his snoring quickly comes. Honest snoring. I can tell. I am thinking he is quite a nice-heart man, but somehow he is not very interesting. Or maybe he is just normal. I count the hours to the morning. Two hours later it will be a sunny morning, and I will leave this damn island Lido and go to Venice…
I am almost fall sleep. Thinking of sex, no, I am having a dream about sex. Lesbian sex, me and a woman who has an unrecognisable face. Maybe she kisses me or touches my breast. Then I am suddenly awake. I feel somebody’s lips press my lips. I open my eyes. Antonia is kissing me. He looks very stupid in the dim light.
“No. Go to sleep, Antonia,” I say. I feel a little disgust.
“Antonia! My name is Andrea,” he says, then obediently, he goes back to bed. He looks funny. Wears a shorts but still with his white shirt. His two naked legs are a bit skinny and hairy.
I give up sleeping. I can sleep anytime in my forever Unlimited Inter-Rail train, so why waste time here in Lido? I get up and dress up. I brush my teeth and take all my belongs. Very quietly I close the door behind me.
The morning is never been so bright and fresh to me. The wind is blowing my yellow skin. I feel free. I feel my body is entirely free. I walk to the seashore. There are some little boats are swinging on the sea. The sea is truly blue. Pure blue like a dream. The water is like a magnet, attracting my body towards it. I agree with you, sea is beautiful.
“I feel sad about my life,” you once said to me.
“Why?”
“Everything feels empty and endless.”
“What you want then?”
“I want to find happiness.”
“You can’t have happiness at all times. Sometimes you will be sad. Don’t you think?”
“But I don’t see any happiness in my life.”
“Then what’s your most near happiness?”
“…The sea.”
That was our conversation one day, in our home in London. Now it is like a replay. It echoes above the waves.
Tavira is situated in the southeast corner of Portugal; it is considered to be one of the most picturesque towns of the Algarve region.
A very slow and old train, clink, clink, clink…it is so slow that it’s like I am sitting on a real time machine. I can feel the time moving in the space physically. It is much more interesting than watching clock.
The train moves along the south coast of Portugal. I didn’t stay in Madrid or anywhere in Spain because I lost eighty euros when train stopped in Madrid. Maybe they are being stolen. I didn’t feel like to stay in the big city anymore. It is always aggressive in the city. Here, the train patiently takes me to Tavira, a little town close to Atlantic Ocean, yellow sand everywhere.
Out of the station I find blocks of old residential houses, decayed in the hot sun. I walk to a corner café between two streets, white plastic tables and white chairs outside. I sit down, breathe out, get rid of the stale and take in the fresh. Suddenly I feel everything slow down and stop. In the shade of sun, two old local mans with very dark skin sit on the chair. They are smoking, quiet, in the morning. Two little tiny coffee cups are left empty in front of them. Everything is brewing very thick in the early morning here, like the sun, with passionate beams. They got a real sun here in their sky, not like in England. English sun is a fake sun, a literature sun.
The other side of the café is a grocery shop. Some vegetables and fruits are being sold. A young woman standing outside, she seems mad, I mean, real mad. She keeps talking to nobody, and there is no anybody there at all, not even a wild dog. She wears fleshly red lipsticks like she just drank a glass of blood. Sometimes a car passes by and she talks to the car. Strange, somehow there is always a mad woman in any little town in the world.
A young girl, looks like a backpacker, a tourist, wanders in the street. She wears a tight lemon-colour T-shirt. Her young lively breasts drag those old local man’s eyes. As she disappears into the end of the street, two old mans withdraw back their eyes, and both exhale the smoke from their mouths. It must be a pleasure for them, in the morning street, seeing a young active breast under the lemon T-shirt.
The sunlight is like a knife cutting off the earth, half of the world is in the shadow, and the other half is bright. It is like a black and white movie, and everything is in slow motion. The sky is deadly blue, blue and blue. In alley ways, the old houses are silent, with rusty iron balcony and wooden window. They are sucking people’s soul. I understand why some foreigners travelled to a strange town for a short stay, but one month passed by, and then three months passed by, still there, and eventually ended up to live there for the rest of their life. That strange power, forces a person settle down a foreign land, whatever how wild he was. I can feel that strange power. It is something opposite of adventure, something comes from the living habits, and acceptance of monotonous, the monotonous of everyday’s life.
Sitting in this corner café with old mans, I am melted under the hot sun. My body is losing its shape, and floating in the air. My entirely existence is being sucked by a strange power. It scares me.
