《On The Same Days》橄榄树

39、25th March Tuesday 2003 Amsterdam

　　Als je de haan hoort kraaien, moet je niet meteen geloven dat’t al dag is
　　(The sing of the hen doesn’t always mean the break of the day)

　　A washing machine, that little cousin of Sara couldn’t live without a washing machine; Tina didn’t even remember the existence of such kind of thing any more. Now she had to. She became a landlady, she couldn’t say no, that girl was paying to stay in the room smaller than hers but paying almost as much rent as she did.

　　She needed to play a good landlady. So she went to a second hand shop.
　　What the hell, a second hand dirty washing machine would cost more than 300 euros, she had no much understanding of any electrical thing, she only checked the price tag, the elephant sized Arabic man sat outside the door, smoking. He was not even coming in to greet her or try to introduce anything, what the hell, did she tagged “poverty” on her forehead or something? Tina became so irritated that she went to the man and shouted “Verkoop u wel of niet?”(Do you sell or not?)
　　“Ik niet, maar de machine wel, (I am not for sale, the machines are)which one do you like, young lady?” the man was a bit shocked at the little Chinese’s temper, he just sat for a rest at his own doorstep in front of his own shop.

　　Tina flushed at her own temper. It wasn’t the shop. It wasn’t the man. It was herself. It was the bombs in Iraq, the SARS in China, the bankruptcy of Zenner Germany, Van de Heuvel’s biggest client…and here she was in a second hand shop fussing over a second hand washing machine. She had the urge to stop her head in the machine for a good brainwash. She might be very close to the edge of getting mad. Just the same as John’s ex-girlfriend who’d collapse at anything outdoor sometimes indoor due to some weak nerves problems.

　　She wasn’t even too surprised when Van de Heuvel mailed her the other day telling her that he indeed had problems with cash flow and the Nyenrode tuition was far too much to pay for the moment. But he said to keep him posted of other possibilities. Tina just knew this would come, never in her life had she went through anything smoothly, meanwhile everyone was telling her she had always been having good luck!

　　She read through all the loan brochures from the banks she got from Nyenrode, no single article over loan possibilities to foreign students. Still, she called both of them to make appointments. She had to meet them up and talk with them, no matter what; she just had to do something.

　　She got an electronic Dutch lady on the line from the number left on the ABN bank brochure, the lady talked chunks of functions and please press 1, 2,3 blababla, Tina heard no button choice for the loan thing, she waited for ages till the electronic lady got tired, then someone picked up the phone, a real person. Who never heard of their Bank had any program to issue loans to Nyenrode students, foreign or local. Tina tried the Fortis bank; a warm real lady’s voice from the line told her that their loan advisor who kept contacts with Nyenrode was on vacation and won’t be back in the coming 2 weeks. Two weeks later it would be time for her Intelligence test in Nyenrode already.

　　“Miele is a good brand, you can use it for years.” the fat man pointed to a washing machine priced above 300 Euros, frowned at the little dreamy Chinese who shouted at him to buy something then lost her own words.
　　“That’s too expensive. It is just second hand things, give me a discount please.” Think about her bank account, Tina pulled a sweet smile to the elephant.
　　“This one is cheap, 150.” He pointed at another even older junk,
　　“No, I want that one 150.” Tina pointed back to the Miele.
　　“Oh, No, That’s not possible. I paid 250 for that and I have to pay for the delivery, you must be kidding.”
　　“Ok, 250 then, I live around the corner, if you help me to deliver it, nobody need to pay for delivery.” Tina used to learn bargaining skills from Ling’s sisters.
　　“Ok, you really want it, I give you the biggest discount ever, 270, with 3 months guarantee and I will pay for the delivery.”
　　“Deal,” Tina paid the money and went to the HAS.

　　She needed information about her thesis, ERP in China, she sent a few dozen questionnaires out to those Chinese firms which adopted ERP system; no more than one dozen replied her. She needed their answers to analyze and generalize. Now she had to go and read all whatever articles she could find about ERP in China, she hated to be stuck in the middle, no matter in doing what.

　　The previous night she got some missed calls without numbers during her sleep. In the morning she was almost scared to death worrying about her families out there living in the SARS country where World Health Organization announced negative travel advice for many provinces. She called them back; they said they hadn’t called her. That she did not need to worry about them as SARS was still far away in the cities in South China and nobody from the cities ever visited the village for years anyway. Never in their entire life, had they been happy to live in that little village in the north with almost zero traffic. Tina hadn’t been comforted, she was actually even more scared; what if SARS would indeed expand to the village, there wasn’t even a hospital within hundreds of miles. Then even more depressed at the fact that even in the cities where there were hospitals, no one was surviving the SARS.

