SMILING hELL cafe

He sat before a cup of tea, oolong, which he ordered just because of the name, which made him feel somehow different. Whatever. He really did not know much about tastes of teas, being more of a coffee drinker. It would take a fair amount of effort and time to become anything like that; furthermore, he had no desire to waste time on tea.

The cafe was located in Seattle, another name which conjured up many images, depending on your perspective. No time to waste there either. It was late in the season . Leaves, while had not even turned yet, still obviously lost their early summer vigor and were napping. Napping... he let himself harmonize with the spent leaves. Thinking of Klara, waiting on a spirit long gone; it had always been a puzzle. One moment somebody can't live without you and in the next moment ... gone. Love, such physical thing, becomes ephemeral and vanishes to ... where could it go, as if somehow a brand of toothpaste becomes an intergalactic home wrecker... a destroyer of all things real...

Klara had been his life, his wife, the lead singer in a band, Ariel Spyker, that never would have been without her. And what puzzled him more than anything was his numbness; no it was not that. To say that he was sad or mourned her death would not be correct. He functioned normally going on with his daily life, suddenly remembering she was gone at the oddest moments. He wondered what was wrong with himself and why didn't he have feelings like a normal person.

“Kiss me; no one can see us," she pulled him closer, "we are invisible now.”

Klara was a dancer once a week at the local stripper bar, had a doctorate in anthropology, a published author and worked constantly at the coffee shop. Now this woman was simply gone, and with her, his real life. All he had left was walking down all these old streets, laughing or not, playing his bass, going out with friends and only just occasionally asking, "What am I doing here?"

But not like any man who had lost what he had lost.

A river flowed. It flowed from its source to its end. Regardless of its twists and turns, its rapids and falls, lakes and ponds, it flowed. Regardless of levies and dams, the rain came out of the sky, into the ground and back up to the sky. Some of it was drunk up by birds and rabbits and people. It traveled through their bodies and on out into the earth where it was purified and sent back up into the sky. Clouds gathered and the pure water rained down into The River. The River had current and direction. Just where he and Klara fit into this cycle, he did not know. Nothing could be separate from the river.... but Robert felt separate. He felt that Klara was separate also. But nothing could be separate from the River. The difference between them was that Klara did not struggle against the current. Her singing was the sound of the river as it flowed on its merry and terrible way. What his function of the river was totally and completely lost on him.

Robert suddenly remembered when he first met Ha Hee, Klara's friend. It was another thing that puzzled him. Trying to daydream about Klara and Ha Hee would always creep in. Ha Hee had taken over lead singer for Klara after her death and the band kept on and maybe even got better, but in a different direction.

“I know this Korean girl," Woo had said, she would be great for the part. When you look at her, you can never tell if she is really, really pretty or really, really ugly. And she is so intense, I mean, like, intense, like she could turn the sun in to a great big block of ice with one look.”

Pasha jumped up. “Yeah, I know her! They call her Nano. Chang Ha… Ha… Ha something….”

Woo interrupted him. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Chang Ha Hee…”

“She’d be perfect, yeah, Chang Ha Hee, but isn’t she in New York, Woo?”

“NoNoNo,” said Woo breathlessly, “she’s back here. I saw her the other day. She’s not doing anything right now. She got kicked outa this grunge band cuz people started liking her more than the lead singer, you know that asshole from Streek…”

“Yeah, yeah whata jerk…. Michael Bling, right? I know that asshole.”

Woo nodded his head, “Yeah him, but wait, let me see, she gave me her number if I had anything, like I think she wanted to, like, I mean I think she has always wanted to hook up with us, but you know… this and that.

Woo was talking really fast, but suddenly he stopped and looked at Robert. He gave him an odd look. Everybody looked embarrassed all at once.

“No, no it's okay," Robert said, "she and Klara were close, I think.”

"Let me go to work on this. Give me about two weeks so I can hammer out a basic story. Pasha, try and get a hold of that Taiko band down in LA and see if they’re interested in playing with a full symphony. I want koto’s and samisens … wooden flutes. Ima call Nawang Khechog and Robert Smith and see if they wanna get on board. Saichie, You wanna do the costumes?”

“Yes, of course, for everybody but Ha Hee. Her regular clothes will be perfect. In fact this whole thing will be perfect for her. Woo, did you know that she is a synaesthete?”

