A Dream in 2016

Happy New Year!

My Radio Report-UNICEF Germany) with me!

請收聽我被(有關UNICEF)採訪的廣播!
Please listen to the RFA Interview (about UNICEF Germany) with me!

Voice:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwQ_yuWzlkrlY3RfSEQzSlQwY0U/view?usp=docslist_api

Radio Free Asia in Chinese dated 01.12.2015

张威廉女士，谁都不应该忘记和忽视对儿童等弱势群体的人道关怀和帮助

联合国儿童基金会德国分会在科隆举办第十三次募捐晚会。为捐助儿童而特别感到科隆参加晚会喜兰•张威廉女士说，每个人具体迈出微小的一步就能够让世界变得美好一些。

联合国儿童基金会（UNICEF），以前翻译成联合国国际儿童紧急救援基金会，是联合国一九四六年成立的专门救助儿童的人道机构。十一月二十七号，星期五，该组织德国分会举办了第十三次募捐晚会。记者在网络上了解到，德籍华人喜兰•张威廉女士为支持这次募捐活动，将从三百公里外的汉诺威特别赶到科隆再次参加该基金会的这次活动。为此，记者在二十七号晚上九点半特别电话采访了正在募捐现场参加活动的张威廉女士。

来自杭州的喜兰•张威廉女士，九二年在德国创建了东西桥中国贸易有限公司(East Meets West Chinahandel GmbH)，并且担任经理。对于她正在参加的晚会，她对记者介绍说，“我现在在著名的文化名城科隆参加第十三届联合国国际儿童紧急救援基金会德国分会今天举办的募捐晚会。主办单位是德国商业银行。整个活动在十八点就开始了，现在正在高潮。整个气氛非常热情洋溢、情绪非常高涨。”

关于这次德国分会举办的募捐晚会的具体救助对象，张威廉女士介绍说，“联合国儿童基金会主要关心的是儿童。这次大会主要是两个原因，一个是由于目前的战争造成了无数的叙利亚及邻国受难的儿童。为此基金会分会在叙利亚的邻国有六百五十人在现场工作，为儿童提供水、药品，冬天衣服等。这是他们主要的任务。第二个是今年四月在泥泊尔大地震后，有两百多万儿童无法上学，还有十多万儿童还住在临时帐篷中，所以在这个天气，这个情况下，我们全世界都应该来关注他们。德国在这方面，我的感觉是来自各界的人士都非常热情地关注这些受难的儿童。”

关于她为什么会参加这次活动，张威廉女士最后对记者说，“我比较关心这些慈善活动。联合国儿童基金会的活动我这是第三次参加。还有就是支持癌症研究的项目我也参加了。我的想法就是：如果我们每个人都做一点点小事，我想就会改变世界。”

据记者了解，当晚募捐晚会募集了将近二十万欧元，不久前被右翼刺伤的新当选的科隆市长出席了晚会并且受到热烈欢迎，参加晚会演出的有很多著名的钢琴家和声乐家以及德国现代舞世界冠军等。

（特约记者：天溢）

Koeln Benefit Ball 2015

第27屆(24.10.2015)德國克隆贊助大舞會(兒童癌症疾病的治療與預防研究)
大會取得了成功地，前所未有的贊助。
The 27th Cologne Benefit Ball 24.10.2015 for Children-Cancer Research
That was a very successful event!
I'm glad to have met Mr. Christian Lindner at the ball, who is a German politician, member of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia and leader of the liberal party Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP).
在舞会上我有幸见到了克里斯蒂安·林德納先生(Christian Lindner)， 他是一位德國政治家，他也是自由民主黨的黨魁。他在1995年加入自由民主黨。2009年首次當選國會議員。2013年菲利普·羅斯勒辭去自民黨主席一職後，林德納接替他擔任自民黨主席。

Enjoying the last warm autumn day in 2015! 尽享2015秋高气爽之日!

My garden and me enjoy the last sunbath 2015! 我与我的花园共享2015最后的太阳浴！

On Chinese Mid Autumn Festival 中秋2015

A long way to the human rights and democracy

A long way to human rights and democracy （My simple summary)

人权， 民主 -- 一条漫长的道路 (我的简单概括）

1. A big contribution for developing the rights of freedom and equality came from Greek philosopher Platon ( 427-347 BC) and Aristoteles ( 384-322 BC). They discovered the theory of human individual, rationality, the rule of community and democracy.

1. 人的自由平等权利的理论起源于希腊哲学家Platon(公元前427-347), Aristoteles（公元前384-322）。他们发现了人的个体性，理性，群体法规及民主思想。

2. Magna Carta is a charter agreed by King John of England in 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown. In 1225 the charter was reissued again and repeated the exercise in 1297, this time confirming it as part of England's statute law.2. 英国的大宪章 （Magna Carta ）- 只限于保护皇权。 大宪章是英格兰国王約翰最初於1215年6月15日訂立的拉丁文政治性授权文件；但在随后的版本中，大部分对英國王室絕對權力的直接挑战条目被删除；1225年首次成为法律；1297年的英文版本至今仍然是英格兰威尔士的有效法律。

3. A.) English state theorist Thomas Hobbes (1588-1669) 

His 1651 book Leviathan established social contract theory, the foundation of most later Western political philosophy.Though on rational grounds a champion of absolutism for the sovereign, Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: 

3. A.) 英国最著名和有影响力的政治哲学家Thomas Hobbes（1588-1669)的著作之一全名为《利维坦，或教会国家和市民国家的实质、形式、权力》（Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil）。

3. B.) John Locke, English philosopher (1632-1704) regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and known as the "Father of Classical Liberalism". His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. The Theory of the separation of state power.