　　Every mail from China, either that of Jenny in Hong Kong, Lisa near Shanghai, Joanna from Beijing all made Tina thrill, She could feel her hands sweat on the mouse and her hairs stood up on their ends, she’d really falling apart if anyone she knew got the SARS. Shenyang was still SARS free at the moment, Ling told over Lily’s marriage problems and her own disasters in Lee’s office and with Lee families, Tina was almost happy to hear about those, at least, fights meant a sign of being alive.

　　Anna told her that car accidents were killing much more people than SARS everyday, people were just exaggerating. Tina believed it must be true, but still…
　　The doctor had compared SARS with a lot many other curable or incurable viruses to explain Tina why SARS could be incurable.

　　The only piece of good news came from Helen, she would get the working permit within 2 weeks time and then she’d able to stop working for that firm in Brabant and came back to work in Amsterdam. She said she had lost 3 kilos weight in one month’s time and spent half of the month sleeping in the train, another half dreaming around in the office, SARS? What new subject was that?

　　Tina’s mobile rang; she picked it up, the line dropped. No, it wasn’t the line; her mobile ran out of electricity again. She charged it last night. The mobile needed a new battery, but that would cost another hundred Euros probably, and she hadn’t enough pennies left for that after the washing machine, she had to wait for another event of Happy Food for that.

　　“Did you call?” Tina mailed John, knew he was most of the time on line.
　　“Were you expecting my call?” he was very happy to receive a mail from Tina first, that passive girl had never sent a SMS first yet, this was the first e-mail from her initiative.
　　“Just missed a call, wished it was you, then I wouldn’t have to worry about my whole SARS stricken country.” Tina couldn’t understand why, but she always easily turned flippant with him.
　　“Shall I go to China now just to make you worry about me a bit also?”
　　“Don’t even waste the ticket, I will ask my friends send you a few envelopes of viruses if you are that desperate to die.”
　　“If you won’t allow me to come over to see you tonight, I will die.”
　　“Farewell!”
　　“Seriously I am going on vacation next week and I’d love to see you another time before I go, shall we meet up in Amsterdam?”
　　“I thought we have already uitgepraten,” Tina’s voice turned icy again, people were being killed by war by disease, and he was going to be on vacation. He noticed the change in her voice immediately,
　　“Don’t close yourself up again please, sometimes I feel like I am climbing the Chinese Great Wall, don’t kick me down when I am half way, please.” Sometimes he felt lost in the relationship or friendship with Tina, she never admitted it as a relationship anyway. He could feel her feelings for him every now and then, like she naturally held his hands when they were sky rocketed in the Euro Mast seeing him sweating with height fear; like she messed up her whole kitchen to cook him a dinner which was became dog food in the end that she had to make some instant noodles instead. Her instant noodles were really good by the way. But most of the time, she was so distant; she refused him to meet his friends and families, and would probably never introduce him to her friends. Except in the Euro Mast, he never dared to touch her hands.

　　Tina could see the pair of blue eyes gazing at her, yet she really wouldn’t enjoy the idea to complicate the whole pen-pal based normal friendship, her life at the moment had enough crises. “Poor boy, tell me who is there chasing behind you with a whip, I’d definitely kill him to save you.” She joked.

　　“You yourself, but please don’t commit suicide.” He wasn’t that easy.
　　“What do you like about me actually?”
　　“Your humor, your intelligence, your character and your appearance,”
　　“I will change for you then, becoming dull, stupid, characterless and ugly. You may stop liking me from now on.”
　　“I like your flexibility too.”
　　“You won, everyone girl get drunk with compliments, when will you arrive?”
　　“Around 8, I will come directly from my work.”
　　“As if that would save you a lot of time, how many steps away is your work from your house?”
　　“With your step, it could be hundreds.”

　　Tina couldn’t help but shook her head and smiled, couldn’t believe a man of 30 hadn’t really been out of his little world somewhere called Barendrecht near Rotterdam, grew up there, lived there, worked there, had a samenwonen-ship there, had all his friends there, the separated ex-girlfriend still lived around one corner and the childhood lover lived at another corner all in the same little town. She’d be oceans away if she broke up with any boyfriends; she was already oceans away from China although she never had any boyfriends to break up with. All the more reason for her to insist not falling into the so-called relationship track with John, they might lose something special they built up so far, and she might have to look for another country to start all over again at the break up. She believed she had gone through enough drifting in the air kind of life already.