"Um... synaesthesia... hears in colors?"

"Yeah, that but big time, hears in colors, tastes in colors, comes in colors; total sensory blending, I mean, usually people that have it report that it's just aural and visual, like hearing and getting an image of colors, but she's extreme. Says the right sound produces external streaks of colors, some kinda techno rainbow thing. During orgasm, hears symphonic music, sees colors, tastes exotic food that she's never had..."

Woo was momentarily speechless. "Hmm.. That must be fun."

Robert shrugged. “Woo, call Chang Ha Hee right now and get her over here. I want to talk to her so I can do her character.”

They worked late into the night and into the early morning. About 4:30 am there was a knock on the door. Robert got up and went to the door and opened it. It was Chang Ha Hee. Robert starred, actually gawked, at her for a second and then invited her in.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m just a country boy. Come on in.”

“I think not, but thank you for compliment. You are Robert, yes? I like you in Howling Dog very much. Why did you quit?”

“Uh, Klara, ah, you know…”

“Yes I knew Klara. She is my old friend. Used to be best friend… She is here.”

Robert simply starred.”

Ha Hee brushed by him, her perfume strangely intoxicating him...

In the great room on the big sofa Woo was sitting. Ha Hee walked up and sat down next to him. She sat right next to Woo, touching him, but was looking around the room as if Klara would walk in any second. Everybody had stopped what they were doing and watched expectantly, actually staring. Ha Hee’s face was made up like an Egyptian goddess. She had Maori tattoos on her neck. Then she started talking to Klara

“I am very very tired, Klara, so tired...”

“Okay lay down here..." Robert got a blanket.”

Ha Hee lay down, her head on Robert's lap. She closed her eyes and appeared to instantly fell asleep, right there in front of everybody.

“I like her already,” said Pasha.

Ha Hee opened one eye and lazily said, “Yeah, everybody like me. Who don’t like me, hates me. Nobody in between.”

Robert patted her shoulder. “Sleep, little one, sleep.”

Ha Hee snuggled up to her and pulled her knees up to her chest in a fetal position. She had red and black knee socks and a short grey skirt. Red panties peeked out below her skirt. Robert covered her up with the blanket.

Ha Hee looked up at him and smiled. “I like this one, Woo, I will broaden him out somewhat... he seems, what, narrow worldview? No, he has a spell on his soul," she reached out and put her hand on Robert's chest, "oh my, a bad one...”

Her face went in and out of focus for a moment, and then she did fall asleep. Robert grinned lopsided and shook his head. She was perfect.

Later that afternoon Robert woke up in his bed. An arm was flung across his chest. It was Ha Hee’s arm. She was sleeping in his bed with him on her back, legs spread. She was naked except for her panties, chest moving up and down regularly. She was not quite snoring or else one could say her snores were gentle whispers. Robert thought that she looked quite like a child sleeping between her mother and father. Indeed, his slight movement had caused her to push up a bit tighter to his side.

“You are very warm,” she mumbled, half asleep. She rolled over him, her breasts grazing his chest, got up and went to his dresser. She opened a few before she found one of his t-shirts, then walked back over to the bed, sat down on the edge holding the t-shirt in her hands and yawned. She looked over at Robert.

"I need breakfast."

That had been a few months ago. Ha Hee had fit seamlessly into the band, but disappeared from weeks at a time...

Rainier

Robert went for his monthly hike up to Summerland on Rainier. He was about half way up, coming up on a split in the trail. It was then he noticed the red and black stockings of someone waiting at the junction. It was Ha Hee! One the one hand, he was very puzzled, but on the other, he realized that he was very happy to see her. He didn't like to be alone.

“Chang Ha Hee! How did you get here already?”

“I have my secrets.” She smiled a great big smile.

“Yeah right, come on tell me.”

“Guess how I got here.”

“Umm… bus?”

“Well, that must be it. You such a smart boy. Come on let’s go.”

“I thought you were in LA."

“It was my trick.” She was smiling like a little girl; so proud of herself. “Come on. Klara told me to come.”