3. B.) 英國哲學家John Lock (1632-1704) 著名思想家， 古典自由主义，共和主义之父。 他的国家权力分为立法权、行政权和对外权，并主张立法权与行政权的分立，行政权与对外权的统一；立法权是国家最高权力体现在美国独立宣言中。

3. C.) French philosopher: Montesquieu (1689-1755), he was famous for his classical political science and theory of the separation of power and limitation of state power.

Jean Jacques Rousseau ( 1712-1778): Jefferson's " we the people" was adopted from him. 

3. C法国哲学与政治理论家： Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) 重要分权理论及权利的限制。 Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Jefferson 的权利属于人民的理论是源于Rousseau.

Xi Lan Zhang-Wilhelm

An Autumn Morning

中秋2016
秋晨漫步花园，微风吹拂着我的头发，我渐渐止步，呆呆地久仰着我的三棵雄伟壮观的百年橡树。脚踏金色的地毯，凝视着迎风如雨飘下的落叶，我似随风而飘，不禁热泪涌出，因为我也是其中的一片树叶。
A light morning autumn wind blew through my hair, my steps were slowly blocked and I gazed so long at the falling leaves from my three majestic and overwhelmed 120 year old oak trees in my garden. The leaves were falling on me and on the ground. I was standing on a gold colored carpet and lost in the wind around the leaves. I began to cry, because I'm also one of those leaves.
Zhang-Wilhelm

Short Story: Love in Soul 张威廉 Zhang-Wilhelm 2015

Love in Soul

This story happened at the beginning of the 1980s in the People’s Republic of China,  at the time when the cultural revolution converted the whole nation into an asexual revolutionary creature, while the great Chairman Mao Zedong was amusing himself at his swimming pool with numberless playmates. At that time love meant the   

betrayal of revolution and was only allowed with an official marriage certificate. From central government to local government, even people to people, they fought and denounced each other. 

A discovery of love letters and a love relationship without formality could result in public humiliation, various kinds of punishment, loss of job and even labour camp. 

According to studies of the famous Chinese sexual scientist Li Yinhe in the PR China in 1989 only 15% of the engaged adults had had sex before their marriage, whereas in 2013 70% of the Chinese had had sex before their marriage. 

Inconvenient memories of real life seldom give you a complete story. Some incidents excite your interest and you deeply regret the persons concerned. Often the inevitable catastrophe you foresaw wasn't inevitable after all, and sometimes high tragedy was only an absurd event in a certain period of history. As time went by you gave up remembering the outcome of certain events you witnessed long ago, but then, all of a sudden the forgotten is being handed to you on a platter. 

After my retirement my grandchildren and my very kind and quiet wife, my photo-graphing and my painting courses were not enough to prevent me from missing my formal career and especially my time in Hangzhou, where thirty years ago I had been in charge of opening a branch of a state owned corporation for technical equipment import and export at the Shangri-la Hotel, because in China at the beginning of the eighties only five star hotels offered modern facilities, a perfect location with public tele-communication, conference rooms and delicious southern Chinese cuisine for the home buyers and for the foreign exporters. 

So in 2015 I decided to visit Hangzhou again. After more than a quarter of a century, my taxi was passing by the famous West Lake and slowly reached the entrance of the Shangri-la hotel, my secret erotic moments at the Shangri-la Hotel appeared to my mind again. At last I was here again. I could not wait to sit down again at the hotel terrace, from which you have a superb look at the bright green West Lake, Xi Hu in Mandarin,  the white skyline of Hangzhou and the surrounding green hills. I ordered a Xi Hu-cocktail, lit a cigarette and stretched my legs and leaned back to the chair, breathed deeply, and admired the familiar surrounding beauty of the West Lake, in which you could be lost in nature’s emerald treasury like in the story from the “Song Fan Chengda Wu Jun Zhi” proverb, which says: “上有天堂，下有苏杭.” “There is paradise in heaven, on earth there are Hangzhou and Souzhou.” The refinement of the view from the hotel terrace makes you feel like an erstwhile Mandarin sitting on the terrace of his mansion overlooking the West Lake. This paradise-like beauty of the West Lake I had missed so much. We all have our own paradises in our minds, love in our souls.

A porter came to me and said that a lady had been asking for me. 

"For me? Who is she?" 

"She wants to see you very much. Her name’s Astrid Wagner." 

I knew no one of that name. 

"It must be some mistake. Please tell her I'm ..." My words had not been finished, when a lady came up to me with outstretched hands and a bright smile on her lips. She seemed to be a little bit excited. I liked her at first sight without knowing who she was, but I felt very familiar with her. I was nervous for her warmness and I also hated myself for not knowing her, and I said to myself:" Good heavens I never seen her in my life." She seized my hands, both of them, and shook them warmly. She spoke in fluent English. 

