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.

Through Alexanderplatz station, we are heading to east Berlin. I follow him, like a blind man following a stick. It is seven in the morning. We stand in front the YMCA Hotel. The door is not opened yet. We ring the bell. A man comes opening the door with his sleepy eyes, and he tells us that there is no vacancy until this afternoon.

So we leave YMCA, with our luggages. Standing in the middle of the street, Klaus says I could come to his flat if I want. Is very close to here.

“OK,” I say.

Klaus flat is very tidy. White plain wall, double bed with blue colour bedding, bare wooden floor without carpet, white-tile-pasted bathroom, small tidy kitchen with everything there, writing table with a leather chair, wooden wardrobe and a book shelf. That’s all.

No woman’s make up or perfumes in the bathroom. No any sign of woman anyway.

He makes a pot of coffee in his small kitchen. No milk, he opens the fridge and says. We drink the coffee, and he puts some sugar in. I don’t want any sugar. I can see there are only a piece of sad butter and two boring eggs in his fridge. He says he will leave Berlin next year, then start his diplomatic job. He grabs a pen and writes down address of flat and nearby tube station. And he gives it to me. Don’t get lost he says.

Then he opens the wardrobe and changes his tops. There are at least twenty different colour’s shirt and ten different ties hanging inside. And it seems they are all being ironed by someone properly. Who ironed his clothes? He puts on a grey-silver-colour-suit, and a dark-red-tie.

“You can leave your bags here, so you can walk around in Berlin. I’ll be back this evening from work.”

So I say yes, yes, yes to him, to Klaus. He seems nice man, no harm, only warmth. I can trust him. We walk to bus stop where goes to his office. Several office man and woman in suits and with black leather bags also waiting. Then the bus immediately coming. He kisses on my cheek and says see you tonight at home. It is so naturally, just like in a Western TV, a husband says goodbye to his wife every morning when he leaves to work. I see him disappear with the bus. And I have a strange feeling towards him.

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.