The death. The band. Klara had sung. Now Ha Hee sang. Ha Hee never talked about Klara in the past tense, indeed she talked like she was still here. Robert played bass, after a fashion.. Woo was lead guitar. Woo was a fanatic about the music. When he learned something new, he would go off for days practicing until the thing was mastered, until he owned it. Robert could listen to a song maybe fifty or sixty times in a row, savoring each little note, listening to everything a piece of music was saying to him. But Woo was a maker. First he would master a sound. Then he

would bend it and stretch it, adding and subtracting until the piece became a living thing. Woo poured so much of himself into his music. The guitar in his hands became a limitless extension of that which was inside Woo and he would play the strings on the guitar like it was his own hand. Like he was snapping his fingers or clapping his hands. Far different than how Robert played the bass. Robert struggled to play the bass and was always conscious that he had an instrument in his hands, always aware if it as a separate entity.

Not Woo though. For Woo the guitar became another part of his body He had many guitars, lots of equipment, but it was just so he could obtain a particular sound. And Robert would just listen. Finally Woo would look up at Robert and smile, “Well whadya think? Is it good?”

Pasha was the drummer. He could play with anyone he wanted to; he was that well known. Instead he played for Speaking in Tongues. Robert's new band. Ha Hee had just come to the band. She had a small but devout following with her own band back in New York, but after hearing Speaking in Tongues when they were on tour she immediately approached Robert about joining. Speaking had a ethereal, eclectic sound, mostly from Klara, but what Ha Hee brought to them was mysticism. With her they went way beyond the sum of the parts.

Robert was suddenly restless.

He looked down at her feet. Hiking boots. She a had big feet and hands for such a delicate being.

"Shall we go, Ha Hee?"

“Yes of course. Klara and I are like sisters and we share everything.”

She looked at him very suggestively.

Communion

They walked on the trail side by side. She walked very close frequently brushing up against him. He noticed that she was very quiet, occasionally pointing out a pretty flower or a marmot. Once they stopped to look at a deer that she spotted. She was observant and obviously an experienced hiker. He would not have guessed that. Except for the fact that she walked right up next to him, she exhibited all the trail etiquette of an experienced outdoors person. In his experience, Koreans were not so touchy feely unless they really liked you. He actually liked the contact. She had a sleeveless t on and a film of sweat covered her body. He wondered if she had a clue of what she was doing to him. Normally he would just let it pass. With Ha Hee, he knew he could talk about it openly, but he was not sure where it would lead. After awhile he realized that he was physically reacting to her and starting to fantasize about her.

“Ha Hee, let’s take a break.”

“Okay. Let’s sit down on that log up there. Do you want a snack?”

“Yes, I want a snack. You could say that,” he thought. Out loud he said, “Can I ask something very personal?”

“Yes, of course.”

They were sitting down on an old well-worn log. She sat right next to him, not quite pressed up against him, but close enough that any movement by either of them would cause her body to brush on his. He couldn’t stand it any longer so he started right in without any preamble. He didn’t want to mumble around with a lot of pre-apologizing.

“Ha Hee are you aware of what you are doing to me?”

“Yes, of course.”

At least she didn’t pull any of that, “Whatever are you talking about?” crap on him.

“So maybe you can tell me why some girls do that. And while you are at it, why do they act so surprised whenever I come on back to them?”

“Well, Robert, to answer your last question first, they are unaware or unwilling to acknowledge what they are doing. They just want to feel the power of having a man wanting them so much. It is not really fair, I suppose. But if a man likes a woman, it is always sexual on some level. Look at yourself; you have a big lump in your pants. All I have to do is reach out and touch you lightly and then you would really not be able to think of anything else, right? And for you personally, you have the unfortunate habit of falling in love with anybody who shows you any kindness at

all. Am I correct?”

Robert was blushing furiously. He was acutely aware that he was really poking out his flimsy hiking shorts. He looked down at his erection and became even more embarrassed.

“Robert, I really, really like you. If you want me to take care of that for you, I will, but just with my hand okay?” she was looking at him with that penetrating look of hers, her voice starting to get a weirdly husky. “After all, it is my fault. I manipulated everything. And it is my weakness, too, Robert, I want every man to want me. I want you to want me. I am wounded too, just like you are Robert.”

She reached over and took him out. She threw her coat over his lap and started to manipulate him. Her hands and fingers were electric on his bare skin. Suddenly he wanted to be inside of her.

“Ha Hee..."

