First steps in Africa

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Chapter one

A wall. An enormous wall. A stone wall, painted in white. The colour of virginity in some countries, of peace in others and there might exist some more meanings for this colour. The wall covered a huge area and from outside it was impossible to see what it covered. Only two entrances existed: the east entrance and the west entrance. Both secured by towers and guards. This wall was not very old, build maybe in the last ten years; it was around five meters high and made by a rare kind of white stone.

He stands face to this wall. To him the wall looks frightening and repelling. He tries to look through the white stones in order to know what happens behind, but of course it was impossible, not even a noise wanted to come to his ears. Sadly he puts his hand on the wall. He stays without moving some minutes in this position, touching the white stones. But soon the coldness of the wall passes through his veins and he retracts the hand. He does not know what takes place behind, cannot see what will be the future behind this wall. After a little prayer to god he turns away from the wall and walks thoughtful to his car.

It is a cloudy day but it is still warm and it does not rain. He would have preferred that it rained a bit but he knew that it was just not the time for rain. The summer was hot and dry; it hardly rained in this region. However, this wish for rain reminded him unexpectedly of his time in Vietnam. He suddenly saw his Vietnamese friend, explaining him that rain has a romantic meaning. No, indeed, rain would have been the wrong element at the wrong place. Saying good bye has nothing romantic, not for him and not under these circumstances.

At home, listening to the Symphonie Fantastique, he sat back and cogitated about the events. The sound of the orchestra made him feel better, and the music went to his head creating an atmosphere of relaxation but also of deep sadness. Isn’t this contradictory? On the one hand he felt very sad and had a strong feeling of missing. However, on the other hand he could not really show his sadness. No tears wanted to come. Maybe he was just not the kind of person who melted in tears, but he was the kind of person who suffers enormous under their sadness.

This morning when he came to his new house in Shanghai he felt that something will miss. Something very special; which represented his essence of life. How could he possibly life without it? He didn’t know and until present he was not able to find a good answer. His head was empty and he could not create a clear idea in his mind. He tried to be positive and think about other stuff, but every time he came back to this topic.

That “it” was actually not an object but a person. Yes, he missed a person. He missed his one and only beloved son. This son was all his existence, and he worked hard to give his son a first-class life. Every day when he woke up his son was the first he had in mind. He does not only want to be an excellent dad but he wanted to be someone special for his son knowing that he had a lot of trouble.

He wasn’t maybe a good dad or the dad his son expected but he loved his son more than anything else. He raised him with all his care and was always afraid that something might happen to him. He knew that his son wasn’t always happy at his place and in the last months his son spent rarely his time with him, he often went out with his friends. However, he loved his son and tried to satisfy his son’s needs.

The end of the symphony’s fourth movement made him feel much better. The strength of the music and the powerful sound gave him hope. Was this a sign? Surely not, but at this moment he saw in every single action a sign and a prediction about his and his son’s future. He continued listening to the masterpiece and dreamed.

He was dreaming about his son and their time together. They never spent a lot of time together; there has always been something which separated them. When his son was young, a little boy, he had to hire a person to take care of his son. He went to work early and came back late, or he had to go to business trips. He spent an essential part of is life in airplanes and on airports. When he was younger he loved to travel a lot, but with the age he wished to have a less central position in his company. Unfortunately, as one of the five top managers of an international consulting firm he just could not stop flying around and promoting the services of his company to other big international corporations.

He had everything in his life but all that didn’t matter to him. He had met almost all presidents, prime ministers, chancellors and other ministers. He was one of the most invited persons in his sector in the world. For every big event, especially political or economical, he was invited and most of the time he was asked to make a speech. He was an expert in economics and finance; he had published books about economics, finance and politics, and was one of the authors of The Economist. Almost every week he received an invitation letter to talk shows in international television or radio stations. Political parties tried to convince him to join, but he always refused to make his political opinion public. He was political correct and gave his advise to every one who wanted to listen to him. He also received threatening letters from communists and anarchists who completely disagreed with his opinion of the good economical and political system, but he learned to live with all this. In his career he had earned a lot of money. He could have earned much more, but for some of his services he didn’t charge money, like making speeches for students at small universities. It was a pleasure for him to share his opinion and to have discussions with passionate students, so he saw no reason to make people pay for something he also enjoyed very much.

