Psychopath in the Next Office

The fact that Taro lost his job was quickly announced at Linda’s workplace. It came as part of the breaking news of Saint Linda’s marriage.

“My partner, Taro has been laid off. I sincerely wanted to help Taro. So I decided to marry him.”

Even HR staff at ABCD, who were used to firing and hiring as a daily business, were taken aback by Linda’s comment. As they all gulped, Linda added,

“Taro only had a L permit, so he won’t even receive unemployment benefits even though he had been working here for such a long time. When his short-term L permit expires, he won’t even be able to remain in Switzerland, either. But if he marries me, a German B permit holder, he can stay in Switzerland unconditionally and look for another job while receiving unemployment benefits. I thought this is what I can do to help him. Really, if it weren’t for these circumstances, we would have taken more time before marriage.”

Linda made this announcement in front of all the HR colleagues with a very auspicious look on her face. On her finger shone the engagement ring she had just made Taro buy for Linda. Linda was at the height of happiness as she made the important announcement. 

Linda was thinking, 

“They should just believe what I tell them. Both Taro’s job loss and Saint Linda’s rescuing action were the best way to solve urgent matter of getting married by age 40. I can make it sound as if Taro wanted to marry me given his circumstances. He proposed to me and I accepted it.”

She did not feel the slightest sympathy for Taro, who had lost his job; the function of empathy was lacking in Linda’s psychopathic brain to begin with. For Linda, Taro’s losing job was a logical step necessary for Taro to reflect on his life and recognize the importance of Linda. So she arranged to make this happen. Although she had no pain or remorse of what she did to Taro, she tried to imitate the human expression of compassion as best she could when she spoke to her colleagues in the HR department. 

Linda said to them,

“I’ll be able to officially announce things in a little while, so until then, don’t talk too much to the rest of the department.”

Sanae also noticed Linda’s engagement. It just so happened that Linda and Sanae had lunch together and Sanae saw the engagement ring shining on Linda’s left ring finger. With her observing habit from Ninja’s genes, Sanae didn’t miss anybody’s change

Sanae asked, “Oh, what’s up with that ring? It’s beautiful.”

Linda answered shortly, “Yes, we’re engaged.”

Sanae responded, “Oh, really? Congratulations! When’s the wedding?”

Linda said, “Well, that will be a bit later.”

Linda didn’t give more information nor mentioned that Taro had lost his job. Sanae, who did not know what was actually going on, continued to ask questions to Linda, thinking that this was a good news.

“What will be your last name after marriage? I’ve heard that in Switzerland, it is no longer possible to have a double surname by combining your spouse’s last name with your own name.

Linda immediately and confidently answered Sanae’s question , “That is, if the person’s home country allows double surnames, then it’s fine.”

Linda sounded clear about the question of double surnames. Sanae knew another German woman who had married just before the Swiss law on double surnames was changed a few years before in order to legally take a double surname with a hyphen between the two. She found Linda’s answer a bit strange, but didn’t dig further. Apparently, for a German woman with a profession and living in Switzerland, her surname after marriage is an important issue.

Sanae said,

“I see. So you’re going to add Taro’s last name “Kanto” after your first name and make it “Witchcraft-Kanto”. “Kanto” is a common surname in Japan, but in Kanji (Chinese characters) it’s written like this, right?”

While saying, Sanae showed Linda writing two Chinese characters on the table. Sanae did not mean to test Linda. She just thought that Linda, who positioned herself to be interested in Asia, had lived in China and had mentioned her Chinese skills in the Women’s Association roster, might know how to write it in local characters – the surname of the man she was going to marry. Especially the first character of “Kanto” should be also a common character in Chinese.

However, in contrast to her previous question about the last name, Linda looked blank.

“I don’t know.”

Linda answered shortly and became silent without asking any particular question.

Sanae was secretly surprised. How was it possible that she did not even care about the Chinese characters of the name of the person she was going to marry? Surnames and local expressions would be something talked about during the course of a relationship. Especially when it was about the person she called “Better Half”, should she get curious and try to know that much about him? These surname characters were common between Chinese and Japanese, and somebody who could read Chinese should be able to read quite a bit of Japanese, too. Why wouldn’t she be at least interested? 

This was not the first time Sanae had a weird feeling when she heard about Linda and Taro. When Sanae first heard that Linda had a Japanese boyfriend, Sanae was honestly surprised to the point of shaking. In many ways, she could not believe that Linda had a “partner” and on top that person was Japanese. It was Max, the son-in-law of the CEO, who told Sanae about it. When Sanae was talking with Max about something, he said to her incidentally

“Linda has a Japanese partner.”

Sanae was on the verge of letting out a cry of surprise. Sanae barely held it and muttered to herself.

“Oh, isn’t Linda not a lesbian? Does she have a male partner? I can’t imagine that. Can that be her mask of hiding her nature?”

Sanae had a vivid memory of the day when she met Linda that this person couldn’t have a normal heterosexual partner to love.

