"My chest hurts so much that I can"t breathe in that house anymore. Everyone with their fake, polite gestures…its getting on my nerves. She is gone, I can"t find her. It seems like that she doesn"t want me to find her. Do you know how jealous I am of you in this moment?" Tang started speaking slowly. At Wei"s questioning look, he explained, "she found you worthy enough to at least leave a letter explaining her emotions. I probably didn"t even warrant that. I get it that I hurt her. But why couldn"t she see the reason behind my actions? Why did she not give me one chance to explain myself to her? One honest chance…"
His voice broke and he covered his face with his palms.
"What if that was the real problem – our expectations from her. Maybe she was overwhelmed, tempted, disappointed, hopeful, confused, humiliated, scared…and most importantly, HUMAN. Time off from all of this and us is probably what she needs right now. At least that"s what I have told myself…how else do you think am I surviving?" Wei spoke in a matching low voice.
Tang raised his head to look at him and then laughed suddenly.
"She is a h.e.l.l of a special woman. Look at what state has she reduced two grown men into," his voice boomed through the laughter.
Wei gave him a consoling pat on his back.
"One step at a time, buddy. Keep breathing, stay focussed. Also, it"s a crazy thought but maybe we can consider it. Should we put away our weapons till she isn"t here? Umm, we both could use a friend, what say?" he proposed with a tentative smile.
Far far away in Tunisia
It was her third day of accompanying Ying Hui on his daily research trip. She was discovering two sides to the man. One was the quiet professor, whose brilliance emerged at the most unexpected times. In such moments, he was focussed inwardly. No conversation except when absolutely necessary. By the end of every day, both Karim and she would be dying of hunger and thirst but he looked like nothing affected him.
The other facet of his surfaced when he was off work. Then his slick but weird persona would come out. He tried too hard to be friendly but it came out as fake. She had no idea why was he so interested in her past. But it was like seeing two different people existing in the same body. She had even wondered if he was suffering from bipolar disease.
But the pay was good and there were just two more days to go before the a.s.signment ended. So she didn"t mind it so much. Also, during this period, a vague idea had started to germinate in her head about her future career options. She didn"t necessarily have to stay restricted to being a translator or a cultural attaché. Working in a corporate set-up was an exciting prospect and she had a feeling that she would be good at it. She had Mr. Ying to thank for this thought process. He had been grilling her the night before, while eating dinner, about her past work experience.
He had asked her, "why did you never go and work in the corporate sector? They pay much better and you would have had a chance to enhance your other skills apart from just knowing various languages."
She had stopped chewing her food mid-way and asked him curiously, "what would I do in a company which I have no knowledge about?"
"Any corporation is made up of people. As long as you know how to work your way around them, you can do anything. For example, with your expertise, you can be a great a.s.set as an a.s.sistant to a CEO whose company deals in international trade," he had suggested, nonchalantly.
Jia Li didn"t know whether he had been serious about it or not, but the idea had struck home and for the first time in a long time, she had been excited about trying something different. She had come back to her little flat and done some research on job opportunities which required communication skills. She had put the filter of willing to work anywhere except China.
Much to her surprised delight, there were few exciting profiles which she had earmarked to apply to later. She had spent half the night updating her resume. Today, when she went back to her tiny accommodation, she intended to post it on the selected positions. She brought her thoughts back to the present and waited along with Karim in the car, for Ying Hui to join them. It was going to be another long day, she thought with a sigh.
"My apologies for keeping you guys waiting. I ran into some unexpected glitch," Hui said, post climbing into the car.