No, all this didn’t matter to him. All what matters was his son. He wanted to give him all he needed to be happy and to live a lucky life.

His son was smart, handsome, and a lot of girls liked him. He was black haired and had an extremely well and beautiful build body. Every day he got new phone numbers from all kind of girls he met in school, university or just on the street. He could have had a career as a model or something similar. But he never wanted to be such a model. He preferred a career in the business; therefore, he studied hard and finally got graduated at one of the best universities of the country.

Everything seemed to look like his father always wished for him. His son was young and successful. But success has its price. A lot of people didn’t want to accept that his son was smarter than them and they tried to do all their possible to disturb his ongoing career. Usually they never had a big success with their try to stop his career, but now they seemed to have found a way.

Yes, they got their victory, at least for some time. His son had to go to prison. Prison. Prison for being too smart and disturbing other people plans. They successfully got his son into trouble and he didn’t discover the danger or discovered it too late. It wasn’t his sons fault, he never made something illegal, but that’s how business works here.

Now he only could get in to visit his son in prison but his son hardly could get out and take part of the world society. He was in prison and this for an undefined time. The curt did not yet define his sentence, but it is sure that he will have to spend some time there and this made his father sad.

Thinking about all this made him feel even worse. It was hard for him to know that his son could not get out of the prison and live the life he wanted to have.

He fell asleep after he finished the bottle of beer. Tired as he was he could not even stop the music before falling into a deep and profound sleep. He did not have any dreams, or at least, he could not remember them. He slept like a stone. Like one of these stones from the white wall which covered his son’s prison.

Next morning, when he woke up, he got up and wanted to prepare breakfast when he realized again that his son was no longer living here. He had the impression of being all alone in this huge house. Indeed, he was alone in the house because he never used to have employees taking care of the household. But this morning the house seemed to be even bigger than normal. All rooms appeared to be empty and all furniture too small. He was still very confused when he went to the bathroom, so confused that it took him some minutes to find his towel, which was just lying on the chair in front of him.

After shower and breakfast he slowly walked around in the house and in the garden. He had taken some days off in order to be more available for his son.

Sunken into his thoughts he didn’t even realise that the doorbell was ringing. When he finally heard the bell, he jumped to the door and opened it hoping to see his son. Actually he should have been disappointed not to see his son, but he wasn’t. As soon as he opened the door he saw one of his closest friends standing there and smiling at him. His face must have looked quite amusing, because his friend started laughing. He invited his friend inside and they went to the saloon where they both took a seat.

The friend. He had met her some years ago during his stay in Europe. She worked for the European Commission and at that time he participated at an important summit of European politicians. Actually, he was invited, with some other colleagues, to this summit to give his opinion about the best economical system for the European Union. The summit was very well organized and they had a lot of fun. He remembered the easy atmosphere and the good relations they all had together.

On one of these days he met her. She was sitting next to him and they started talking. She told him about her career and parts of her life. This day he planned to make a speech, so he wasn’t listening a hundred percent to what she was saying, but he liked this woman. He invited her to have a glass of wine after this day’s discussions and she accepted happily smiling.

He never forgot this night. Not because of any possible closer relationship, but because he found a person to talk to. She listened to what he said and suddenly he could talk about other topics than economics and politics. He really enjoyed this night and they met almost every night during this summit. After this event they promised to stay in touch and they did. They often phoned and wrote emails. Whenever she needed a little help he tried to organize something for her and she, in return, arranged privileged relations between the EC and his company. When he came to Europe they always met somewhere and they became close friends.

Now she was sitting in the big white sofa in his salon. He did not ask why she came. He knew exactly why she was here. She heard about his son’s destiny and wanted to help. She always helped him when he felt sad and he also tried to help her in those cases. The last time he helped her when she had difficulties and now she wanted to give him some of his help back.

