by Xiaolu Guo
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.
A
fter 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.
venice
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 rem
ember 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?
