About the Author (pictured below) Nancy TSUI Yuk Chun is a postgraduate in literary studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her story ADDICTION is represented in CITY VOICES, an anthology of Hong Kong writing from 1945 to present. Summer Virginity is her first story in Nuvein.

Half Moon

He suddenly asks her to stop, without saying why, pulls out and leaves her body; he turns around and sits on the bedside, silent.

She has lost her virginity, finally, at the age of twenty-four, not knowing whether it is a shame or a blessing. She lies in bed on her side, eyes closed, exhausted. Her black hair flops over the white pillow; some fall on her flat belly, covering part of her breast, small, soaked with sweat.

His passion is gone. Through the hotel window a night sky of dark grey veils the Bund. Red Chinese flags are streaming high above colonial buildings. The Huang Pu River is flowing fast beyond. And the moon, hooked high in the sky, is dim and frail, grey, the colour of sadness, in his blue, liquid eyes.

In Berlin, the sky is just like that, he says softly, it must be snowing hard there now.

She makes no reply. She cannot imagine what snow feels like. It never snows back home. In Hong Kong, summers are always hot, stuffily hot. She was a summer child, passionate, intuitive, unlike him, born on a night when snow was falling on the Berlin Wall; unlike him, a man of philosophy, of reason, and therefore, of regret.

But it is not Hong Kong here; it is Shanghai, cold, freezingly cold.

Perhaps it is time for her to reason and then, to regret, not having lost her virginity, but having chosen to lose it.

He sits at the bedside staring out of the window. When dawn breaks, he says, “We’ll still have to explore Shanghai, won’t we? Why don’t you take a shower?”

They dress, go out.

Full Moon

Wind was blasting hard that evening on Statue Square, the first time they met.

“Next station is Central. Please alight on the right.” A female voice streamed out from speakers in Cantonese, clear and pleasant. English came again in received pronunciation. She liked to imitate the voice when she was a kid, holding her mother’s hand. But now a strange voice in Mandarin broke in, between Cantonese and English. Since when? How come she did not notice that before?

She had no time for it. She was late.

Train doors opened.

She dashed out of the compartment, rushed upstairs, flung her train ticket on a turnstile and dashed onto an escalator.

She ascended to ground level.

A blast of wind slapped her face; four big neon-lit simplified characters glowed along the top of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building, striking her eyes (simplified Chinese!): (Merry Christmas) She remembered when she was small, her mother brought her to see Christmas decorations: every year, Santa Claus and angels greeted her in English or in Chinese, traditional Chinese, never simplified.

But now she ran into simplified Chinese everywhere: on the advertisements in train compartments, in clothing stores, on campus. She once saw a poster about a military training trip to Mainland China: a soldier saluted the bloody red Chinese flag and the dull simplified characters. “Look at his uniform, so smart!”, “Of course, he’s from the People’s Liberation Army!”, “I want to have a boyfriend like him!” marvelled her classmates. Her classmates flocked to books in simplified Chinese. “Cheap,” they said. She would rather pay more to buy a traditional edition. Simplified Chinese was so ugly, she thought as she entered Statue Square.

At the centre of the square was a squarish fountain, by which stood the statue of the general manager of Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Corporation, not a statue of a philosopher, not a warrior, but a banker.

“Hey, Fanny!” It was Chienne, waiting with her boyfriend and another person.

“Saimon Schnitzer. Fanny Yau. Saimon is an exchange student from Berlin.” Chienne introduced.

“Hi, I’m Zeemuun; S-I-M-O-N, Zeemuun Schnitzer.” His voice was very soft.

They shook hands. The air chilled her shoulders but warmth rose up. He was a tall young man with broad, firm shoulders.

Wind blew over. A few curls flopped over his forehead. He ran his fingers through his hair naturally, like a boy.

A two-storey building on a slope, the Helena May, was radiating ghostly sodium lights. The porch at the entrance created a vault between two cylindrical white stone pillars. An evergreen plant guarded each side of the milk white door. The door was pushed open.

“Welcome to the Yale Christmas Party 2002. It’s such an honour to see you all, Yale old boys and girls with your family and friends to spend tonight together celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ……”

Fanny glanced at the paunch on stage. Oh no……his pink head looked so like an egg, she thought; her eyes drifted around the hall. Finely set with silver cutlery, each of the tables covered in white cloth had a vase of red roses at the centre. The wooden shutters on the windows were all closed; brown fans hung from the ceiling; a piano sat to the left of the stage; to the right, a big Christmas tree was twinkling with light bulbs. Colourful gifts lay here and there.