He informed her about the events, knowing that she already had an idea what had happened. She listened to him and tried to calm him a bit. She spoke slowly and carefully to him, trying to give him optimism. She told him that she was also worrying about her child’s future and that she really could understand him on this point. They kept on talking about this topic for some hours when she realized that he was trembling and strongly breathing. Knowing exactly what was happening, she ran to the kitchen and got him some kind of sugar water. When he calmed down a bit she cooked him a little thing to eat. He hadn’t been eating for some days and she knew that he would have had a collapse without the sugar water and her cooking.

After having checked that everything was totally fine, she left his house. Before, she told him to call her in case something happens. He thanked her for her kind help and accompanied her to her car.

Being alone again he didn’t know what to do. He could not call the prison. What for? They would never give him the permission to speak with him. Yesterday he already tried two times to call his son but the guards always refused to pass him his son.

While thinking about the possible contacts he heard his phone ring. No number was calling. Who can this be? Another friend who would like to tell him how sorry he was? His lawyers with some news about his son’s case?

No, it was his son. His son was on the phone. Suddenly his heart jumped up and down. He could hear it pumping the blood around in his body. He could feel all his parts of the body crying for his son. His body was screaming. Unfortunately, the network quality was so bad that he could not really understand what his son was saying. His voice sounded far away, not very loud. He wished he could have been next to his son and listen to his voice, looking to his eyes.

He loved his son’s eyes, the curious look of them, searching for things he does not know until present, always observing the environment. This look perfectly reflected his son’s character. Observing and learning from everything you see and always double check all information you get.

The phone call didn’t last long. Only a few minutes. Due to the bad quality of the network he had to hang up. He hardly could understand what his son said. That made him sad. He sat down, took the Rubinstein CD and listened to the Moonlight Sonata. This piece of Beethoven always made him sad. When he was young, his father used to play the first part of it and it made him cry. He always asked his dad why he played something so sad and his dad answered that it is not sad, the sound of the piano shows you the way to your future. It might sound sad in your ears now, but if you listen carefully you can discover the sound of opportunity and hope. You always see the light at the end of the darkest tunnel. His father taught him by his music to understand the signs of life and to seize and discover every opportunity.

Sometimes they played together, his father at the piano or cello and he on the clarinet. All his family was very music orientated and especially his brother was a very talented piano player. He also used to play the Moonlight Sonata, not only the first part but all movements of it.

He himself used to be a good musician as well. All people where always impressed by this family, where everyone just seemed to be born for the music. This family seemed to have music in their veins instead of blood. Some of the family members played in front of big publics. His brother played once with one of the most famous French piano players, and he himself used to play with an orchestra in front of hundreds of people. They both deeply understood the meaning of every note written. They could feel how the author felt when he wrote those notes down.

Some professional musicians also wrote a piece for this family. All the family played it then in front of a big public. However, no one in this talented family chose a career in this sector. Why? For a very simple reason, it was a personal pleasure for them. They played because they loved to and not because they wanted to earn money with it. They lived with the music and every note went through their body and made them tremble.

Not only the close family was so passionate by the classical music. All the wide family was it. From grand parents to cousins and uncles. Especially their grand father was a very big music fan. He knew every piece by heart. Even when he started losing is ability to hear he went to music concerts. How could he take pleasure in the music concerts without hearing what was played he used to ask his grand father and his grand father replied that there is no need for him to hear the music played. He has all notes in his head and knows exactly when what is played. By that he can enjoy every concert even without hearing it.

His son did not share exactly the same music flavour; he had his own music style. But that was more than ok. He considered music as music and loved to hear his son listening to the sound of his preferred music. He saw him enjoying the lyrics and deeply understood his passion for this music.

He did not always like everything about his son. He was sometimes concerned about some of his thinking. His son sometimes went very far with his expectations without considering that he also had to show respect to his father. But in no case this prevented him from loving his son. Now where he was in prison he missed him very much. He was getting older and wanted to spend his last years in peace, with the knowing that his son will have a great family.