She placed one hand on his lips and slid down between his legs, licking and planting gentle kisses around the head of his penis. He could stand it no longer and gently pushed forward until he was inside of her mouth. He could feel his mounting orgasm coming from a space deep within his soul, churning its way upward. Ha Hee nurtured his orgasm gently and slowly, pacing her mouth to his increasing urgency. He felt that he had always been coming and would come forever. When he finally erupted into her he slowly became aware of his echoing screams in the forest. Only when he was soft did she take off her damp bandana and delicately clean him.

“Feel better?” She looked up at him.

“Yes.”

“Okay, now that’s all, okay? Don’t expect anything more than that. I’m just helping. Okay?”

‘Okay”

“And now our little friend is very, very quiet, right?”

“Ha Hee, you are soo weird.”

Robert felt very strange. He looked at Ha Hee. Actually, he had never experienced an orgasm so intensely before. But something else nagged at him about the whole thing. Something didn’t feel right.

“Come on, let’s go to the top. There is a beautiful spot to eat lunch.”

“Don’t you want to eat,” she laughed.

“Come on Ha Hee, let’s go.” He was up and away.

She ran to catch up with him. “Can I still walk next to you?”

He looked at her and smiled, “Sure, you can walk right next to me if you like. He gave her a little squeeze around the shoulder and off they went.

When they got to the top, it was everything that Robert had promised to Ha Hee.

“It is so so beautiful, Robert!”

“Not as beautiful as you...”

She became quiet and abruptly started to unpack the lunch from their packs. Robert could sense that there was something amiss.

“Ha Hee, is something wrong?” Robert was very sensitive to other people’s feelings.

“Robert sit down and eat your sandwich. Are you thirsty? I brought some grape juice that I made in the juicer this morning.”

Ha Hee carefully unwrapped the sandwiches and handed one to Robert. The day had started out unnaturally warm and beautiful, without a cloud in the sky but Robert sensed a change. Down in the lowlands one could see the weather from far off, but you didn’t ever get the same sense of the weather changing like you did in the mountains. Sometimes it felt like, “looks like rain soon,” or “gonna clear up soon,” but in the mountains when you weren’t paying attention, it just happened.

Up in the mountains, weather would roll in like a freight train, thick clouds roiling in over dips and saddles in ridges and between peaks. Down in the lowlands, you did not feel the change like in the mountains. Up in the mountains, you were not beneath the clouds; you were in them. When they came swooping up and over a saddle, they came on you like a freight train. Wind tore

at your clothes, the temperature dropped to an icy chill and suddenly you were enveloped in gray and stinging bits of rock and dust. It was as if the wind was just one little bit stronger, you would be hurled miles away and smashed into the side of the mountain.

Robert had felt it many a time. A sudden storm in the mountains was a killer. He had a healthy respect for weather change up here. Clouds were starting to move in.

“Ha Hee, we had better get going. Those clouds are making me a little nervous.”

No sooner did he say it than big flakes of snow started to fall on them. They were still in the sunshine but the temperature started to drop. Suddenly the leading edge of a monstrous cloud popped up over the ridge. They were in a protected bowl. The air was unnaturally still and quiet.

“Ha Hee, we should go.”

“Finish your sandwich. We are caught. It is too late. This is something that we are going to walk out of.” She paused. “Look at my face. Really look at it and tell me what you see.”

Robert looked up at the sky. He was worried. Ha Hee caught his chin in her delicate but long fingers and turned his gaze to her face. “Look at me Robert.”

A protest died on his lips as he felt her intensity wash over him even more surely than the oncoming storm. She pushed a strand of hair back off her face. Her eyes searched his. “What do you see, Robert?’

Her face was perfect. Her eyes were dark and exquisitely shaped, neither too close nor too far apart. Her nose was also flawless, the perfect size and shape, straight and narrow but not sharp. Her full red lips were soft and smooth, inviting. Her chin, her cheekbones, her ears, everything about her face was unnaturally perfect. Even her golden skin was completely free of blemishes or tiny scars of any sort.

“Do you know why I had these tats put on my neck?”

“Yes.”

“Why Robert?”

“Because your face was too beautiful?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Telling... both, I guess. Was your face done?”

“Parts of it. Which do you think is mine?”

“Your lips,” he said without hesitation.

“Yes. My lips are mine. My own natural lips which have been everywhere on your body. I made everything else match them.”

“And you did not like the outcome?”