"My god, I never dreamed that I would see you again in my life. I read in the newspaper that you were staying here, I can't believe my eyes. How many years is it since we have danced together here at the Shangri-la? Ha, that night, do you still remember? Do you still dance? I never dreamed, we could dance here again. I still dance. It keeps me from getting fat. I'm already a grandmother and put on some weight, but I don't care." She talked without breaking and took my breath away. She was a stout, more than middle aged woman, very much made up, with light pink framed glasses, with chestnut-coloured hair, short cut, obviously dyed, she was wearing an elegant light pink costume with low round collar, pearled jewellery and black high heels. She had such a cheerful laugh that it made you feel you also wanted to laugh. I could image that she was a beauty, when she was young. Anyhow I could not place her. 

"Come on, let’s have a glass of champagne, and we could talk about our old days,” she said. We went to the hotel bar where a live band played light romantic jazz music, and her steps were already in slow moving rhythm. The old days were again present to me. This bar here was one of the unforgettable parts in my memory about Hangzhou. Here I had had such a beautiful time with some ladies, who had given me courage and wisdom for the years I had had to work in Hangzhou without my family, but after 30 years names were difficult to remember. People you meet through dancing make a different im-pression on you than those you meet through talking. 

She let us sit by the side of the dance floor. I could not pretend to be at ease. “It’s terrible stupid of me, alas, I am unable to remember your name." 

She intended actually to make an experiment, if the old director could still recognize her without knowing her Chinese name after 30 years. "You knew me of course, Zhang Hong Yan." She interrupted and took her glasses off and spoke in Chinese. I looked at her again and shouted "Hong Yan?". Then she said, "I have only another hair colour, another name and new glasses and much more weight, but the rest I didn't change much. Am I so old?" “No, not at all," I said quickly. "I was only fixed on remembering your name, that bothered me all the time." 

Of course I'll never forget her. Hong Yan asked me to excuse her for a moment and she went away. 

I sat at the bar and was immersed in all the old memories.

Hong Yan had with me a kind of all round work relationship, but actually no personal or private relationship at all. 

I had been sent from our Beijing head office to open a branch in the southern coastal city of Ningbo, but at that time Ningbo belonged to the Zhejiang Province and Hangzhou was the capital city for the province. As a first step I opened a Hangzhou Office. Hangzhou is located south of Shanghai, which for me was like a foreign country especially in mentality and because of the variety of Mandarin spoken there. Hong Yan was introduced to me through our Shanghai office. She had a father from the north and a mother from the south, and she had been born in Hangzhou. She was very slim and rather tall for a southern Chinese girl, with a bit round face and a pair of big thinking brown eyes with fire. Her skin was difficult to describe, peach like. She wore her abundant, shining black hair dressed very modern at that time. When I met her she was 26 and charismatic, with a warm smile and talking eyes, an attractive modern woman with wit and character, a member of the young generation which was straining to break the old conventions, in business a capable importer-executor in the field of textile factory equipment and beer bottling lines. Our negotiations with European exporters were much easier when she was present. She also was my bridge to local people and my right hand in all aspects of my work. She was quick in thinking and in action. At almost every evening we had business dinners with our buyers, most of who were factories directors from the Zhejiang province, or with foreign sellers. Often we talked and negotiated in our office till midnight. Hong Yan gave up her favourite high heels, because we had almost the same size. Once she said, "If I am taller than you, I feel not good." 

Our Hangzhou Office was in the Shangri-la Hotel, building No. 4. She usually began her work in the morning and went home very late in the evening. When she went home, I called her very often into my office for a final assessment of our workday, and  very soon I liked her assisting me in my tasks. But she did not show any feelings about myself, neither did I about her. Our relationship only concerned our work, and nothing else. That today at the hotel she had introduced herself as Astrid Wagner seemed to be connected with what had happened to James Lee, her immediate superior manager and later lover. 

In 1985 I chose James to become the director of our Hangzhou Office, so that I could work most of time at our Ningbo office. I would have liked to take Hong Yan with me to assist me in Ningbo, but at that time in our corporation it was forbidden to take assistants with you if you took a new position. 

Hong Yan came back and interrupted my deep memory trip. 

The music was very slow and melancholic; she suddenly said in very deep voice, "James died 10 years ago." 

I stood up abruptly and slowly sat down again, I didn't know that James had died or what exactly happened to him after he had left the corporation, but I knew from that time, that it must have been only unfair to James, and as his old boss, I felt ashamed that I had not been in the position to help him. 

It had happened after our new southern branches were running normally. Then my task had been fulfilled and I returned to our Beijing head office. I feared that James and Hong Yan could become the victims of power struggles and victims of the ideology of that time, but I also hoped they would be careful enough to not to be forced into that role. Even today in China all the leading positions are controlled by the strong hand of the party and its agents or willing helpers.

As I seemed puzzled, she had fetched her flat computer, an IPad, from her room, and now, returned to the bar, she opened it and showed me her writing, titled " Love in Soul". I took her IPad and read the following story:

"It was a hot summer afternoon, when I was sent to pick up James from Ningbo at the Hangzhou central railway station. From time to time the locusts were hissing loudly in the Hangzhou trees. "Hong Yan" he was smiling and padded my shoulder, as if he had known me a long time ago. I was surprised and a warm feeling swept through my heart as well. I tried to take his luggage, and he said, "No, no," and as he without knowing touched my hand, our eyes met for the first time. I felt suddenly he had fallen from the sky, right into my life, and I lost my words. That was love at first sight. 

James was 1.88 m tall, 41 years old, a handsome, sporty man with glasses, with a warm smile, black hair, tanned skin, white teeth and tastefully dressed by a dark blue business suit. Such a man could only be seen in films and seldom in reality. I missed my high heels suddenly, but showed my calmness quickly and said, "How do you know my name?" 