He went to the living room and sat down for a while, just thinking about what happened yesterday. Not only his close friend came to help him, but he also received some phone calls from some other person. He did not appreciate all of these calls. Indeed, they all wanted to help, but some of them did not respect his feelings. His PR advisor told him to forget his son and never mention him in public again, because it gives him a negative image.

When he heard that he wanted to throw this man out of the window, but he only could throw the phone to the wall. He smashed it against the wall until it was broken, being angry about this person. He never could possibly just leave his son alone. What kind of father would he be? When his son comes to a danger and needs help he was standing there and helping, like a good father and not running away like this PR person suggested.

Even if he would have only a few occasions in the future to speak with his son, he never would stop loving him. The love became even stronger every second where his son was in this prison.

This prison. The prison was not a prison for everyone. It was kind of a richer people prison, but however, it remained a prison. All the top managers, top politicians and son’s of famous person got to this kind of prison when they were accused for a crime. They had a good service inside, the cells were more comfortable than in a regular prison and instead of water and bread the prisoners got real menus for lunch and dinner.

The prison was huge, too big for the small number of prisoners. 80 prisoners usually stayed in this prison, some for a longer time and some for an undefined time, like his son. As in every prison it was hard to get out, very tuff. The prison was highly secured. As a visitor he cold easily get in, he could come and visit his son. It was located in the south east part of the town, not too far from where he was currently staying. However, it was not possible to visit him now, due to some security reasons. Maybe some influential persons just didn’t want them to meet.

He tried to stop thinking about this prison and took the newest newspaper. But he hardly could focus on one article. His mind was not really confused, he could think clearly, but he could just not concentrate well on another thing. He was trying to imagine what his son was doing at the moment. He tried to see his face and to guess his actions.

He knew that his son was not totally unhappy there. His son would take prison as a challenge, as well as he did. His former Management professor gave him and the class the advise to always do the things you are most afraid of because this makes you stronger. The management professor, for example, took climbing lessons, because he was afraid of the height. And it worked out well. You can try to live with your fears or you can face them and let them become inexistent or very small.

Later, for the first time since some days he really could concentrate on the magazine he was reading. This might sound silly in some ears but it actually isn’t. It is hard to concentrate on something when you have strong feelings. You always want to walk around and keep on moving, because you know when you sit down the feelings will hurt you even more. You keep active to prevent those feelings, sometimes it works, but sometimes it also doesn’t help you.

However, the magazine he was successfully reading this morning, The World in 2007, was a supplementary issue of The Economist and was primary focused on forecasting the events in 2007. He read numerous articles while drinking a hot coffee and eating a French croissant in a trendy French coffee shop.

It seemed that for the people here a trendy French coffee shop needed absolutely a gay waiter. He was quite uncomfortable with the idea that the waiter seemed to like him quite much. Maybe the waiter considered him as sexy, but he didn’t want to know.

He preferred not to spend too much attention to this gay waiter and sat down at a free table. He felt good this morning. He had new energy and took his magazines, opened them, and started reading about the world’s evolution. Some of the articles had been influenced by his ideas and he was happy to see that his colleagues shared his point of view on several questions.

How would the world develop in the year 2007? One of the essential questions was how strong will be the impact of the events in the middle-east for the western countries? What will be the role of China? China, in his opinion, still had a lot of potential, not only on an economical point of view, but more on a (geo-) political view. Only their influence on North Korea could stop the authoritarian regime from using their bomb and developing further war technologies. Indeed, if China would be successful on this subject, they must be considered as international power. The world needed China to control North Korea and the Chinese government would play with this new influence on the western countries.