“……For God, for Yale, for America, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” The paunch finished.

The pianist suddenly thumped out a string of notes. The egg head on stage started to sing, “Yale old boys and girls, let’s enjoy tonight!”

Joy to the World

The Lord has come

Let earth receive her king……

“So this is an American Christmas party.” Simon leaned against the wall, watching the happy Americans. His English had a thick German accent.

American Christmas party? What did he mean? Fanny did not follow, “So this is an American Christmas party.” Are there British Christmas parties? French Christmas parties? German Christmas parties?

Simon loitered in the corner. Whenever he was upset, he loitered in a corner. Obviously this party was not what he expected. He expected to see people: women or girls. He would be happy to take one of them for a film or a coffee, and then, to his solitary room. She did not have to be beautiful but should be pretty, by his standards, shapely, almond-eyed. Those huge flabby American women with stringy hair definitely did not make the list. Why bother to care about those women who, so far, did not even lay their eyes on him? On the day he came to Hong Kong, he suddenly became the spotlight of women. But now his charm, or whatever it was that sustained his attention from women completely vanished.

He felt dowdy, in his jeans and jacket among the Yale graduates in black suits. Would Karl Marx feel dowdy if he were at this party? Inscribed on the wall of his university was Marx’s golden saying: The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it. But how? Simon asked. How to change it when you were being interpreted by the world, Mr Marx? Simon could not help feeling dowdy, here, now. He even found the skinny banker, the thin-haired consultant, the pock-marked analyst, intimidating, vulgar but intimidating. He had never felt like this before in Berlin, in East Berlin, never.

But Fanny was talking to them with complete ease. She was holding a glass of champagne, chatting gaily, laughing gaily with the Americans, with her impeccable British accent. She was so careful with the vowels that none slipped.

After three months in Hong Kong, he had never met a Chinese girl who spoke fluent English, to say nothing of a British or an American accent. Where did she pick up her English, this Chinese girl?

Not tall but very leggy, very slim, petite; her figure was perfect. She knew how to dress: her French-ruffly red top, her tight black pants, her red leather shoes in a Chinese embroidery style. She was very attractive, innocently attractive, especially when she smiled; her exquisite, almond-shaped eyes were as sweet as honey. And her hair, long, black and straight, veiled her small waist like a waterfall. When she walked, it tossed side to side and touched her little round hips. The image of the long-haired actress in Hero rose in his mind. He could not help taking a few more glances at her but soon, drew them back. Suddenly she became a threat to him.

But in her heart, he already kindled something; she felt, for the first time, there was something inexplicable between them, not love but more than attraction, a feeling of déjà vu; he looked so familiar as if she had met him somewhere before. But she had never been out of Hong Kong, and he, the first time in China.

Throughout the party, she did not take her eyes off him. She wanted to see him again.

Half Moon

Perhaps we could have a coffee there, Fanny? He points at the green sign across the street – Starbucks, the thirteenth one they have seen today. She nods right away. It is more than chilly in Shanghai. Wind blasts through her thick black coat, pierces her skin, her bones. She is trembling, he knows, but pretends not to notice that, runs up a few steps and pushes open the door. She follows, tottering.

Warmth. As soon as she steps into the café, she feels as if her skin and face are melting. Aroma of coffee beans and sugar. The café is almost full; at each table a couple is seated: a middle-aged white man, bald, big-bellied and a young Chinese woman, long-haired, shapely. How do these tiny Chinese women manage the hairy, paunchy monsters in bed? she wonders. Will the man on top crush the woman to death? Fanny shudders.

A Chinese woman in a sexy outfit is sitting by a table near the door, staring at Fanny. She lights up a cigarette, gives her an understanding smile, like that of a Philippino maid when she meets another Philippino maid in the streets of Hong Kong. Fanny is pissed by the smile. No! I’m not a wh…..I’m not……not like you, she wants to tell the woman, but finds herself immediately a fool: Is she not with a white man?

“Fanny?” Simon points at the waiter by the cash register.

“Whaat doo you warnt?” asks the red-cheeked, round-faced waiter in a green cap.

“Erhm…I’ll take Caramel Macchiato, a regular please.”