I find room on top floor of Residencia Mina. A budget hotel. The room is narrow but clean. With the beautiful sky light it feels light hearted. I love this small Mediterranean-style hotel. Standing on balcony I can see the river wriggle and connect to the sea. The sand is dark yellow, and the houses are colourful. Two or three old mans sit on the bridge above the river, smoking, chatting. The old streets, the green bushes, the sea birds…All these are exposed under the sun. I feel very close to the nature, the happy side of the nature.
I climb the steps up to roof of hotel. It is like a tropical garden, full of pot-planted palm trees and flowers. The sea not far away, shining in the distance. There are several ferries carry people to the outskirt part of beach. It is high noon, and the late summer sun is really hot. I take off my shirt, letting my body naked. It feel so good I take off the rest of my clothes. My soul is dancing. If happiness is a brief matter, then I am in this brief moment. I wonder whether the sadness inside a human sometimes is just because of lack of sunlight.
I think of you, while I am naked lying on the roof garden. We used to make love so often in your garden, by the fig tree. I remember all those details of when we were making love. I remember that you would take out my earrings before we make love. I remember that they were always entwined in my hair, very difficult to come out, but you would try hard to remove. That is you. That is one of the details I will always remember about you.
Unconsciously, I touch my earrings, but they are not there now. I am getting restless. I feel my nipples getting hard. I want to be exposed and touched in the hot sunlight. I think of book I bought in the train station while I was bored waiting:
Women’s Pleasure or How to Have
an Orgasm as Often as You Want
Question: “How do I build up my skills?”
There are two ways in which you build up your masturbation skills:
1. By doing it more frequently.
2. By doing it in a variety of different situations. This creates the sexual versatility that is so important to your progress.
Below are fifteen different ways of masturbating that you can practise. These fifteen methods are divided into four lessons.
Lesson 1: Masturbation in private
Lesson 2: Masturbation in semi-public
Lesson 3: Masturbation in public
Lesson 4: Improving your timing
Masturbating, I never tried it before. Nobody Western would believe that I never try to masturbate as a twenty-four-year-old woman. Or maybe I did but I didn’t know what I was doing. Sex in my understanding means something to do with a man, but not to do with myself. Having sex with oneself is like talking to oneself: bit mad. When I saw that Soho peepshop, I never thought to do with me. I also believed no love then no sex. Sex is an expression of love. But somehow this idea is changing. Now I feel tortured by the desire inside my body, and I feel strongly how much this desire wanting to be fulfilled.
“You should learn to play with your own clitoris.” Once you told me this on the bed. We were naked, and we had just made love.
Your hand touched my body. “If you want to have an orgasm, you should touch yourself here.”
I remember this conversation. But I never did it with myself, because I was always with you. Why do I have to?
On the roof of Residencia Mina, through the trees, the sun penetrates my skin. The leaves rustle in the mild wind. I start to touch myself.
The juice flows from my cave, and my fingers touch my hidden lips. Up and down. A great urge coming over me like a high tide flooding my body. The only thing I can see is the blue sky. The deep blue, like a boundless sea. The dry leaves under my skin are wet from my desire.
My body starts to shake. My breath gets difficult. My cave wants to devour something. I want to shout. It is almost painful, I feel like crying.
And I scream.
On my own. With myself. I did it. It is like dream.
For the first time in my entire life, I came by myself.
I can be on my own. I can. I can rely on myself, without depending on a man.
Faro is the capital of the Algarve region and the southernmost town in Portugal; tourism now dominates the economy.
The train from Faro to Lisbon will depart at 1:30 in the afternoon. It’s twelve o’clock now. I learned Faro is a resort town. From the dictionary the resort place must be a very nice place, but in reality it is the opposite. Faro is very concrete. Almost ugly. What should I do in little resort to kill one and half an hour?
I walk around the train station with my rocksack on my back. The sea is just by the train station. But this sea smells bad. Between the sea and the inner land is an industry space, no beach. The rocks nearby the shore are dirty, polluted. It smells pee or something unpleasant. But some seagulls still convolute there. I feel sorry for those seagulls. I walk back to the street nearby the train station. People sitting outside of cafés looks at me. I can feel their curiosity to me. I bet there is few Chinese people come to this town. What is like looking this Chinese girl through their eyes? Without a companion with her, lost herself in the street, doesn’t know what to do about her life…Or maybe they just think of Chinese food when they see me.
12:30, still have one hour left to go to Lisbon. I sit outside of a café, having a small cup of bitter espresso. How many cups of espresso the Portuguese have in one day? What is like if one’s body full of caffeine and sugar and nicotine and Coca Cola? Will it bring too much passion? Will the life be more energetic?
