Swiss Missed
It was a sweltering Sunday afternoon. I decided to stay home, in the comfort of my air conditioner and while ripping CD’s I found an unmarked disc and played it in my computer. The music wasn’t mine but I remembered who owned it. I played it a while then ejected it. It just wasn’t the kind of music I wanted to listen to on a rainy weekend afternoon…or ever, for that matter. That should have been the tell-tale sign, I told myself. After receiving this CD from him it should have set off the alarms in my head that he and I just weren’t meant to be. And as I was returning the disc to the shelf, I caught a glimpse of another memento I associated to the same bossa nova aficionado.
It was a picture book: SWITZERLAND, it read across the front cover with a picture of the Matterhorn. I took it down from its repository and leafed through its pages when some inserts fell off – letters, greetings cards and very fragile dried leaves.
It was Manila, in 1998 all over again. A time when my world was about Zurich and learning to say ‘Danke’, ‘Guten Morgen’ and ‘Guten Tag’; it was about emails when the internet was still young and long distance phone calls and all else that was so kilig. My company had been taken over by the Swiss principals in a buy-out that prevented it from solvency and the Swiss came marching in with their stiff accents and were immersed into the business culture of the Philippines that was less formal, more sociable. They were pampered from the moment they stepped into Manila’s international airport and jumped into their waiting limousines that would whisk them away to their 5-stay accommodations in the middle of the business district where everyone wore suits, dressed stylishly and smelled like French cologne. They were embarrassed by the extent of logistics involved to guarantee their comfort and safety whenever they were in town. I took care of most of these arrangements because I was the assistant of the second-highest ranking officer of the company. To most of them, it was an endearing personal touch and they were very grateful. To one of them, it developed in to something more.
Business relationships crossed into personal relationships. He was the Regional Controller for Asia and Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand. He made Manila his hub for all his trips to the region and we found time to spend together. The dinners at Café Havana and the stroll around Malate afterwards; a weekend drive to Tagaytay and his curiosity about the rock salt beds along the roads of Cavite; after-office drinks at the mezzanine of the Peninsula Manila’s lobby; walks in the rain and quiet lunches in his office which I am sure raised some eyebrows amongst the gossip-mongers in the department that he heads. When the office rented him a condo unit in Makati for a year, he installed himself in the building right next to my own condo and we often had dinners even when he had no business being in Manila.
There is another book about Switzerland that I surmise is now misplaced. Three greeting cards – each accompanied a box of Swiss chocolates, the music CD and something else which I now cannot recall. The fragile dried leaves were those he had picked up on his way home to share with me the colors of autumn. I had pressed them in the book and has lost its reddish golden color. What remained is just a fragile remnant of what it once was.
As with all stories, there were conflicts that got weaved into our tale. I cannot even remember anymore the details - just phone calls with Lizza and lots of tears. Everything else: a blur.
I left for New York in January 2002 with very few friends knowing what my plans were. When I was settled with my job and life, I tried to contact him once but he never responded. I heard he is now working for another company, also in Zurich. I also heard that he was supposed to be married a while back but found out his fiancé was two-timing him so he called off the wedding -by email copied all their friends. Weird.
As the rain poured outside, I took the book from the shelf again, lounged on my couch and browsed through the pages, reminiscing how we sat on the floor of my apartment in Makati and how he excitedly told me about each and every place in the book. I will be in Europe in the autumn and he would just be 6 hours on the Eurail from me. I sent him an email today, not with the intention of reviving any romantic possibilities but with hopes of re-connecting with a friend.
Sometimes, to live your happily-ever-afters I thought, you need to tie the lose ends. Or at least try.
It was a picture book: SWITZERLAND, it read across the front cover with a picture of the Matterhorn. I took it down from its repository and leafed through its pages when some inserts fell off – letters, greetings cards and very fragile dried leaves.
It was Manila, in 1998 all over again. A time when my world was about Zurich and learning to say ‘Danke’, ‘Guten Morgen’ and ‘Guten Tag’; it was about emails when the internet was still young and long distance phone calls and all else that was so kilig. My company had been taken over by the Swiss principals in a buy-out that prevented it from solvency and the Swiss came marching in with their stiff accents and were immersed into the business culture of the Philippines that was less formal, more sociable. They were pampered from the moment they stepped into Manila’s international airport and jumped into their waiting limousines that would whisk them away to their 5-stay accommodations in the middle of the business district where everyone wore suits, dressed stylishly and smelled like French cologne. They were embarrassed by the extent of logistics involved to guarantee their comfort and safety whenever they were in town. I took care of most of these arrangements because I was the assistant of the second-highest ranking officer of the company. To most of them, it was an endearing personal touch and they were very grateful. To one of them, it developed in to something more.
Business relationships crossed into personal relationships. He was the Regional Controller for Asia and Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand. He made Manila his hub for all his trips to the region and we found time to spend together. The dinners at Café Havana and the stroll around Malate afterwards; a weekend drive to Tagaytay and his curiosity about the rock salt beds along the roads of Cavite; after-office drinks at the mezzanine of the Peninsula Manila’s lobby; walks in the rain and quiet lunches in his office which I am sure raised some eyebrows amongst the gossip-mongers in the department that he heads. When the office rented him a condo unit in Makati for a year, he installed himself in the building right next to my own condo and we often had dinners even when he had no business being in Manila.
There is another book about Switzerland that I surmise is now misplaced. Three greeting cards – each accompanied a box of Swiss chocolates, the music CD and something else which I now cannot recall. The fragile dried leaves were those he had picked up on his way home to share with me the colors of autumn. I had pressed them in the book and has lost its reddish golden color. What remained is just a fragile remnant of what it once was.
As with all stories, there were conflicts that got weaved into our tale. I cannot even remember anymore the details - just phone calls with Lizza and lots of tears. Everything else: a blur.
I left for New York in January 2002 with very few friends knowing what my plans were. When I was settled with my job and life, I tried to contact him once but he never responded. I heard he is now working for another company, also in Zurich. I also heard that he was supposed to be married a while back but found out his fiancé was two-timing him so he called off the wedding -by email copied all their friends. Weird.
As the rain poured outside, I took the book from the shelf again, lounged on my couch and browsed through the pages, reminiscing how we sat on the floor of my apartment in Makati and how he excitedly told me about each and every place in the book. I will be in Europe in the autumn and he would just be 6 hours on the Eurail from me. I sent him an email today, not with the intention of reviving any romantic possibilities but with hopes of re-connecting with a friend.
Sometimes, to live your happily-ever-afters I thought, you need to tie the lose ends. Or at least try.