“NO, Robert, I did not. Not at all. People starred at me. Men would walk into things on the street, starring at me. They would walk into cars, oncoming traffic, other women, telephone poles, whatever. It was horrible. Then I had the tats and starting wearing this crazy make up. I look like a clown, but nobody stares at me anymore. Well, not as much. Do you like my face?”

The flakes were coming down harder and slowly covering her silky black hair. The wind had reached the tree tops was whipping the upper limbs back and forth in a frenzy. Still a shell of unnatural silence enveloped them.

“Yeah, I do, but I like you, Ha Hee. Your face became even more beautiful, if that’s possible, from something inside you, Ha Hee. The more I know you, the more beautiful you are. It is something I feel, not something I see.”

“Okay, Robert, remember that, can you?”

He did not know what to say, he just looked at her and nodded.

She handed him the food.

He accepted the sandwich and juice, grateful for something besides the lukewarm water in his bottle. He was happy, but he could see something was bothering Ha Hee. He finished chewing the food in his mouth and swallowed it. He carefully put his juice down between them. She picked it back up and put it up to his lips.

“Drink. Swallow all of it, every drop, just as I swallowed every bit of you.” She held it up to his mouth until every last drop of it was gone. He choked slightly. Some of the juice ran down the side of his chin. She caught it with her middle finger and pressed it back up into his mouth, pushing her finger all the way into his mouth up to her palm. “Now I have swallowed all of you and you have swallowed all of me. Blood of my blood: body of my body. It is our offerings to each other. Our communion. We are forever intertwined for better or worse. We have married our souls together on this mountain and are forever bonded. We were anyway when I slept with you that first night but I had to make sure you understood everything. Now I must tell you something. But first, before I do, think of how you feel about me right this moment. Remember it. Savor it. Do not forget this exact moment. You feel like you are part of me, right?”

He nodded. She took both of his hands in hers and paused.

“Now I must tell you something.” She looked away for a moment, then back into his eyes. Her face bore a terrible intensity, her eyes burned deeply into him.

“Whether you feel hurt or betrayed is nothing I can control, but please remember how you feel this very this moment. Cherish it.” She paused again and took a deep breath.

“It’s okay Ha Hee. Go ahead. I promise you, whatever it is I will accept.” He was not totally sure what was coming but clearly she was about to reveal something very painful.

“Do you promise?”

“I do.”

She paused again and started to speak never taking her eyes off his.

“Robert, I was born a woman trapped in a man’s body. I have been surgically changed to what you see before you.” She stopped abruptly and waited on him.

Gently he reached out for her and pulled her close. She melted into him. He held her close for a long time. He could not really think about what she had told him in any way that related to anything. It was as if she had said, “I am a monster, an abomination. Do you still love me? I am a blasphemous heinous crime against God and mankind. Do you still love me?”

She would be considered by many, maybe even judged by God himself as all of that, but he didn’t see it that way. It did not feel like any of that. What he did feel was a certain degree of sadness, actually, he felt an ocean of sadness.

He wondered about all the tears of all the sadness in the world, where did they all go? Robert sat there with Ha Hee’s big feet and small, frail body in his arms. Oceans and oceans of tears, and only a small portion of them, perhaps a few inlets or bays, were made up of tears from things like the Holocaust. If you put all of the genocides and murders and wars together, the still added up to a very small portion of the oceans of tears. The overwhelming bulk of tears in this ocean were made up of normal everyday tears of tiny little hurts from love unable to be given or received.

But there was something else too. Robert was unable to imagine Ha Hee as a man. He could not even begin to imagine cutting off his penis and trying to become a woman. But she had. Moreover, Ha Hee had spotted his compassion and vulnerabilities immediately and revealed everything to him. The sadness of what had happened back up on the trail was not what she had done to him, but what he allowed her to do. Did it really take a blowjob in order to gain his acceptance and love? Perhaps Ha Hee thought it was, but the risk for her must have been huge. All of her bizarre actions were orchestrated so that she could bring him to this very moment with complete knowledge and understanding. However, this was all beside the point. What was, is.

What happened next was the point. Ha Hee needed to be held and loved and nurtured just like everybody else did. What could she be thinking right now? He could feel her trembling in his arms. Was she afraid, terrified, or was it the cold from the oncoming storm?

“Okay, tell me Robert, whatever it may be. Tell me your decision. Either send me to my death or give me life, but tell me.”