Also very important, as just mentioned before, would be the events in the middle-east. What will the Iranian regime do? They already had their hands in several hot zones like Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. In his opinion, Iran would try to influence even more the regional politics, becoming the regional power it always wanted to be. And why shouldn’t they? There was no reason why America should be the predominant power everywhere, especially in this region. If America would give more influence to those regional powers and try to communicate on a diplomatic basis the relations would become much better with the time and as a consequence the oil prices would start falling and the most essential aspect, the image of the western world would improve. However, this was not a result which could be reached on short term. A long breath was needed, and the American politicians were looking for short term answers in order to satisfy their voters, and consequently it was very likely that nothing would change on this topic in 2007. Maybe an American president would one day see this evolution and accomplish the necessary steps, but he wasn’t very positive on this point of view.

In their battle for their “good cause” the USA should not hope too much on the support of Europe. In 2007 they will spend much more time on European subjects, as the constitution, the presidential and parliamentary elections in France, and the new prime minister in the United Kingdom. Europe seemed to be on a good way to surpass its economical and political weaknesses of the previous years; however, some topics were likely to remain hot. The northern countries were going to lose their status as “model” for the perfect system. Increasing unemployment rates and slow economic growth touched more and more the Scandinavian countries. In Sweden the former ruling party already took a hard defeat in the September 2006’s elections with their worst result since 1914! European politicians would have to accept that there was no magic formula that would make it possible to keep the European social model intact. There would be no alternative to economic reforms.

The increasing dependency from Russian gas made him also worry a bit. But Russia was not on a very strong position. It remained still too much dependent from foreign technology that it could not afford a conflict. As a consequence Russia would play a little with it’s energetically influence but they would not be able to play the role they wished to occupy.

What would the year 2007 bring to him? He did not really know. On a professional side nothing would really change. Well yes, he would maybe climb a position and becoming one of the top three managers, but that would not change a lot. He still had to work a lot. He was thinking about leaving the company in two or three years, finishing his career with a new position as an independent advisor for politicians. He had all the contacts he needed to get this kind of job without a problem. When he was a child he always wanted to become politician, just after fire fighter. He created countries and ruled them after his own believes. He created laws and simulated problems. Together with his brother they created a very complex system. Later his brother improved this system even more and today most of the real countries would have been glad to have such a performing system for their own state. But fortunately not a lot of people knew about this.

After all he never really got the chance to get active in politics, but his brother was a very influent diplomat. His brother used to be ambassador for Germany in Russia, Japan and USA. His brother had a lot of power and was a hot candidate for the next foreign affairs ministry. But as every politician he preferred not to pronounce himself on this issue, what means in clear: yes, he was becoming the next minister for foreign affairs.

He also thought about moving away from his current house. Not, that he didn’t like the house, but he wanted to be closer to the power. He felt that he needed to be in touch directly with all significant events.

More personal, he absolutely wanted to find out more about the people living with his son in prison. What kind of people surrounded his son? If he would know more about them, he could better try to help him and be there for him. This was a personal issue which was very important to him. In his private life his son came at the first place, as the central subject. He wanted to be present anytime for his son and that was essential in his mind. The year 2007 would be in this regard interesting to observe.

2007 was going to be the year where changes started to happen. However, the real changes would happen in 2008/2009. The European Union would get new member states again, the USA would get a new president and the Olympic Games in China would show how mature this country really was.

He would quit his job in 2009 maybe and get a position as advisor. He also started writing a new book, which was maybe finished 2008 or 2009. He already wrote the first parts of the book.

Concerning this book, he showed parts of it to a friend and asked him for his opinion. This friend was also a close friend and a very successful business man. They met for the first time during a PhD programme some twenty or thirty years ago and both of them had still most of their career in front of them at that time. His friend used to work for a hedge fund before creating his own one. With all his experience he established a very competitive company and invested in high performing sectors.

They started a close friendship after this PhD programme. Whenever they had the opportunity to meet they saw each other. They shared a lot of common points and they always had a good time. The friend was also thinking about leaving his company around 2009. They were getting older and with the age you start looking for new challenges. He would not give up the ownership of the firm, but he would give up the position as Chief Executive Officer.

The friend was delighted about the opportunity to read the first parts of the book and told him, that it was very well written. He thanked his friend for this kind commentary and asked him to send him all ideas he had in order to improve the future book.