"I've heard a lot from you, and unforgivable was your excellent interpreting at such a low and beautiful voice at our conference in Ningbo last month. Since then I have often had such a conference on my mind, and with a beautiful Hangzhou girl as an interpreter." I smiled and my face turned to red: 

"Oh thank you very much." 

From that night onwards destiny seemed to determine our actions.

James was married, but he and his wife lived in separation. He had a daughter from this failed marriage who lived with his wife. His marriage problem blocked his career because not he, but his wife was a party member. She had been introduced to him by the party, as the party used to recommend or to disapprove of prospective marriage partners. She was the director of a fish products factory in the seaport of Ningbo.

Maybe falling in love has an effect upon ourselves and our environment as much as failed love has. Although James and I had kept our love as top secret for three months then, I was shocked to hear his wife had arrived in Hangzhou and would like to talk to me. She knew exactly that James was on a business trip at that time. When my door was knocked at, I deeply breathed and checked myself again in the mirror and opened the door. I knew her from a photograph James had shown to me. She was standing there and said nothing for a while, and I asked what I could do for her. She said, "I 'm the wife of your ...... director." I prepared some tea and let her sit and observed her, a thin woman was sitting there, about 1.60 m short, about 40 years old, with very short hair, with a bony intelligent face, wearing a white blouse, brown trousers and sports shoes. She sat anxiously there, gazed outside window; her eyes were full of hostility. I offered her a cup of tea, tried to control myself and said, "Welcome to Hangzhou. Please let me know, if you need any help." She said, "Yes, you must help me", and began to cry, I gave her a hanky, but she took my hand away.

"Do we love the same man?" she asked. 

I would have liked to say yes, but as I did not want to end James’s and my career, I answered, "What do you talk about?" 

"You know James loved me. We are women. I can only tell you, he was always fantastic in bed. We had almost always sex, when we were free." 

"Oh wonderful, I'm happy for you". I replied.  She didn't get the answer she perhaps had expected. And then she began to tell me the whole love story with James. Obviously she wanted to make me jealous.  Actually it affected my heart, but I showed nothing in my face. 

"Why do you to tell me all these things?" 

"Just as a woman, I must tell you. Men only want sex, it's nothing to do with love. If I were you, you should leave him and find a man who fits your age and marry him." 

"Thanks for your advice, I know what I want." 

After three hours talk, she got nothing what she wanted and said at last: "If you both begin a relationship, don't forget you both will lose your jobs. My information was quite official." I was surprised and lost my temper and said, "Have you finished? I can't help you at all!" 

I left the building and was sitting on a stone bench and looking at the West Lake; the wind waved the water gently, but my heart was being moved as well. I felt pity for his wife as a woman, but James always had told me that I was not the reason for his family problem or for leaving his wife. That decision he had already taken before coming to Hangzhou and meeting me. It was Saturday evening. Without knowing I had been sitting there for a long time. It had become too dark to see something. Suddenly two hands stretched to my chest and a warm face laid on my cheek from behind. 

"James, today...." 

"Don't talk, I know." 

He sat down and I came into his arm and we kissed passionately. I felt something hard, and my hand went down and then we were awake and afraid somebody would see us. 

James said: "Could you please come to my room? I must talk to you about the project of the wool spinning mill in Wenzhou. You must prepare all the documents and you will come with me for the negotiation in Beijing. He continued: "If you don't mind, you will fly back to Hangzhou first, I must work with Ms Yang, she is an important person for this project."  I could have said sorry, no, but an uncontrollable emotion almost burned my body, and I also loved my job and said to him 

"You go first; I'll come later with three knocks." 

James lived in one of the rooms with an office and a bathroom in building no. 4 at the Shangri-la Hotel. It was eleven o'clock in the evening and absolutely quiet. I saw the floor porter; a small man was still sitting there at his desk and having a catnap. I noticed the chance to pass his desk without waking him up. I took my breathing away and moved quietly, but he was stood up and looked at me and smiled sitting down again and I smiled back. He knew where I was going to. 

James gave me a drink and talked really about business, and I reported about his wife. It was one o' clock in the morning. I was standing up and wanted to go home. He said “it's too late to go home now. I must work at night, you can sleep here. His eyes were so gently looking at me, and then I said, "OK." I could not sleep at all, and he wrote several letters. I came to him and sat on his lap and he carried me to bed. That was the first night we were together in bed. 

In the early morning at six o’clock the door was being knocked at. James seemed to know what was happening, I didn't. He dressed up very quickly without any words, and opened window and jumped on to the tree. Suddenly I knew what I should do. I closed the window and went to door and said, "Please wait a moment." I went to the mirror and went to the door and opened the door and saw two security men from the hotel. I prepared in my mind what I could tell them why I was so early in James' room, but they asked only for James. I said, "Here is nobody you can find except me ." They checked the rooms and looked at each other disappointedly and went away. 

Next morning I came to my office and felt the colleagues were all looking at me very strangely, as if they all knew where I was last night. But I saw James with suit and tie and shaved, he was talking to my colleague Lei with a big smile, as if he had won the battle. Lei 35, had a family who had settled in Hangzhou shortly before, our import executer, most of his projects with Germany, and he everyday dreamed of taking James's position. On that afternoon I was surprised to see how Lei was so seriously talking to that small man, our floor porter of last night.  I saw, they both smoked and were standing in a corner under a big tree near our building No. 4, as if they planned their next private deal. 

