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 anymore 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.