The espresso cup is dried up. I start to read Lonely Planet on Lisbon with my small Concise dictionary. The man in the nearby table is drinking the second cup of espresso. I am aware his watching on me. He is lighting a cigarettes now. He looks at the street, and then the blue sky, and me again. Now he stands and comes to me, and he sits on the chair very near to me.
He says: “Can you understand it?”
“Understand what?”
I close my guide book and look at him. He seems a very physical person, maybe he does low jobs. But he can speak good English. He is short, dark, energetic, solid strong body, broad chest, impressive face, intensive brown eyes.
“Understand the language. Because you are checking the dictionary all the time.”
Inside of his mouth, something strange. Some teeth missing there.
“Well, you know, I am a foreigner.” I am a little embarrassed.
“Don’t read the book. Look at the view. You should see it, not read the guide book.” He surveys my books. There is Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet lies on top.
“OK,” I say. He is definitely from local. I wonder if he reads Fernando Pessoa. He looks like a person doesn’t read any book at all.
“How many days you are going to stay in Faro?” he asks.
“Not anymore. I just came here for taking train to Lisbon, in one hour.”
By hearing this, he has no comments. There are no needs to develop more connection from his side, I guess.
“Do you know where is the old town of Faro? Do you think I can have time to walk there in one hour and come back?” I ask.
“Not very far. If you want I can take you to there.”
“Don’t you have anything to do?”
“Not today. Come with me.” He stands up and goes to pay the bill. I stand up as well, put my books in my bag.
As I follow him, I look his back. A very physical manly back. A little short. A very earthy person. I wonder if he works in a local restaurant, or works on a wine factory, or maybe he is a sailor, a carpenter, a trolley driver…
The old town of Faro is nothing very special, except for the old slipperly cobblestone ground. I like these cobblestones, they were being grind so smooth by thousands of millions people’s foot through centuries. They got stories in them. Then we walk into an old square. This man wants to show me the church. But the old church is closed today, so does the museum. Do people not working here in the afternoon time? Only a small souvenir shop opened, selling some postcards about Faro in the nineteenth century. The middle-day sunlight is strong. We want buy ice cokes from that souvenir shop. He only pays his coke, I notice. Of course, it is fair for him.
We drink ice coke, wander on the empty cobblestone square.
“I’ll take you to the seaside, then you can go back to the train station.” He walks beside me.
“I already went there. It is not very beautiful.” I want to be honest.
“No, believe me. I’ll take you to a nice place.”
“OK.”
He takes my heavy rocksack, and puts it on his back.
We walk along the seashore beside the railway. A marsh is just in front of us. It is muddy, and dirty. The marsh reflects the high noon’s sunlight. It looks bizarre and dangerous. There is something very strange between him and me. He is almost too kind, too random, without any goal in his daily life. At the same time he is also very sexual. I don’t know where this sexual feeling exactly from, maybe from his very physical looking. Or maybe this sexual feeling from myself, from my aloneness. My body is waiting for something, and something has to come out under the intensive sun.
He takes my hand, and I don’t refuse at all. I don’t know why. He holds my hand into his hand so tight that in one minute our palms are sweaty. I could feel there is something strong inside of his body. But I am not sure if I enjoy this intimacy. I am a bit confused. We walk side by side like two longterm friends. I know I don’t love him at all, and maybe I even don’t like him, but somehow I desire him. It is strange.
Maybe the more people live close to the south, the more they are talkative. They have to take out the extra energy inside of their bodies from the sun. Now he is doing a monologue:
“I don’t like Faro, you know. It is not as nice as other places in Portugal. It is full of English people. Food is expensive, and everything is for tourists. But why I am here? Why I am sitting here doing nothing? Because I lost my four teeth, six years ago. Four! Can you see here? A motorbike accident. A big accident. I had three motorbikes before, you know. But not anymore, since I sold them all. I am not going to touch motorbikes anymore. I would die if I ride motorbike again. I have been waiting for the medical insurance to fix my teeth for six years. Six years! Can you believe it? Bastards! Things are so slow in this country! Papers and papers. Finally it is arranged. That’s why I came back here, to get my teeth done. I worked in Germany. Look up here, can you see here? These two teeth? They’ll take out these two from the upper jaw, and I am going to have my new teeth, six new teeth.”
I look at his teeth again, with my new eyes. It is really impressive. How a person left the mouth so empty?! Does his tongue feel cold?
“But why you were in Germany?” I ask.