One week later James and I had to fly to Beijing to have a meeting with an Italian wool springing equipments supplier, because James only spoke Japanese, no English. After the meeting had been finished, I felt a little bit upset, because I should not wait for another two days, but should fly back alone first. It was not easy for me leave James there alone with this very attractive lady like Ms. Yang, but It was life and that was his job. 

One day after my arrival in Hangzhou the deputy general manager of the corporation called me on the phone and told me, "James was caught by the hotel security of his Bejing hotel together in same room with an Italian-Chinese lady, at two a.m. at night" I felt my body suddenly cold and my ear sounded only echoes, I could not hear anything any more and I could not help belching from excitement, but on the other side I understood at once why he told me that. He was waiting for my crying and that I should tell him the truth about James and me. At first, I didn't know what really had happened in Beijing, secondly James was a very competent man and a rival to the general manager. If James really had had an affair with Ms Yang, for me it was clear at that moment that I had to help James, because obviously his competitors were trying to have him thrown out because of his private love affairs. I answered loudly and clearly in the phone, "Oh, why do you tell me this? It has nothing to do with me, please." He was very upset with my answer. 

James arrived. We sat in his room and the room was full of his cigarette smoke. I never saw his face like this and he said, "It was my mistake I forgot the time and I was in Ms Yang's room till 2 am." I answered nothing; I was so sure he loved me. He continued, "Listen, maybe tonight was our last night. Don't be sad, the world is big, we'll find our stage." I couldn't control myself and tears were all over my face. We made love, the love was so tender and beautiful and so frail like our life. That was Sunday morning at eight o’clock; the door was knocked at again, and there was Lei's voice, he wanted to give James a document. James opened his wardrobe and put me in and opened the door. 

"I'm sorry to disturb you on Sunday morning, but I have an important document for you." And Lei came in without being invited and checked the rooms and went away. James read it and sat there silently and smoked more and more. Without asking I noticed,  something had happened to our lives. James buried his head into his hands and cried, which I had never seen. The letter said that he had been rejected as a party member and that Lei would take his position in the corporation. 

One month later James was sent to Africa to handle with a container problem because the buyer didn't pay. I was sent to Hainan to help to set up a new branch. 

James left this world already 10 years ago, when I was in Germany, and he in China. He died in my arms during our long dreaming-talk on the phone. He said the last unfinished sentence, "I still dreamed to come to your arms, but ........" I shouted his name again and again. I took the phone in my arm, as if I was waiting for his answer and cried to ask myself, “Why should he go now?” My hope was only this phone in my arm, but he is not going to answer me, forever. James died in my arms. He was lying in hospital and did not have the money to pre-pay for his operation, and he did not want me to send him the money from Germany, because he knew it could destroy my company that I had founded in Germany.

It was the longest, most expensive and saddest foreign call in my life. I could not relieve myself of this call for long time. Later, when the door bell rang, I often believed he could be at the door or when the telephone display showed a Chinese telephone number, my heart throbbed, and still today, I always hope to hear his voice. I only have his picture and his suitcase, which he gave me when we saw each other for the last time and said goodbye to each other. He said, “All my private important things of my life are in this suitcase, take it with you and keep it for me, we will meet again.” In his photograph he has this facial expression, about which he used to say that he was just looking at a piece of meadow. He had imagined his own piece of meadow, he always saw butterflies and birds on it, although in reality they were not in it. Maybe it means human love and our love in soul."

The bar at the Shangri-la Hotel was empty, there were only Hong Yan and me. She was sitting there like a sculpture, and I took my chair closer to her, sat beside her and clasped her hand tightly.

© Xi Lan Zhang-Wilhelm 2015

Short Story: Surrenders of Love ---张威廉 Zhang-Wilhelm 2015

Anna was sitting on a wooden bench on the veranda skyped through Smartphone with her mother in Hongkong and waiting for her husband to come in for lunch. Her new home was a bungalow with dark red bricks and with ground floor windows. At the entrance with a colourful rose-garden framed with box trees-balls. A boy with red freckles on his face got off his bike and walked by the bungalow very slowly and glanced at her curiously. She noticed this was the boy she had met this morning. She stood up and just followed the direction of the boy. She was wearing a short slim mini skirt with a wide belt and a red silk shirt. She could not believe her eyes and she was surprised and looked breathtakingly at the flat boundless grassland, as if she entered a fairyland, as far as her eyes could see, closely under the blue sky with a lot of happy horses which posed for pictures. On a sudden she heard the loud singing of a bird, mellifluous and rich; and for an instant, with a catch at her heart, she never expected such an idyllic beauty in a village in northern Germany.

Then she was called, awaked and saw her husband was coming from the gravel path behind the bungalow, the path that led to his own clinic for general medicine. She ran to him and hugged and kissed him. He smiled and greeted her and his eyes dropped on her breasts which were straining the soft fabric. She put her one arm on his hip and they came into the dining-room and his eyes lit up with pleasure as she sat on his lap. "Hey hey Anna, hungry?"
"Very."
"It'll only take me a minute to have washed my hands and change my clothes, and then I'm ready." 

"Be quick," she smiled.

Patrick had a housekeeper, who came only for cooking lunch everyday and every 14 days for cleaning the house.