　　She honestly told John her worries at dinner a few hours later, Chinese take away again from the snack bar downstairs; the bar became more or less Tina’s open kitchen.
　　“Without even give it a try, you’d never know what would come out of it,”
　　“You see, that attitude of your people here, trying out, one after another, like buying shoes, I hate that and I am not going to try at all, I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to get hurt, we are humans, not shoes.” Tina felt her eyes turn red, she understood very well the whole theory here, she had been here for 1.5 years already, yet she didn’t want to give in, she believed in once and for all, like her parents, no doubts, no try outs, no affairs or whatsoever.
　　How could people here accept her standards? How would he understand at all her view of love? She wasn’t playing distant; she was just too scared to be drawn in something she couldn’t survive from. And she wasn’t even allowed to spend much time and energy in the empty things like affections, she had too much practical things to think about, to worry about, not only her own on edge life at the moment, but the whole family back in the village, those poor children who couldn’t even follow a proper education due to tuition fee shortage, how would he ever understand her eagerness to save those children out? She felt his fingers on her face, gently wiped her tears off, she closed her eyes, yet even more tears streaming down at the gentle touch she felt that she had to fight against it, then she felt his kisses, on her eyes, her nose and her mouth with his hands in her hair and on her cheeks. She quickly buried her burning cheeks into his chest, listening to his heart beating, fainted at the strange feeling in her stomach; was that the so-called butterflies he told her?

　　Tightly held Tina in his arms, John kept kissing her hair. She was so small, soft and cuddly, shy as a mouse, never before had any girl he ever kissed hided her face afterwards, it wasn’t even a real kiss. He knew he loved her, even before they first met, through all the e-mails, he loved that sharp girl full of humors; he loved this disarmed one in his arms too, crispy and lovely, he had the urge to protect her from whatever out there.

　　Without much talking, they held each other on the couch the whole night through, he slept for around an hour on her leg, she combed his hair with her fingers the whole time.
　　Dawn lights came in through the window, all the birds were singing for another morning. Tina’s mobile rang, picked it up with one hand left another still in his hair,
　　“This is Tina, who is that?”
　　“Is that Xue Jing?” A Chinese familiar male voice, “I have tried to reach you a few times already,” it was Mr. Chen, the general manager of XY Corp, the firm she worked for a year in Shenyang.
　　“Sorry, Mr. Chen, the battery of the mobile doesn’t function well anymore; I was just going to change for a new one. How are you? How is it with XY Corp?” she hadn’t even called him when she was back in Shenyang, not something about SARS?
　　John was biting Tina’s finger.

　　“Xu Yang will be a listed company in a few months time; I am coming to Germany next week as a member of Shenyang Automobile business inspection team lead by the new vise mayor, for the Leipzig International Automobile Exhibition Fair. I had a few joint venture related appointments too, I wonder if you would have time to come over and help me out.”
　　“Of course, when will you arrive?” she had always wished she’d be able to do something for him; he had helped her in getting the city residence permit of Shenyang.
　　John was kissing her arm.

　　“6th of April we will arrive Frankfurt airport, after that go to Leipzig by bus, you may come to either place to meet us up, it will probably take one week’s time in Germany, then we will go to Holland and France, you may just go back together with us all in the travel bus.”
　　“Do you know the flight No. and arrival time already?” Tina wouldn’t risk to go all the way to Leipzig looking for a fair she had no idea about in a German speaking country, mostly Chinese reckoned different parts of Europe were like different provinces in China, in size, might be even smaller, but the language differences here were huge.
　　“Not yet, I will call you another time when I get it.”
　　“Ok, I will check out the ticket availability from Amsterdam to Frankfurt then.”
　　John kissed his way up her shoulder.

　　“Ok, are you still studying?”
　　“Yes, now writing the thesis, I am graduating soon from the bachelor program.”
　　“Ok, tell me about it all when I am there, I will give you a call when I knew the flight details.”
　　“Thanks, bye.”
　　Hang up the phone, she told it was her manager. John looked up and complained with a very childish face full disappointment, “you were so hard to be distracted!”
　　She had to laugh, “Just tell me your true age, 15 or even younger?”