“Sor…sorry. Whaat?” The waiter looks at her in confusion. His eyes are very small, like two little black beans.

Fanny tries to think of Caramel Macchiato in Mandarin, but English flows out again, “Caramel Macchiato,” she utters the words very slowly.

“Oh!” the small eyes suddenly stare open. “Car-raamell Mik-Mikkiaato! Carraamell Mikkiaato! Chwenty-two yuan!”

Fanny thanks and smiles, embarrassed.

Simon is leaning against the cash register, watching her.

They sit at the table by a glass pane. People are strolling in the shopping centre outside.

“Fanny, you should have spoken Mandarin with the waiter.” Simon pours sugar into his coffee and stirs with a plastic rod.

“Why?”

“For example, if I went to France and if I spoke French, I would definitely speak French with the people there.” He takes a sip of his coffee.

“But I don’t know what Caramel Macchiato is in Mandarin; my Mandarin is not very good; it’s not my mother tongue.” She feels misunderstood.

He holds the coffee mug in his hands, “I don’t believe you.”

I don’t believe you, and I don’t believe that you would speak Cantonese to the waiter even if he were Cantonese, Simon thinks, but does not say that. He looks out of the window. Two young stylish Chinese women with dyed blonde hair stop by the boutique display window opposite the café. He thinks of the wax models - big-eyed, high-nosed Chinese nuns – in the Shanghai Museum of History. They were too pretty to be nuns, he said to Fanny, who stared, wide-eyed, marvelling at the craftsmanship of the wax models.

He doesn’t know Mandarin, Fanny thinks, How could I prove that I did not mean anything, that I was not even conscious of speaking English? She is innocent, but she finds no way to prove herself. She is doomed to be guilty.

In Hong Kong, at Starbucks, she simply ordered “Caramel Macchiato”, in English, and the Cantonese waiter would get her a cup right away. “Caramel Macchiato” flowed out so naturally that nobody would be conscious of what language it was in.

But it is not Hong Kong here; it is Shanghai.

She still feels misunderstood. What if she were German? Would it make a difference? Would he still suspect that she would not speak German even if the waiter were German? Would her explanation sound more reasonable?

They do not speak for a while. She finally breaks the silence.

“I have a feeling that something went wrong between us.” She lowers her head and fixes her eyes on the Caramel Macchiato, still full, but the steam is already gone.

He gives no reply.

“You haven’t touched me since this morning. What happened?” Her remarks are always sharp and direct, so direct that he does not know how to respond.

“I feel……uncomfortable…… I felt like…” he is hesitating and looking for a right word. “I felt like being manipulated.”

“You mean……I manipulated you? How?”

“I mean……I didn’t plan to……I was not even thinking when you…….slipped down and……”

“Sucked on it.” She startles him again. He takes a quick glance around the café. But she continues to fix him with her gaze, thinking, I couldn’t help that, you were very desirable, don’t you know? Was it wrong for a woman to turn on a man? Or more precisely, was it wrong for a virgin to turn on a man who seduced her? Could that be called manipulation?

He goes on. “Did you think it was time to lose it or……?”

“To lose what?”

“Next time, if you want to turn on a guy, you should - ”

“What?!” She is white with rage but feels insulted at the same time. Tears rush up to her eyes. She manages to hold them in, biting her lip, trembling: You, the first man whom I adored, whom I have given myself to, last night, were still holding me in your arms, kissing, caressing my body and you were crazy about it, weren’t you? But now you ask me if I thought it was time to lose my virginity? Do you mean that it was time to lose it just as it is time to dump a share when the stock market crumbles? And I was the cunning broker to “manipulate” you to buy the rubbish share?

In his Sinology class on China Studies Simon has read

“Virginity, nowadays, is still a criterion of judgement on the value of girls in the eyes of most Chinese people. Some Chinese girls, especially the poor and prostitutes, trade it for relationship or marriage. Some go for a surgery to have their hymens sewn when they decide to find a husband and lead a new life……”

Therefore when her soft nude body was riding on him and her long black hair fell all over his chest and neck, he controlled himself with infinite will and reason to ask her,

“Why don’t you find someone who can love you?”

“Because I love you.” She replied.