He was never happy about what he wrote. He was constantly looking to improve his sentences. That’s one reason why only some books saw the day of the light, but he had hundreds started, flying around somewhere, never finished because he was not pleased about what he had written. When he used to be in school, all teachers told him, that he had a talent to write a lot, but that sometimes he got a bit lost in his stories. That was in primary school. In High school he could improve his writing style and one day a teacher was so impressed by his story that the teacher asked him if he wanted to become an author. No, that was never in his intention, actually it was like with the music. He did it only for himself, for his personal pleasure.

He decided to walk around and take part of the crowd of people running in all directions outside. It was Saturday. The day where most of the families went shopping and the pavements were packed with shoppers. He tried to look for some gifts for friends, but he could not find anything. He bought some Christmas cards and decided to go to another coffee shop. He was still very worried about his son, but he knew that it would be helpful if he would stay at home.

He called one of his contacts in the city to ask for an informal meeting. He obtained one on Sunday afternoon. He didn’t know exactly what to talk about, but he wanted to change his mind and therefore this meeting could make this step easier. He enjoyed talking to people he met, on airports or somewhere else. Usually they did not know him and that was what he liked. Talking to people who don’t know who he was, because then they talked like they would talk to everyone. If they would have recognized him, they would have chosen their words more carefully and that’s not what he wanted. He wanted to hear everyone’s opinion and respected all what he heard. Sometimes he asked for the person’s backgrounds and was surprised how interesting most of these peoples’ life’s were.

Every person has a special life which is not similar to other ones. Everyone is special. But the thing is that most of the people don’t know that they are special. They don’t have the self-confidence to say that they are unique. Opportunities are everywhere and only the one with enough self confidence can grab them. In some countries are more opportunities, in others less, but there are always some. Discovering the right sector and the good time are the essential points, but once the opportunity has been taken in the good sector at the right time prosperity would follow soon.

At the end of the day the most surprising happened. A phone call from prison. His son tried to reach him, apparently he already tried to do so yesterday, but he could not contact his father. Today it finally worked and they spend almost an hour on the phone.

He was very happy to have news from his son. They talked about the events in prison and his son told him, that he was not feeling good. He knew why, it was for the same reason that he was not feeling good as well. Unfortunately, he could not do anything for his son. For the moment they had to accept the situation and work both on their sides to get out of this situation. His son would try to get things clear with his co prisoners and he would try to provide his son all the information he needed.

The next day he had the meeting with this local personality and it was very successful. They talked about a lot of different subjects and he got the opportunity to meet some other people. They took him to a good restaurant and the time passed.

Before this meeting he almost believed that it had been cancelled, because he didn’t received any confirmation. But one hour before the person called him and confirmed the meeting. Happy about this occasion to meet a local personality he only spent short time for other things and prepared himself for this meeting.

He went there not without a strong thinking about his son. Actually he would have wished to talk to him this evening, but it was not possible. He talked to his son this afternoon for some seconds and at this time his son was really tired, so he decided to let him sleep a while and call him later. However, later he thought that it would be better to give his son more sleep and a rest. He should not exaggerate it and take it easier. He expected that his son would understand his decision. His son was smart and knew that his father was present for him at any moment.

Almost some twenty hours later, while surfing around on the webpage of the local newspapers a sound came to his ears. The sound of a song. Yes, a quite old song. The sound came from an advertising. An advert for a new photo camera. The catch phrase was something like “To keep your best moments of life for the next generation”. This song remained him of a guy met when he was still a student. He always had this person in head, he did not know why. Maybe because he always thought that this guy was strange. He was always sad when he thought about him. This person was kind of special in a certain way.

For a long time this person didn’t live in our world. At least not with his spirit. His spirit and mind was always somewhere else. In an imaginary world. Don’t think about computer games or something similar. No, those worlds are kind of real compared to his world.