He disappeared into the bedroom and she heard him whistling cheerily while, with the carelessness with which she was always remonstrating, he tore off his clothes and flung them on the floor. He was 
39, but he was still like a school-boy. That's why she had fallen in love with him, nobody could understand that. He was a tall strong man with dark brown short hair, wearing a pair of frameless glasses and with blue eyes. Anna had examined him carefully and told him often that he was actually not her type at all.

"I never said I was a beauty, I can't help."
Once she unarmed around his neck and whispered to him:
"You are a big fat man, Patrick, but you've got charm. I can't help loving you."

But of course she knew perfectly well what she just wanted, and he made her a barrel of laughs. He had a charming smile. He was just simply sweet, and she felt comfortable with him and spiritually he was not far away from her.

It was hard to realize that ten months ago they met online. She was a librarian at Hongkong University. He asked her to marry him after they had spent a month holiday together on the island of Ruegen in Germany. The holiday on the coast of the Baltic Sea took place six months after they lived together online. He later told her he would never forget when he was waiting at the hotel gate and caught the first sight of a black high-heels lap-length boot moving out from a taxi and her aubergine colour suitcase, after which appeared a slim tall attractive lady with black glasses. All that had made him randy like a breeding stallion, he said. Anna still remembered the moment when she saw the man with whom she had lived online for more than six months suddenly standing before her. She was sure that was him. She felt an instant rush of blood to her whole body and smiled and took her glasses off. He came to her, and they stood there face to face for a while, she restrained herself for a moment, and she didn't know whether she could give him a hand or a big kiss.

They hugged, and he gave her two sweet cheek kisses. They walked shoulder to shoulder together into the lobby so closely; their bodies were quicker than their minds. It took almost three days to compensate all the online lacking parts, and then they began normally to talk and to live. They felt they knew each other almost everything, but they felt everything was new. She didn't ask so many questions as she had done online. She just stuck to his body as if they changed into one body with two heads. They were head over heels in love. She said in Chinese: "有缘千里来相会!" It means that if two people are predestined to meet each other, they will (unknowingly) do it even if they have to travel for a thousand miles.

"Ah, it might be destiny or obsession." He laughed.

She wasn't very responsive, when she heard the word "obsession".

She thought, if he asked to go with him to Germany, she would have to refuse him. She was her widowed mother's only child, and she could not go so far away from her mother. But she was carried off with her unexpected emotion, especially after they physically had met each other and after she had accepted him. They got married as quickly as possible. The church ceremony took place in a typical northern red brick church. Her mother flew in for it from Hongkong. Now, three months later, they had settled down. She was very happy with Patrick, and she had already made up her mind to develop as an online Asian modern children's literature distributor. Anna had a heart and a good hand for children. She always gave a hand to her girlfriends for taking care of their children, when they needed help. It was her passion to play with children, and she very much liked telling them stories. The children liked Anna very much, although she had never been a mother.

Now she heard Patrick going to the toilet and heard him tilting back the window and saying some words with muted voice in German, but she could not understand it. It seemed he was talking to somebody angrily and the other voice rose. It was a boy's voice. She heard the window was just closed and water was running and Patrick came to the lunch table.

"Who were you talking to?" she asked.
"A naughty boy from the village, I didn't understand what he wanted."
"I saw a boy today two times, who had gazed at me so long, I didn't understand why."
"A freckled face?"
"Yes, exactly."

Patrick suddenly turned pale.

"Oh forget it, Anna." He smiled only with his mouth and turned to another topic.
"What have you been doing this morning?"

"I took a walk around and met this boy together with a woman with a baby in her arm." Again she remembered the scene. The woman was slim, wearing a pair of brown folded trousers and a blouse with small patterned flowers and flat shoes.

"Did you talk to her?"
"I spoke with her, but I understood almost nothing."
"Oh! It is not a baby; she is already three years old. The woman is Heidi"
"How do you know?"
"Don't forget, I'm the only doctor in this village. Heidi is a single mother with three children, a boy and a girl; they are three year old twins. The boy lives with her mother."

"So you also know the father, don't you?"
"Yes, the father left Heidi and pays for the children."
"Heidi looks unhappy and nervous."
"No, I don't think so. Today there are single mothers everywhere."

"I'm happy they are not your children", Anna joked.

"Oh no, no", he said with a burst voice, and his eyes looked at his plate.

"I'm very lucky to have caught you so young. Honestly it would upset me dreadfully, if I were told that you had to leave your three children for me."

His eyes felt softly and tender and asked, "Are you happy here, darling?"

"Desperately."

She still had the prettiness of youth, her brown eyes were fine; she was tall and had an attractive figure, and a pleasing frankness of expression, she gave you the impression a girl of spirit, and one could feel that she was competent in her formal job.

"I loved your small village at once." She said. "Although I' m alone so much, when you are at work, I don't think I've ever felt lonely here."

After Anna had come into Patrick's life, she made all the rooms of their house friendly and comfortable. There were lovely orchids in glass vases, and great masses of flowering shrubs filled porcelain bowls. She was proud because it was her house too. In Hongkong she had only lived in apartments, and now she had made the house and the garden charming for him. Anna was surprised that she learned gardening passionately and found out that the garden was her world.