Her reply prickled her; she could not believe that she had said the disgusting “I love you”. She hated to say “I love you” just as she hated to say “Darling”, because one could say “Darling” to her husband as well as to her customers in the supermarket, if she were a cashier. But to Simon’s question, “I love you” seemed to be the most direct, lucid answer. Fanny did not know what love was. She only knew that, after living for twenty-four years, Simon was the only man who had unlocked the hidden intensities of passion in her. If that was called love, let that be love.

Full Moon

“I don’t believe in love, I don’t believe in marriage,” he said to her at Starbucks in Central, their first date. Mexican music was thumping her ears. “And no expectation, no promises,” he went on, “It’s always expectation that ruins a relationship”. Fanny suddenly felt uncomfortable (with his words or the music?).

“My ex-girlfriend betrayed me for a year.” Simon avoided her looks and turned the coffee mug with his hands. “Women are unforgivable”, he said, almost murmured.

She was shocked at his idea of a relationship. Did you still call it “relationship” when a relationship no longer exists? In her upbringing, there was always a term to indicate the relationship between a man and a woman who slept together willingly: husband-and-wife, boyfriend-and-girlfriend, client-and-prostitute. But what would you call the relationship between a man and a woman who regularly made love to each other but belonged to none of those?

“Erotic-friendship(what a fantastic term!), do you mean?” Fanny began to elaborate, in her mind, confidently, eloquently, “Then you won’t have to take any responsibility but at the same time, have your desire satisfied? I know what you mean, just like Sabina and Tomas in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Fanny felt as if she had comprehended the dark core of human beings, as if she had seen through life.

She was happy with the comparison she made, and therefore, found herself logical and knowledgeable. Simon must have heard of Milan Kundera even if he had not read his books, she thought; the Czech Republic was not very far away from Germany.

Fanny always imagined herself as Sabina (or Lena Olin) although she was not a painter but a writer or, a writer to be. How wonderful to live like Sabina, free from the trap of marriage. In her warm studio next to a cathedral in Prague, when churchbells faintly tingled the window shut with snow, Sabina would stroke Tomas more vigorously, smile a victory smile to the black cathedral roof and put on the black hat from her grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather……Fanny had a black hat too, which she bought from a street market. Sabina should choose Franz, she thought, Tomas was too skinny and dirty-looking.

“It’s interesting that you brought up Milan Kundera. But that’s not my approach. Friendship comes first. She must be my friend. I’ve tried it with some people. But I didn’t like them……” Again, he avoided her looks and turned his head to the French window by their coffee table.

So would Fanny be more fortunate than Sabina as friendship would come first in their erotic-friendship(so it would be a friendly-erotic relationship)? Should Fanny be glad about that? Perhaps. Writers and painters were artists, Fanny thought; artists had a job to experience life in order to produce great art. If she were to start a friendly-erotic relationship, she would have a good moral reason for that, not an excuse, not at all.

So why not give it a go? she thought. Western men were loose anyway, to say nothing of this man, the most beautiful man she had ever met. He must be very popular.

He said softly, studying her face. “You must be very popular.”

“Why?”

“Some people have beauty; some have intelligence. You have both.”

“I’m not popular; at least not among Hong Kong guys. They don’t like intelligent girls.”

The music turned up suddenly; someone was babbling in Spanish above a strong drumbase. In Berlin, there was never such noise in the cafés, Simon thought.

“Fanny, I missed my Kungfu class for this coffee with you. So you should tell me the truth. Are you attracted to western men only?” He gave her a mischievous look.

“No, but as I’ve said, I’ve never had a boyfriend before.” She was serious.

He did not believe her. “But you’re beautiful,” he said, “Chinese girls are beautiful. No need to smile, they always look sweet and lovely.”

“Do you have a Chinese fetish?”

“No, my ex-girlfriend is German.” He paused for a while and took a sip of coffee.

“But you said Chinese girls were the most beautiful girls in the world. This is just a generalization. China is so big. Hong Kong girls look different from Beijing girls; Taiwan girls look different from Tibetan girls.”

“But that does not rule out my point that Chinese girls are the most beautiful girls in the world,” he won trickily and grinned.

Fanny did not go on, partly because she was not good at debating, partly because she thought he might just be one of those who found Lucy Liu a great Chinese beauty.

After a short while he said,

“What you wrote in the email…… even German girls wouldn’t say it so directly……” again, he avoided her looks.

What’s special about expressing your feelings and desires to a man, even though you had met him once only? Weren’t western men open-minded?

