A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

by Xiaolu Guo

  “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 behin
d 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

  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.

  self (self) n. 1. distinct individuality or identity of a person or thing; 2. one’s basic nature; 3. one’s own welfare or interests.

  self

  The plane touches down at London Stansted airport. It is afternoon. Outside is raining, dim as usual. I am standing by the luggage belt, waiting for my rocksack. Has it gone to Los Angeles or Delhi or something? Everybody took their luggages but mine doesn’t come. Almost an hour later, last person took his suitcase from the belt.

  I go to the “Lost Luggage” counter to report. A man apologises to me and says he will find out and contact me. Luckily, I have my passport with me.

  You are not waiting meet me so I take train to home. I have nothing to bring back from my travel. I lost my Dubliners, lost my Fernando Pessoa, lost Intimacy. I also lost all the maps you gave to me. And I lost my toothbrush, lost my clothes and lost my address book. I only have the stories that happened in an East Berlin flat, in Amsterdam under the wisteria tree, on the Lido in Venice, in Faro…They stay in my heart and my skin.

  London evening: everything comes back to me quickly. The slow and noisy tube, the oily fish and chip shop, the dim and crowded pubs, the raining streets with people waiting for their never-coming bus. London is such a desolate place.
<
br />   The house is empty. But everywhere smells of you. And there is much mess. All your tools are on the floor. And your bags of clay and plaster are piled up in the living room. In the kitchen I find a line of dirty tea cups on the table and there is a sculpture of a bath, made from plastic, lying in the middle of the floor. It is making joke of me. Only the plants are living quietly in the garden. The fruit tree without flower stands there, still holding the peace of the garden. There are yellow leafs everywhere covering your sculptures. I pick up one fig. It is almost rotten and the juice immediately comes out. I taste it, very sweet. The seeds are sandy in my mouth. In these weeks I am absent, nature changed so much. Every plant has a different shape. And you? In these five weeks, has anything changed on you?

  I turn on the radio. Weather report, as important as yesterday and tomorrow. A man talks with a very low tone like he just knew England lost football match:

  “The rest of today will be overcast, with rain predicted for much of the weekend. There’s a small chance of occasional sunshine so let’s keep our fingers crossed…”

  Yes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

  I wash all the tea cups, and all the dirty plates. I sweep the floor, and I let your sculptures lean against the wall. I put all your socks and smelly shirts into the washing machine. I tidy your table. Then I sit and I wait.

  When the last beam of light in the sky has disappeared, you come back home with a bunch of your friends. You hug me, say hello to me, just like you would hug and hello another friend. Then everybody sits down, smoking cigarettes, having tea, talking English jokes, and laughing loudly. I never could understand jokes. And I know you hate smokers, but now you let your friends smoke everywhere in the house. Friendship. A respectful term.

  I try to join in the conversation, but it is frustrating.

  Your friends are talking about transsexual surgery, turning a person from male to female. One woman has very heavy make-up and long blonde curly hair. But there’s something strange about her, she somehow looks very manly. Probably she was a man before. How do I know.