Love in Soul

"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.

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