“Send me to my death,” Robert repeated in his mind. It sounded so melodramatic but it was not. Not a bit. Not to her actual death, to be sure, but to a certain kind of everyday ocean full of tears death, none-the-less. Life was life and death was death. People were either busy living or busy dying, and indeed Robert had seen many waiting out their time. Tired old disillusioned people full of nothing but despair and resignation, waiting on death. Life was finite; death was certain. But life was life. Why were so many people’s life filled up with so much sadness when our quick little lives were all we had? Actually, all we had was each other. But everyone went around hiding, pretending and withholding, assuming that whoever they were wasn’t enough to be loved. Viewed from that perspective, it was insanity. But here on this planet, insanity was the norm. Mass murderers chopping up victim after victim, in search of love. People driving hundred thousand dollar cars, in search of love. Lonely and desperate men communing with beautiful images on the Internet, filling up the empty hours. And finally, Ha Hee, surgically altered and sucking him off practically in public, just to be loved. What right did he have to withhold his love and charity from anyone? Hers was an act of unconditional love. It was Mary, washing the feet of Jesus with her hair. In that moment, Robert realized how much she trusted him. He sighed. If only he were Jesus…

“Ha Hee, I don’t know if what you did was wrong or whether you are really a man or a woman, it makes no difference to me. I don’t care.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that?”

"Let me assure that I have done much worse. I am guilty of so much more. Perhaps it is me who should be asking you. Asking will you be my friend? Asking you if you can trust me? Will you always stand by me? These are the questions that I am forever asking everybody over and over again because I can never believe anybody can love a monster like me.”

Later as they were racing down the mountain fully enveloped in the storm, Robert wondered if Ha Hee would drift out of his life eventually. He and Ha Hee had gone through an incredibly intimate experience; truly remarkable. They had taken a shortcut in the process of becoming friends. But how long would it last? No matter how close people are, life goes on. The funny thing was that people did not have a tendency to become closer over time. They had the tendency to drift apart. People move away, they get married, they change; they even die. Someone you need so desperately no longer needs you or, more commonly, they get to really know you and decide that you were not the one they that they thought you were. Often they became bored with the friendship or you commit some unforgivable, unpardonable sin, and things are never the same. In reality, they never were really your friend to start with; they were friends with the person that they thought you were. In other words, they were friends with some invention of theirs to fill a need that they had. Who are we really? Do the people around us truly exist or are they just part of our dream of life. Are we truly alive, or are we in some deep cyber-sleep awaiting a miracle cure to mortality and all of the people around us just extension of our selfish needs. Robert shook these thoughts from his head. He could prove nothing, of course, but he had to go on the assumption that it was all real. He stopped abruptly. He had a sudden thought. Ha Hee, walking right by his side stopped just as abruptly.

“Ha Hee, can you have an orgasm? Does all of that stuff work down there?”

“Yes Robert, I can. Everything works.”

“You really had a man’s body?”

“Yes.”

“But you were a woman inside?”

“Am. I am a woman, inside and now outside, too.”

“Ha Hee, I don’t care what you are. To me you are a woman. But even if you were not, you are my friend. I may not be the best friend you ever have. I may hurt you. I may fall short…”

She did not say anything but slipped her hand in his and pulled him down the trail. Robert thought he saw the hint of a smile on her face. They walked for quite awhile and Ha Hee stopped and jerked on his arm, spinning him around. Clearly there was a mixture of resolve and determination on her face.

“Okay, Robert, you want to be my forever friend. You want me to be your forever friend. It is going to be work. Forever work. I know all about you. You are not whole person, just like me, always searching, searching. ‘Oh, who am I,’ you always think. “Why did God born me a woman in a man’s body?” I always think. Everybody has a question. But when Ha Hee is not who you need her to be, then what? And something else, Robert. There is something else about me. It’s coming for you. I truly truly coming for you.”

Robert looked at her quizzically but just sighed. “I may not be the best person in the world Ha Hee, but I try to be a good friend. I try not to let my friends down, but sometimes I do. I try not to hurt them, but sometimes I do. One thing about me is that I value friendship and I value people. I cannot promise you more than that.”

“See?” Ha Hee said, smiling. “I choose only best quality. I already told Klara everything. She is waiting for us. She loves you very much. She also loves me very much. We grew up together as sisters. Could you do for her what she did for me?”

“Yes, I think so… I hope so.”

“You will, Robert, you will.”