Patrick always liked Anna's Chinese cooking. After finishing lunch he usually went to bed to take a nap. Then Anna knew he was waiting for her. She rashly threw off all her clothing and jumped to him. She put her soft tongue to his, he drew her over to him, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. His hand massaged her cherries. She put one cherry into his mouth. They were melted in craziness.

Anna was awaked off by the sound of her husband's locking the main door; he went to the clinic again.

In the evening they took a walk and enjoyed the sun setting, and then she turned to him and said, "Look, this is the woman I told you." They were getting closer, and the woman stared at them, Anna smiled to her, but the woman did not show any impression in her eyes. She didn't look at Patrick, and Patrick just moved on without taking any notice of the woman. "I'm feeling a bit the weather, could we go home?" said Patrick. "Do you have a temperature?" asked Anna.

"No, I'm going to be all right tomorrow," he said.

One week later, in the afternoon, Anna was learning German grammar, and she heard a commotion in their compound. She could not believe her eyes when she saw Patrick arguing with the woman she had met in the morning and later during their evening walk. The woman cried and spoke angrily. Anna went rashly out and shouted, "Stop you two. What is going on here?"

"She has no right to come here, please go away!" Patrick shouted towards the woman.

"How can you treat a woman like this?" Anna asked him and took the woman into her arms and said, "Come in, please." And then the woman thanked her, and shouted again something at Patrick, and then ran away. Anna looked at her back, feeling something very difficult to describe.

It was getting dark and silent. Patrick went for his shower. It took much longer time than usual. Anna was sitting in the living room and waiting for his explanation.

"What did she want from you?" asked Anna.

"She did exactly what she wanted; she wanted to make a disturbance."

For a little while Anna didn't speak. She was surprised at her husband's tone. He was nervous and irritable. A long silence followed. Suddenly Patrick said: "Anna, I've got something to say to you." His voice was very strange. She put her hand gently into his. He drew it away.

"I'm so sorry, I 'm afraid it's not a very nice story, and I find it rather difficult to tell. Please don't interrupt me."

She did not look at his face. His voice was so low that it hardly broke the silence of the night.

"Heidi is a child care worker in our village. I was single for a long period of time, and when I came here, she fell in love with me. You know, in this small village there was almost no chance to meet someone to love. I never loved her, but one time, when I was so ill that I had to stay in bed, she came and looked after me, cooked my meals and did everything, until I had recovered. Since then she more or less stayed here. We had no plans, but lived together in extra-marital cohabitation for about 9 years."

"The boy and the small child were your children?"

"Yes." He was embarrassed, and said, without looking at Anna: "The boy and the twins, a little girl and a little boy."

"You've got a big family."

He looked at her with a simple face and nodded his head.

"Does she know that we got married? What did she say when I came here?" asked Anna.

"When we had known each other for four months she moved out with the children. She had been advised so by a mediator. I told her that I had never loved her and that I had fallen in love with you."

"But you hadn't even seen me then."

"Yes, but through you I knew what my future was. I knew it was either you or nobody", said Patrick.

"Why didn't you tell me the truth? It's not fair," Anna said. Her voice was cold and her eyes were hostile. She continued, "I might accept you with three children, they are lovely, but I never had chance to think about it."

"I could not expect you to understand me. I thought it would be a burden for our marriage, and I didn't want to lose you."

"Why have you told me now?"

"If she found out you knew nothing about it, she would blackmail me to pay a lot of money to calm the situation."

It was silence again. He put his hand on her; she didn't move away, she felt just cold beneath his.

"And the children?" she asked.

"I've provided for them."

"Do they mean nothing to you?"

He hesitated.

"When the boy is old enough, I shall send him to a boarding school. And the other two still take time. Frankly I think the children interfered with my life and they were not wished from my side. I don't have much relationship with the three."

Now she heard everything, suddenly he was a stranger for her. She felt sick when she looked at him. He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing and only sat there still like a sculpture.

"Can you understand me now?"

"No, I've got quite headache, I want to go to bed. I don't know what I shall say. Everything was quite unexpected. Please give me time to think."

"Are you angry with me?"

"No, not at all. It's very hot tonight; I wish you'd sleep better on the sofa. Good night."

She was gone. He heard she locked the door of the bedroom.

Next day she looked pale. She didn't sleep at all. She was so quiet or sometimes talked like a stranger. After dinner time, she wanted only go to bed directly again. Her silence scared him.

"I'm so sorry, poor darling." He cried and kneed and held her legs and she stood there like a marionette and her eyes stared at the ceiling, so he should not notice that her eyes had filled with tears.

"Leave me alone, please let me think. It will take some time."

He took her in his arms and sought her lips, but she turned her face away and he kissed her cheek. He heard again the key turn softly in the lock on the door. Her calmness frightened him. Of course, it had been a shock for her. He must wait all the time she needed.

Next morning, she said, "I feel better now."

He felt a bit released: "I've been so miserable, please don't be angry with me."

"Not a bit, I do forgive you. You did only do what many men did. But I'm not going to live with you as your wife anymore."

He couldn't believe his ears and cried and, his head buried in his arms, he murmured: "I did all for you becoming my wife. I thought I was lucky that she accepted all and she planed to move to her mother's city, so for me it was a clear cut and I became a real single."

Anna was not anymore interested in what he said.

For several weeks they lived as if they were strangers to each other.

