exists.”
“So, do you want to take all of humankind’s sufferings upon yourself? Or at least the sufferings of the Jewish race?” you respond.
“No, that race ceased to exist a long time ago, it has scattered all over the world. I am simply a Jew.”
“Isn’t that better? It’s more like a person.”
She needs to affirm her background, and what can you say to that? What you want is precisely to remove the China label from yourself. You don’t play the role of Christ, and don’t take the weight of the cross of the race upon yourself, and you’re lucky enough not to have been crushed to death. She’s too immature to discuss politics and too intelligent to be a woman. Of course, you don’t say the last two things out loud.
A few trendy Hong Kong teenagers arrive. Some of them have their hair tied in ponytails, but they are all men. The tall blond waitress seats them at the table next to yours. One of them says something to the woman, but the music is too loud, and she has to bend down. After listening, she smiles, showing her white teeth that glow in the fluorescent lights, and then moves another small, round table: apparently others are coming. A male couple, gently stroking each other’s hands, is ordering drinks.
“After 1997, will they still let homosexuals meet publicly like this?” she moves close and asks in your ear.
“In China, it’s not just a matter of not being able to meet publicly. If homosexuals are discovered, they are rounded up as vagrants and sent off to labor camps, or even executed.” You had seen some Cultural Revolution cases in internal publications from the Public Security Office.
She moves away and leans back but doesn’t say anything. The music is very loud.
“Shall we go out for a walk in the street?” you suggest.
She pushes away the almost empty glass and stands up. Both of you go out the door. The little street, a blaze of neon lights, is thronging with people. There are bars one after another, as well as some elegant cake shops and small restaurants.
“Will this bar still exist?” She is obviously asking about after 1997.
“Who knows? It’s all business, as long as they can make a profit. The people here are like that, they don’t have the guilt complex of the Germans,” you say.
“Do you think all Germans have a guilt complex? After the Tiananmen events of 1989, the Germans kept doing business with China.”
“Do you mind if we don’t discuss politics?” you ask.
“But you can’t escape politics,” she says.
“Could we escape for a little while?” you ask her very politely and with the hint of a smile.
She looks at you, laughs, and says, “All right, let’s have something to eat. I’m a little hungry.”
“Chinese food or Western food?”
“Chinese food, of course. I like Hong Kong, it’s always so full of life, and the food is good and cheap.”
You take her into a small, brightly lit restaurant, crowded and noisy with customers. She addresses the fat waiter in Chinese, and you order some local dishes and a bottle of Shaoxing rice liquor. The waiter brings a bottle of Huadiao in a pot of hot water, puts down the pot as well as two cups, each containing a pickled plum. He says with a chuckle, “This young woman’s Chinese is really—” He puts a thumb up and says, “Wonderful! Wonderful!”
She’s pleased and says to you, “Germany is too lonely. I like it in China. In Germany, there is so much snow in winter, and, going home, there is hardly anyone on the streets, they’re all shut up in their houses. Of course, the houses are large and not like they are in China, and there aren’t the problems you’ve mentioned. I live on the top floor in Frankfurt, and it’s the whole floor. If you come, you can stay at my place, there’ll be a room for you.”
“Won’t I be in your room?”
“We’re just friends,” she says.
When you come out of the restaurant, there’s a puddle on the road, so you walk to the right and she to the left, and the two of you walk with a distance between you. Your relationships with women have never been smooth, you always hit a snag and are left stranded. Probably nothing can help you. Getting someone into bed is easy, but understanding the person is difficult, and there are only ever chance encounters that provide temporary relief from the loneliness.
“I don’t want to go back to the hotel right away, let’s take a walk,” she says.
Behind big front windows, the bar by the footpath is dimly lit and people are sitting around small tables with candles.
“Shall we go in?” you ask. “Or would you like to go somewhere by the sea where it will be more romantic?”
“I was born in Venice, so I grew up by the sea,” she replies.
“Then you should count as Italian. That’s a beautiful city, always bright and sunny.”
You want to ease the tension and say that you have been to Piazza San Marco. At midnight, the bars and restaurants on both sides of the square were crowded, and musicians were playing in the open air on the side near the sea. You remember they were playing Ravel’s Bolero and it drifted through the night scene. The girls in the square bought fluorescent bands from peddlers and wore them on their wrists, around their necks, in their hair, so green lights were moving everywhere. Beneath the stone bridges going out to sea, couples sat or lay in gondolas, some with little lanterns on their tall prows, and, rowed slowly by the boatmen, they glided toward the black, smooth surface of the sea. Hong Kong lacks this elegance but it is a paradise for food, drink, and commodities.
“All that’s for the tourists,” she says. “Did you go as a tourist?”
“I couldn’t afford to be a tourist. I had been invited by an Italian writers’ organization. I thought at the time it would be good to settle in Venice and find myself an Italian woman.”
“It’s a dead city with no vitality, which relies on tourists to keep going, it has no life,” she cuts in.
“Still, people there lead happy lives.”
You say that when you got back to the hotel, it was well after midnight, and no one was on the streets. In front of the hotel, two Italian girls were amusing themselves by dancing around a tape recorder on the ground. You watched them for quite some time; they were really happy and even tried to get you to talk and laugh with them. They were talking in Italian, and, even though you couldn’t understand them, you could tell they were not tourists.
“Just as well you couldn’t understand them, they were just baiting you,” she says coldly, “they were a couple of prostitutes.”
“Probably,” you say, thinking back, “but they seemed passionate and very lovely.”
“Italians are all passionate, but it’s hard to say if those women were lovely.”
“Aren’t you being overly critical?” you say.
“You didn’t hire them?” she asks instead.
“I wouldn’t have had the money,” you say.
“I’m not a prostitute,” she says.
You say it was she who started talking about Italy.
“I’ve never been back.”
“Then let’s stop talking about Italy.”
You look at her and feel dejected.
You return to the hotel and go to your room.
“How about if we don’t make love?” she says.
“All right, but the double bed can’t be separated.”
You don’t make a move.
“We