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 YMCA 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.