by Xiaolu Guo
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.
amsterdam
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.
berlin
“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 YMC
A 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.