“I worked in Germany, you know, in Cologne. I was a chef. You know what a chef is, don’t you? I cooked for people. Cologne is a good place, yes, the people are friendly there. I earned good money in Cologne. You know, the economy is no good in this country, only the weather is good here…”
Our hands still hold together. We stop under a palm tree. Some empty coke tins, empty crisps bags spread around the tree. There are rocks by our feet, but covered by the dead small fish and dry weeds. So much polluted, it smells horrible. He leads me against the tree, and hugs me, and kisses my neck. Then kisses my ears. His lips are hot. And his tongue is strong, almost violent. I don’t refuse him. Maybe I also want it. Then he touches my breasts. He presses his palm on my lower body. His breathing becomes strong and heavy. I hug him too. And I can feel his heart beating fast. The sun, the sweat, the salty wind, the stinking air, everything is stimulating our desires.
I say: “I think I want to have sex with you.”
This man takes what I said. And everything comes rapidly and naturally. Finding a piece of flat rock, I unzip my jeans, and I sit on top of that piece of hot rock, with my naked crotch. He kneels down and he buries himself between my legs. It is so wet, everything is so wet, my crotch, his tongue, his sweaty skin, and my striped underwear. It is like the tide, a strong tide comes taking people away from the beach. His hands reach his jeans, and untie the button at the same time.
“But no plugging in. Please.” I don’t know how to say that. And I am suddenly scared by what we are doing: “No. I don’t want that. Just using sucking me. Please, please,” I beg him.
I just realise I don’t want he enter into my body. No. It would disgust me so much.
But he couldn’t control himself anymore. He takes out his penis from his jeans and pushes it into my body, rough, almost violent.
I am leaning on the rock. I feel sexy but I also feel disgusting at the same time. The sunlight makes me headache. I can’t breathe. Somehow I despise him doing that. Then he comes. He comes like a bull. He pulls out, the sperm dripping on the burning rocks. His face is completely red.
I will never trust this man again I tell myself. Nothing will be between him and me anymore. Not anymore, I swear to myself. I feel a strong guilt, and danger. I despise myself.
We put on clothes, and the dirty feeling of my body is overwhelming. It sticks on my skin, my underwears, my jeans, and my white T-shirt. It is under my skin. And the sea seems even dirtier and even more polluted than before. Empty plastic bottles half buried in the sand. Black plastic bags floating on the foaming sea water. I just want to leave this place, leave him, as quick as possible.
The train is ready to leave. He is standing behind me in the train station café. I want to buy some water, and I want to find a place like a toilet can wash myself. I can’t stand the dirt on my skin, and I can’t stand the strange smell from his body. His clothes smells of strong perfume. I can’t stand it for one more second. It makes me vomit. But as the train approaches into the sight in the distance, he suddenly says:
“Something very bad happened.”
“What?”
“Look here.” He turns around and shows me the back pocket of his jeans. There is a hole underneath the pocket.
“I just lost fifty euros,” he says, with a worried tone.
I look at him. His face is covered by emptiness and vagueness. I think of what he just said. He was quite cool before, or say half an hour ago. Now he becomes very weak, suddenly. When I met him, I thought he was just a normal local man having espresso in a café. I thought he was just as simple and happy as the weather in Portugal. But now I don’t know what to feel anymore.
“Now I can’t even buy a bus ticket to go back home,” he says. His hand is still on his pocket with a hole.
The train arrives and the door is opened.
What should I say about that hole? What should I do about this strange fifty euros? No, don’t start to think. Don’t start to talk about it. Just leave this topic. Don’t ask, don’t say anything more. I take my rocksack from his shoulders, and I walk to the platform without hesitation.
“Bye,” I say, with a cold smile.
I step on the train. Don’t look back. Don’t look back now. The door is closed behind me, thanks God. And that’s it.
I walk straight to the toilet on the train. I unload my bags on the floor of toilet. I remove my clothes, my jeans, my pants. And I turn on the tap. I wash myself completely.
Dublin is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland in the east-central part of the country on the Irish Sea.
Dublin, my last stop. I flew Dublin. I am not in Continent anymore.
This is the most western place I ever been in my life. I never been to States, and anway I don’t know if States is more west than Europe since the earth is round. When I was in China, I thought Dublin is in the middle of Berlin, because that’s how Chinese translated the word “ Dublin.” Also I thought London in the middle of the whole Europe, because Britain sounds so big: “the empire on which the sun will never set.” So London must be in the centre Europe just like Chinese character for China, “
,” it means a country in the centre of the world.
I have some difficulties from the start-I am being stopped at the customs in the Dublin airport.
“Do you have a visa?” the immigration officer sitting in the glass box asks me seriously.
Is he blind or something? Can he not see those important stamps on my passport? I stare at him, with big confidence: “Of course I have visa.”
“Where is it?” He throws my passport on the table.
I am a bit annoyed by this Westerner. I grab my passport back and open page where I got Schengen Visa stamp.
“Here it is!” I point the visa to the blind man. “Can’t you see it is a Schengen visa?”
“But we are not in a Schengen country,” says the man in very sober voice.
I am confused: “But I was told that your Irish use euros, just like in France, or Germany!”
“That doesn’t mean we are a Schengen country. You need a visa to come into this country.”
For one moment I really scared. Then I remember my UK visa. Quickly I find page where I have my student visa stamp from UK Embassy. I am so clever.
The man looks at the visa one second only and says, “We are not part of the British Empire either.”
He throws my passport on the table again.
I stare at that officer and don’t know what to do. Will they send me back to the UK? Or will they send me back to China, straight away? I don’t have return ticket. If now they send me back, will I need to pay the air tickets? Or will they pay the fee?
I am standing in the corner of the Customs, all the passengers passed by, and new passengers from some other strange countries all left too. I am remained alone. After a while, I see the officer gives my passport to a new officer, then he leaves. This new officer is a very kind man, probably he is from less-west-country. He lets me fill a form, then he checks through the form. And then he lets me stand in front of the camera. I never notice there is a camera underneath the glass box of the customs! I stand there and try to smile and being innocent. The nice man says OK, and he stamps on my passport.
“What is that stamp?” I am so worried that he stamps something terrible, terrible for my future.
“It means next time, if you come to Ireland without a visa, you will be illegal.” He gives me back the passport with a black stamp allowing me short-period stay provided no working.
“Do you understand?” the officer asks.
“Yes. Yes. Thanks you.”
I hold the passport like holding rest of my life.
Walking around Dublin I lost myself again. I am wandering in a park-St. Stephen’s Green. There is a lake in the park, and some swans live there. There are also some weird birds with green neck swimming on the water. The rain arrives, it is like rain curtain. It rains intensely. Nobody, no any plants, no any single leafs, can avoid the madness of the rain. I run out of the park. By the park, there is a hotel called The Shel-bourne Hotel. I walk in.
The hotel is unbelievabal. Somebody plays piano in the lobby. There is a fireplace, or no, two in the ground lobby. The fire is burning. I stare at the fire. I love watching fire, better than TV-the way it changes the shape all the time. The burning things inside are not like coal, or charcoal, or wood. It is a kind of black, long square piece of bar. I never see that before. I sit down on the old-soft-posh-arm-chaired sofa and feel the fire sucks my wetness from the rain.
“Excuse me, do you know what is this stuff burning in the fire?” I ask an old gentleman on next sofa. He is in black bowler hat and dark coat, with his tall black umbrella. He is like from Sherlock Holmes story, an old detective.
“I beg your pardon?” the old man says.
“You know this stuff, the stuff is burning, what do you call that?” I point to the fireplace.
“Ah, those are briquettes, my dear,” the old man answers proudly.
“Briquettes?” Why it sounds like a French bread?
“We also call it peat, my dear,” the old man adds, “or turf.”
The old man look at my deeply confused face. He gets up to perform for me, to help me to understand: “In the old times we in Ireland used spades to cut the turf. Then we’d dry it.” He is doing the gesture of digging and chopping.
The old man has very strong accent, and my English listening comprehension becomes hopeless.
“Turf” or “Tofu”? I don’t understand this word. Why they don’t simply call it “black burning stuffs”?
A young handsome waiter comes with a menu.
“Would you like to order something?” the waiter asks politely.
“Yes, sure.” Of course, I have to pretend somebody posh from Japan or Singapore. I shall leave here as soon as my clothes are dried up.
The waiter gives me a big book of menu.
The old man pays the bill. He takes his tall-huge-old umbrella and salute with his black bowler hat to me: “Good bye, young lady.”
Five days in Ireland, I am lying on bed inside of youth hostel just reading Intimacy. Sometimes I look up in the dictionary, but the more I read, the less I care the new words like Thatcherites and Terpsichorean. I don’t care what they mean. I understand the whole story completely anyway without dictionary. In that book, what the man wants from his wife is the intimacy, but his wife doesn’t give it to him. So he leaves for a new lover, for a new, passionate life. Don’t you know that all I want is be intimate with you?
In Dublin, that morning I finish reading the last page of the book, I decide go back London as quickly as possible. I am tired of travel. I am longing to see you.
I quickly pack my bag in the youth hostel and I walk out of this place where full of loud university students and hippies. Perhaps these people don’t need intimacy, or they have got it enough, or it worth nothing to them while they listen i-pod and dance in the clubs all night long.