“She's sick, surrounded by hypocrites, her life is a tragedy.”
“A tragedy? Spare me. Does she even have a heart?”
“Right — and only you do...”
The women spoke loudly in the crowded bus, oblivious to everyone else. The passengers looked away, each hiding behind their own indifference.
I glanced at them, trying to escape my spiralling thoughts. Rain trickled down the window. Grey coats, grey faces. A dreary world soaked in hopelessness.
It had been a month since I shut down my company, a draining and disappointing grind that barely paid the bills. I was exhausted from doing work I didn't love. Trapped in a life that felt like a dead end. I felt more ghost than person, each day blurring into the next, numbed by regret and fatigue.
“Don't crowd at the front!” called the conductor. “Next stop: Railway Station.”
As the bus slowed, a man at the back suddenly shouted, “Open Sesame!”
What a charming soul, I thought, and smiled. Open Sesame.
The magic phrase that unlocks the cave of treasures. Who knows what's waiting just around the corner? What surprise this gloomy April day might bring?
Yes. I would carry with me that phrase. My personal spell. And of course, I would go to Shanghai. To hell with fear. I was going.
A flicker of light warmed my chest. The fog inside me began to lift.
“Achoo!” sneezed a little boy from the front seat. Thank you, little one, for the blessing.
I got off the bus early and walked home through the drizzle. With trembling fingers, I turned on my computer and wrote to Trevor Wilson: “Yes. I'm coming.”
Trevor was a New Zealander, a university lecturer teaching English as a second language in China. We had met through an online forum connected to my now-defunct training company. We communicated through Google Translate, as I spoke no English just the remnants of the German I had learned at school.
He had offered to pay for my travel and invited me to visit. I wasn't sure... until that moment.
Something unseen was pulling me east.
In my imagination, Shanghai shimmered with Chinese gondolas, fragrant gardens, and birds singing freedom songs in vibrant colours. The air smelled of mandarins and mangoes. I could almost hear the bamboo flutes.
Trevor booked me into the Howard Johnson hotel, an elegant, sunlit place where I felt like a visiting queen. The lobby smelled of citrus and wood. The sheets in my room whispered with freshness. Each evening, we dined somewhere new. Trevor's eyes sparkled with gentle mischief as he introduced me to dishes I couldn't pronounce, patiently repeating their names until I could say them with confidence. He was kind and generous, romantic in ways I hadn't expected.
The city stunned me. Skyscrapers and neon nights loomed above unfamiliar streets, yet something tugged at me. It was as if I had lived here before, left, and now, somehow, was finding my way back—to this city, to Trevor, to myself.
English was my only obstacle.
Trevor helped me through it. His encouragement dissolved my fear. I spoke with clumsy courage, and to my surprise, people listened. I began to feel I belonged.
At the hotel, I met a Japanese receptionist Emiko, graceful, and bright. She carried the patient grace of someone who believed that every conversation, no matter how halting, was a small bridge across the world. Warmly, she encouraged me to visit Buddhist temples and shop for silk and spices in the old town. There was something familiar about her — the eyes, the gestures, the quiet way her smile lingered.
Then it came to me: Julia Roberts.
It amazed me how someone from a different world could resemble the American Cinderella from Pretty Woman.
I found excuses to talk to her.
Emiko patiently corrected my English and repeated difficult expressions. One day she asked, “What's your native language?”
“Russian, like most Soviet people, regardless of ethnicity,” I replied.
She smiled, intrigued.
The next morning, my hotel phone rang. I picked it up.
A bright voice with a strong accent said, in Russian, “Good morning, madam! Are you awake?”
It was Emiko, my Julia Roberts. She stretched every syllable like a singer, filling me with joy and sending me into helpless laughter.
In that moment, the once-distant world opened its arms. And it spoke my language.
Now, more than twenty years have passed.
I have become an author, writing historical novels and nonfiction books — in English. Recently, I published my first book on Amazon — a little guide to personal growth, illustrated with my own drawings.
And I am writing this story with heartfelt gratitude and tender memory of that Open Sesame moment…for my husband Trevor, although he won't be able to read these lines while he is still alive. His love was the first page of the story I was meant to write. Because the magic of that day lives on—in my words, my journey, and in the love that opened every door. Some treasures, once found, remain forever open.
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