He was quite shocked by her email at the beginning, and found this Chinese girl too direct, and also because of this, found her very exciting. It always felt good to flirt with a beautiful girl, especially for a man who has just been betrayed by a woman.

For two nights she dreamed of his body, soft, hairy, muscular; she dreamed of his warm wet tongue tickling her neck, her breast; of his soft voice murmuring round her ear. She woke up and changed her panties.

Later, when he asked her to get away to Shanghai with him, with him only, she accepted right away.

Half Moon

In the hotel room Simon is lying in bed, reading. Fanny has put on a pink nightdress with a ribbon in front, smiling like a child.

She slips into bed with him, “Candy said she had seen you with a girl the other day.”

“Who’s Candy?” He puts down the book and lets her lie in his arms.

“My flatmate.” She says light-heartedly, “Candy said I should forget you because ‘we deserved the best!’” Fanny thinks of Candy’s pimpled, greasy face, and starts giggling.

“What’s funny about it, Fanny?” Simon lowers his head to sniff her fragrant hair.

“Nope.” She is still giggling.

“Tell me or I will……” He tickles her waist, her belly. She bursts out laughing and pleads to stop.

He stops.

“Tell me Fanny, I’m curious.”

“It’s so funny that Candy always uses ‘we’ – we will find a good husband; we will have a lovely baby. But I’ve never said that I want to get married; I’ve never said that I want a baby either.”

Simon falls silent.

Fanny is not comfortable with the silence. She does not know how to deal with it. Whenever there is a silence, she keeps talking and talking in the hope of burying it.

“Candy told me that her mother got to know her father under a matchmaker who was her grandmother’s friend. By then her mother was already Professor of English in the Technical University of Beijing. ‘You’re so lucky,’ the friends of Candy’s mother always said.”

“You’re so lucky,” Fanny remembers that her mother always says so. “I would have gone to university if the Communists had not come.” There is a tone of regret in her voice.

Fanny resumes, “Mother was selling vegetables in a bazaar when she saw Father. He was parading with other ‘Stinky Old Dogs’. This was what the Red Guards called the intellectuals in the Cultural Revolution. Father tottered in a cone-shaped paper hat with a big wooden board hanging on his chest:

OXEN GHOSTS SNAKES GODS

INTELLECTUALS STINKY OLD DOGS

That was the first time Mother and Father met”.

“I’m sorry, Fanny”, he runs his fingers over her waist-long hair, holding her tight. His fragrant-smelling body touches her nose.

“My mother was also poor, but my father came from an aristocratic family. When he decided to marry a poor girl, his family kicked him out. They had been very poor. Father wanted to join the army to earn some money, but he was turned down. He was depressed and drank a lot of beer that night. Then……a car came and knocked him down on the road.” His voice is hesitant.

“How old were you?” she asks softly.

“Seven.”

She releases herself from his arms and looks up at him. There is sadness in his blue, liquid eyes. So familiar is the sadness, Fanny thinks. It is such a sadness that distinguishes him from the Americans in the party; it is such a sadness that makes her shed tears when reading a story in kindergarten. The Happy Prince! Simon looks exactly like the Happy Prince.

“Oh, no wonder you look so much like a rich guy, your aristocracy is inherited.” “Stop it, Fanny. I don’t like that.” He hardens his voice.

She does not know how to respond. She did not know her compliment would turn out to be an offence. Simon looks like a prince, her prince, beautiful, kind-hearted, sad. What’s wrong with being a prince? She did not expect he would react like this.

He calms down and reaches to hold her close,

“Do you know J. M. Coetzee, the writer?”

Fanny nods. She faintly recalls this name in one of her literature courses.

“Coetzee said,” Simon goes on, “ ‘artists do not have to be morally admirable. All that matters is that they create great art.’ I really hate it, Fanny. Is whoring not exploitation but artists’ sacrifice for creating great art?”

Without waiting for her reply, he continues,

“I would never call on prostitutes in the name of art.”

Without calling on prostitutes, Van Gogh would not have created his great art, Fanny thinks. But as a woman, she is happy to hear that her prince does not like whoring. She closes her eyes, listens intently to him, to the beating of his heart. He gives her hair an affectionate stroke,

“Coetzee also said that women had to be resisted even when they were loved, because women would quench artists’ fever of creating great art.” He pauses and resumes, “Artists are narcissistic.”