His world was one big lie. He was a liar. Actually he was more a dreamer, but an ill dreamer. He dreamed about is life and imagined how it could be but never realized that his real life was not like this. He said things about his life which were not true and people trusted him. He created imaginary friends and situations. He created his own problems and his own success. An important part of his life was imaginary. His friends did not know that he was lying. They thought that he was serious when he talked about something. This person thought that he could construct his world of imagination and live in it. Everything looked fine in this world. Every day he invited more stories and built up his world. This world became bigger and bigger and the amazing part of the story is, that he never made mistakes by talking about his world. He had everything perfectly in mind and it sounded logical to his friends. Maybe he wrote it down somewhere to not get confused. But anyways, never anyone thought that he was just lying.

He was a nice person, everyone liked this person. It was nice to talk with him. He was also a quite beautiful person and he earned a lot of respect and had a lot of friends.

One day, however, his real life saw the daylight. It was not another person who discovered that he was lying, but it was his own weakness. He could not support it anymore. The burden of his lies arrived at a weight he could no longer take on his shoulders. He was afraid of continuing his unreal life and wanted to get out.

So one day he went to a friend and told him everything. He told him, that almost everything about him was a big ly. This friend was not happy at all about this. Sadly he asked him, why he did not tell him the truth from the beginning? They all trusted him and respected him a lot and now he wanted to say that he lied to them? This friend could not accept that and all other friends who heard from this story turned away from him. No one wanted to speak to him anymore. He deceived them very much.

Never deceive people’s trust. Being hidden behind lies is not a solution. Once they discover the truth it could possibly have bad consequences.

Thinking about this person made him thoughtful. He always tried to teach his students that, in business and private life, lies never are the way to go. They can kill, in almost the real sense of the word, people’s life’s. This person came to him one day and told him about all this. He did not reject this person, but tried to help him. He tried to show him the way to live his real life in the way he always dreamed. He was not the kind of person who just rejected people because they made a mistake. Actually, he saw those mistakes as a chance to show them the real way to go. He gave hope to this person, but he expected him to be honest now and to respect him.

After university they went different ways and he did not hear a lot of this person. Sometimes friends passed him some news about this person and he was happy to hear that he had a family and a happy life, not hidden behind lies anymore. It is always better to be honest and give people a reason to trust you. He always was a very honest person. When he was younger he dreamed a lot as well, but he discovered fast, that this was not a way to go.

A phone call pushed the souvenirs away and he saw that his contact from yesterday was calling. He invited him to come to his office again. It was his last day in Shanghai, he would leave again, change place as he was used to do. Was he sad to leave this town? No, not really. With the time and the different places he saw, he was getting used to say good bye to cities. If he would be sad every time he left a place he must have been dead already. He would be pushed to death by the sadness. There was no place for feelings for cities. Only persons could find a place in his heart, but he never gave a lot of importance to cities. He just remembered them in a positive or negative way, that’s all.

He went to his contacts office and they went to lunch with some colleagues. They had fascinating conversations about god and the world. All were very cultivated and loved to talk about the newest events. He decided to stay in touch with them and help them in case they needed some work done.

He was asked about his plans for tonight. He said that he did not know yet. He still wanted to prepare some documents and then go to the airport. There was always something free there where he could spend the night. This time maybe not the first class-suite. When they heard this they asked him to join them on a conference this night. It was a conference about inter cultural management and a lot of guest speaker would be there. He gladly accepted this invitation and his contact expressed his pleasure about his acceptation.

He promised to be at the conference on time and went to a French coffee shop near his contact’s office. There he opened his notebook and arranged some meetings and continued some of his urgent work. Even when he took some days off he had to be in touch with the company’s news and events.

The company was doing fine, and he had not too much work to do, just answering some emails. Then he decided to continue his book. Some phone calls came in, but he guessed that the person on the other end of the lane just dialled the wrong number, because he never could hear a world. Maybe some mistakes in the network. Shanghai still had some work to do on this point of view.