Another shocking information was that the person was Japanese. Sanae wondered herself,

“Why Linda had never talked about it at all although we had lunch together several times? Could it be that she was avoiding talking about her personal life? Still I don’t understand. Was there some reason she couldn’t tell me?”

Sanae had a sense of disbelief of what she heard from Max. It was as if the spirit of Sanae’s Ninja ancestor was calling for her vigilance.

Being curious, Sanae later asked Linda about her “partner”. Linda changed her expressions completely and smiled. Then she talked about her Japanese partner, Taro, as if he was the best thing ever happened on the earth. Linda’s behavior and story were so natural to Sanae, and she thought she had been mistaken in thinking that Linda was a lesbian.

Later, however, when she met Taro, at a photography museum in town, Sanae could not shake off a very strange feeling. The sight of the two tall people walking side by side in the sun came across more “bizarre” than “sweet”. It looked like a predator walking slowly with her prey in tow. Taro was tall and muscular, but his face was, by Japanese standards, ugly. In addition, Sanae was surprised by Taro’s extremely soft-spoken and often silent appearance, as well as awkwardness. The awkwardness was present even when he spoke his mother tongue, Japanese. Linda’s eloquence and smiles stood in stark contrast to Taro’s silence and clumsiness. Sanae couldn’t understand what was so good about Taro that Linda had hooked up with him. Linda wouldn’t even have a proper conversation with Taro. One thing was certain to Sanae’s hawk eyes: Linda had chosen Taro, not Taro had chosen Linda. Taro was extremely obedient to Linda, while Linda made all the decisions; what to eat, where to go, the speed of walking, too. Taro was only there to accompany Linda. With female instinct, Sanae sensed that she shouldn’t ask much about this master-slave relationship.

As if to fill in the space caused by Sanae’s silence, Linda started saying,

“Taro is from outside the EU, so he doesn’t have a permit and is having a hard time finding a regular job. Oh, but when I hired you, I didn’t have a permit problem. I wonder why?”

Sanae was puzzled and said to herself, “Is she seriously asking me this question? She is the HR head, isn’t she? Why don’t you know such a thing?”

But Sanae hid this surprise and replied,

“This is because I’m married to a Swiss. When you are married to a Swiss, you automatically get a B permit from the start. The University career office told me to put that information on my resume, because it is crucial information for hiring purposes by any companies in Switzerland.”

“Oh, I see! So, it should be the same for Taro. I’m German and I have a B permit. When he marries me, he will receive a B permit and he will have more chances in job application. Ah, Hh.”

Linda said as if she had just received completely new information while Sanae nodded her head in puzzlement. For Samae, the conversion revealed Linda’s shallow interest in Asian cultures and lack of basic knowledge about personnel matters for people from outside the EU. However, considering the fact that the Swiss HR personnel Sanae had met so far were seldom decent, Linda’s case was perhaps not so surprising.

As mentioned, on that day for some reason Linda didn’t tell Sanae that Taro had lost his job. Linda pretended as if it was a natural process of getting engaged. Sanae, who was good at sensing people’s feelings, saw through Linda’s extreme happiness about this last-minute “goal-in” just before the landmark of 40 years old. Sanae stopped digging further into the subject and moved on to the main topic of their socializing today.

“I’m thinking of applying for the position of Director Market Intelligence and Analytics, the vacancy from Greg’s departure. I’ve actually talked to Samuel about this, and he says he thinks this is a position that would suit me well. But the question is, should I ask for a reference to Samuel so that he could give input to Carl?”

Sanae asked this question because she was not sure if Carl and Samuel were on good terms. Sanae, who did not know Linda’s true nature, thought it would be best to ask Linda in HR for this kind of things including any procedures.

Carl, an Englishman, was characterized by his ambiguous smile and the way he talks around things. People said it was impossible to know what Carl was really thinking. Even his colleagues from the UK shared the same view – impossible to know what Carl thought. On the other hand, Samuel was a powerful Frenchman known for his critiques and direct expressions when he lost his temper. Carl had known Samuel for a long time, and he talked about Samuel as if they were good friends in front of his team. So Sanae thought of the two men on good terms at the beginning.

However, Sanae remembered that once Carl had talked something a bit bitterly in their usual team meeting. Carl said, 

“I spoke to Samuel on the phone last Friday, and right after that I thought I should pack my bags and go home.”

Sanae was able to sense Carl’s true feelings in that comment – “disgusted”. One month later, it was announced that Samuel should be promoted to the new head of the mass division based in France. Sanae imagined, perhaps Carl had been disappointed to learn of Samuel’s appointment to head of the mass division during the phone call, and got disgusted.

Samuel had been impressed with Sanae’s work and had contacted her, asking for some help. If Carl was really on friendly terms with Samuel, having Samuel as a referrer would help greatly. However, if Carl disliked Samuel, it would be counterproductive or a disaster. Sanae thought that she had to be careful here. She was half right to be careful, but it was a fatal mistake to ask Linda for advice. Linda’s life purpose is to manipulate people by giving them false information. Unfortunately, Sanae was still not aware of that.

_{This story is fictitious and is not based on any real persons or organizations. Copyright: Kunoichi4You 2024}