Are you talking about me, Fanny thinks? She always feels a fever inside her. It was such a fever followed by flames followed by desires that made her break all the rules in going after Simon. If his sadness is a spark to kindle her heart, her fever is the oxygen to sustain the fire. She is an artist then. But she is also a woman. If artists should resist women, should she resist herself in order to keep her fever alive? If yes(but how?), is she narcissistic? She never says that she is morally admirable. She finds herself distinguished, unique because of her moral shamefulness. She is an artist but he is a philosopher, she thinks, philosophers do not understand artists.

“Fanny, artists can be narcissistic because they have power: the power of creativity. People always adore something they don’t have. Therefore, women flock to artists, not only artists, but also scholars, rich guys, to any form of power. Aristocracy is also power. I don’t know why so many people think I come from a wealthy background. In the computer lab, a lot of girls would come to talk to me. Of course, it feels good to be popular. And I could have got what I wanted.” He pauses for a second, “But things would have been different in Berlin; it would not have been so easy……”

“That’s because you’re white. White guys are very popular in Hong Kong.”

“Why?”

“Because Hong Kong girls think white guys are rich and can take them to Europe or the United States.”

“So what’s the difference between being popular as an artist and being popular as a white guy? It’s all power.” He ponders for a short while, “So the best way is to stay away from power.” His voice is very soft; his eyes look sad.

She runs her fingers over his face, trying to comfort him. Such a ticklish beard; such lips so desirable; she rises for them, hesitates; his breath, warm and sweet. Kiss him, should she? Yes, go for it, her fever says. She offers her lips, with infinite tenderness, with all her passion, instincts. She becomes an explorer on this piece of land, undulating, precarious; an inexperienced explorer with professional hands, so professional that he cannot believe they are unschooled; an explorer soon lost in a warm, dark jungle, steaming with desire, boiling hot, expanding, expanding until a shaft points at the grey sky; hard as steel, hot as fire. A war is at hand: Break the wall, the flesh wall, the brick wall; Come on, break it; Are you sure? Yes. Really? Believe me. Why don’t you find someone who can love you? Because I love you; my Hope, my Salvation, my Desire, break the wall……

In the darkness of the night, something completely crashes, torn to pieces, torn asunder. A tide of cheering, of triumph; blood and sweat and tears spread all over; the war is over; the wall is over, over, all over; Simon, it’s all over.

No, I don’t believe you. No, I shouldn’t believe you, I shouldn’t, No this is not what I wanted, You shouldn’t have, I didn’t plan to, I Didn’t do it, No i Didn’t, this is Not my fault Not my fault, NoT my, Stop! STOP!

He asks her to stop, pulls out and leaves her body; he turns around and sits on the bedside, silent.

Full Moon

Heat, accompanied by choking moisture, salutes Statue Square under the glaring sun of July. A spell of pungency rushes to her nose, and rage sweeps across cement burning, penetrates from her skin to bones.

“Against the Anti-subversion Bill!” Fanny cries out outrageously with the crowd.

People in black shirts flood the square. These people, whose parents and grandparents fled to this colony when the Communists had smashed their motherland, flocked to foreign passports after the People’s Liberation Army had turned its guns on the students, Fanny thinks, these Chinese people, offspring of refugees, as their Last Governor said, dig up their roots again and again, generation after generation, why are they here today?

“Down with Tung Chee Wah!” The crowd yells out, “Down with……”

Her face is all wet, in sweat or tears she does not know. I didn’t see you there, Fanny, in the global anti-war protest, Simon said, just a day before he went back to Berlin; his eyes were all disappointment. No, she was not there, but he would see her here, if he were still here, if he knew she were here.

The train has stopped running. Alexanderplatz is immersed in the silence of the night. Simon lies in bed on his back. The black crowd on TV darkens his blue, liquid eyes. Five hundred thousand Chinese are crying out in their native tongue. Are you there, Fanny? Her sweet smile and exquisite eyes flash across his mind.

Mild light shining on the pane makes him turn to the window. Where were you, Fanny? Simon thinks. Moonlight is sprinkling over Alexanderplatz, over fine sand of Unter den Linden, over marks of the Berlin Wall; and drifting across the Continent, farther eastward, shining through July’s eternal heat, on the throbbing earth of Statue Square; streaming through the window to Fanny’s little bedroom; sprinkling over her beautiful eyelashes.

His soul swoons as his blue eyes rest upon the clear full moon, whose silver light sprinkles over his chestnut hair.