Sometimes people asked him if he felt like a citizen of one country or more like a world citizen. He used to answer that he felt as world citizen. Not really attached to any country. But sometimes he just felt very attached to his father’s country. He missed the way of living there and some cultural events. Some people stay in a town and in a country all their life, he just could not do this. However, sometimes he wished to be more attached to a place. He was between two strong wishes. On the one hand the wish to discover everything and to learn everything. Meeting people from different countries was very exciting. On the other hand he sometimes wished to live in a city, to have friends there and have a stable live. No. That would not be his life.

He pushed this idea away and took something to read. He would meet his contact at 5pm and then they would go to this conference. He was eager to listen to the speeches about this very interesting subject.

At night he finally got the opportunity to talk to his son again! He could not quite believe it when he discovered that he could speak with his son. It was one of the happiest moments since his son had to go to prison. His son was not doing so well, but neither was he. They talked a lot and he had the impression that it was really hard for his son. Of course, he still had some negative points about his father but that didn’t matter to the real feelings. The same for him. He really loved and missed his son, however, he was not totally happy with all his son said during the conversation. But at the end of the conversation they were both very touched and it was a very sad moment, just as his son’s entry to prison. It remained him of the big wall. This wall appeared in his dreams and disturbed. Yes, this wall was disturbing, because it separated him from his son. It was very hard for him. As a good father he was very worried and had wished to be able to spend more time on his side.

This night he would leave the city. He needed to change the environment. He already informed his son about his decision and he did agree, or at least he did not had any major objections. He felt that he could not do much more in this city. Too many feelings were linked to this city and he did not want to let them take the leadership over his behaviour. He was a grown up person and knew that it was better to leave. Anyways, business would go on and he had to travel a lot, so he had to leave at one moment.

However, it was not easy for him. When he arrived at the airport he did not feel the freedom of travelling but he felt like in a cell. A cell. A cell in prison for example. Everything was too small and too close to him. He could not breath, could not move easily. He had to go to the restrooms in order to calm down a bit. He would only be able to breathe again when he was sitting in the airplane. He still had to wait some hours, he arrived much too early at the airport and now he was sitting in the sky lunge. Everything was empty. Emptiness. An empty airport. Only few people walking around. He could hear a soft music in his ears and there was almost no noise. A very spooky atmosphere. He tried to concentrate on other things, like his new book, but it was hard. His eyes tried to close by their own but he resisted. He did not want to sleep. He knew that he must sleep in the airplane to avoid the jet lag. He did not have the “right” to sleep before. If he would fall asleep it would be very very difficult to stay awake in America.

An airport. People run, people talk, people cry and scream. Business and private. The world turns around an airplane going to a certain place. Everyone had to follow this routine check-in, pass control, security control and further other procedures depending on the local airport rules. Usually thousands of people met here without knowing it. They saw each other, but never really paid attention to their co existent human beings. Airport. Maybe the most impersonal place and the most personal at the same time. Here people met again, people left each other. Couples were united and separated. Business men came, concluded contracts and left same day. No one knows who the other person is and even in the airplane they did not know and most of the time they did not want to know.

He had seen a lot of different airports and they were all the same. Speakers announced that passenger x was missing and should hurry up to catch his flight. In America every five minutes you are remained that you should never leave your luggage unattended.

Being used to airports, spending a lot of time here changed his character. He was impersonal, did not need a lot of personal contacts to be happy and he was used to be alone without being alone. That meant that he was used to have thousand people around him, without knowing them.

He would finish this chapter of his life after his departure, leaving behind this city. He would hardly come back; he would only come to see his son. He had other plans, serious and challenging plans. His life has always been challenging, but this time it was new. He wanted to change. Grow up in a kind of way. It was a very central step in his life and he knew that it would be essential to his future. If he could successfully transform himself and improve than he would have the life he was looking for. If he would not get the success, than he would quit his life and make a term to his long career. Normally he was a very self confident man, but on this point he was a bit feared. He feared his failure. He would give a hundred percent to avoid failure!

Future will bring the answer, and as a born optimist he saw the future positively. He smiled and sat down on this seat in the airplane. Soon he would start his new mission and he was eager to complete it with success.

- end of the first chapter -