Two months passed. Patrick every evening sat alone and lost himself. He wrote a long mail to his former 10-year long lover Ilona, who had been together with him in high school and who before he had met regularly. They had not seen each other since Anna came to his life. Ilona was a psychologist and married and had two daughters. She had enjoyed her sexual encounters with Patrick. They loved each other with passion in their own way. Ilona had a platonic love for her husband. And Ilona's two daughters loved their father. She could keep this marriage because of her relationship with Patrick. It also might have been the difficulties of maintaining her position at work which made her decide that she never wanted to live with Patrick. It could be that also Patrick never had the desire to live with Ilona, but without Ilona Patrick could not live peacefully with Heidi and three children.

"Ilona, we must meet, I need you," typed Patrick in his phone. He saw Anna coming into the sitting room. He was standing up and said: "Come on darling, you can not always lock your door."

"Could you please help me with one thing?" Anna asked.

"Everything I could do for you in this world, darling."

"Would you let me go home?"

"You?" He cried, "When? Why? For how long?"

"I don't know exactly. Maybe for six months."

"Of course I can not force you to stay with me."

"Listen, I don't blame you. It's not your fault. The children need their father, you belong to them, not to me, and I could not stay in this house any more. You don't know what I've endured."

"All right, I accept six months and I'm going to fly together with you next month."

The decision was made. Anna felt it could be forever to go back home. She looked at all the decorations she did in this house and looked again the flowers and trees in garden. She began to pack. She took first her mother's picture off the wall and thought she never would visit Patrick in his clinic again. Maybe for the first and also last time she would visit him there. It was 6 o'clock p.m., she saw two cars there and the curtains of the clinic were all closed. She wanted to knock the door and she stopped and heard Patrick talking to a woman. She sat on the bench and waited for almost one hour, then she left and walked 50 meters away and stopped and waited. Suddenly she saw Patrick and a woman coming out. She saw them standing so closely before the cars and kissing passionately each other. She was so sure with her six senses and a sudden cold, painful and jealous feeling swept through her, she felt now she was really lost.

She walked and walked without direction and sat there and saw the night face of the village, which she hadn't seen yet. She had no tears anymore and suddenly she knew what she could do next.

She went home and didn't mention what she experienced tonight. She just sat on the sofa and now the tears which she had restrained so long overflowed and she wept broken-heartedly. He had never seen her cry before.

"I want to leave next week."

"How? What happened?"

"I'm so sorry, I've broken your life, but I've broken mine too. And we might have been so happy."

"My love to you means nothing?" said Patrick.

"I can't help myself any more, please let me go."

"Which day do you want to go? On Friday?"

"Yes."

She looked at him piteously. He buried his face in his hands. At last he looked up.

"I'm tired out," he muttered.

"May I go?"

"Yes."

Next morning Anna was ready to go. "Would you like me to come to the airport with you?" asked he.

"Oh, I think it would be better if we said good-bye here."

He did not even touch her hand and went to his room. Anna looked at all the rooms again where she was so happy and so miserable. She turned to him, she wanted desperately to say something, but she said nothing. He stretched out his hand.

"Well, good-bye, I hope you'll have a good journey." They shook hands. His eyes were red and he didn't notice what happened shortly, Anna was gone.

He sat down on the veranda, as if he was waiting for his Anna for lunch. He had an overwhelming sorrow.

He told the housekeeper to take all the things from Anna away. In the evening the bungalow was very silent, he could not read and could not think. He saw Ilona's message on the display of his smartphone. He pressed it away and turned the phone off. He deeply breathed and just sat there. Suddenly somebody knocked the door.

"Who's there?" he cried.

He opened the door, but nobody was there. He just wanted to close the door again, and came a boy in.

"What do you want?"

The boy came forward into the room and he kneeled down on the ground and took a plush horse out, which he had hidden under the sofa before he left the house and sat down.

"Who told you to come here?"

"My mother sent me. She asks what you eat. Can she do something for you?"

Patrick sat down beside his son and said nothing and waited. He was in deep and bitter reflection and silently he buried his face in his hands.

His son looked at him with his plush horse in his arm and carefully with his finger he touched his father's hand. Patrick looked at him gently, and he moved closely to his son and put an arm on his shoulder.

"Tell your mother to pack all your things and come back here."

"When?" asked his son.

He shouted loud "What was the use? Why? It's all gone!" and tears pouring down on his face and he surrendered.

"N...o...w."

One month later all the time Patrick felt the reflection of hopelessness in him. It was in the evening at his clinic; Patrick was sitting before his desktop and chatting with Stefanie, who he shortly before had met online. She was five years younger than Patrick, a very interesting and attractive woman. Patrick chatted with Stefanie with passion and sometimes even with the same contents as with Anna, but he missed the harmony with Anna. It hurt deeply, this kind of harmony which one couldn't describe with words. After chatting he buried his face in his arms and didn't understand why he felt so empty in his heart.

At this moment a message came in from Ilona, "Next Friday I could meet you, how about you?" He answered: "I'm waiting for you, baby." A strong energy flow swept through his body, he closed the door and got lost in the dark with a secret and mysterious drizzle of rain, which like a veil hung over the world. Quickly he was at the gate. It was silent, the invitational bench stood there, he touched the bench gently. It had been Anna's favourite place, and with almost hypnotic power it was sending out an appeal that affected his body directly. He sat on the bench for a long time and didn't want to end his dream, a dream of love. He was so afraid that he would never find another Anna again.

 

张威廉 Zhang-Wilhelm 2015