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: