osmoala

 

Shape without form, shade without color, Paralyzed force, gesture without motion – T.S. Eliot

 

This text is going to be a bit jumpy. Sometimes time and places are being mixed up and that's the way it's supposed to be. If you want a straight timeline - like: we woke up and went for breakfast, then we went for a walk, and then she bought some milk and I had a draft, and it was a lot of fun - you might as well stop here and now, because this is not for you. But if you choose to keep on reading, well here we go:   

 

People flew away in all kinds of different directions. Torben, the Danish guy flew to Vietnam; Dave to China; Thomas to Thailand; Jade to the islands and Kate flew to Bali via Bangkok. She said,

   ”I'll be back in Phnom Penh in a month. I have a poncho I don't want to take with me – could you keep it for me until I come back?”

   ”Of course.”

   As an afterthought she said, ”And if I don't see you, just leave it behind.”

 

It was a nice poncho. And a few nights ago she had said – now she was petting a cat she knew from previous sessions in the market on the other side of the river – ”I sometimes love animals over people.”

   A lot of people did. And they were right to do so too, because Sok San Road was turning into a freak show. I just didn't realize it yet.

   ”Cats?”

   ”Yes”, she said ”– my favourite animals are cats. Then dogs. You're number three.” She laughed. She was watching me now and how I would react on her teaser. I probably dissapointed her by not reacting at all. But later I would tell her about the halal thing, just to see how she reacted – how they skin an ox alive, hanging on a hook, screaming in terror, even after they have cut his throat because they want to see the blood.

   ”Stop”, she said. ”Please, not now.”

   She was right. We were at Natural House and the omelettes and eggs benedicts landed on the table.

 

We stayed five nights together in the same room so of course we talked. She said,

   ”People change. Everything changes.”

   ”How did you feel about moving out of your 250-dollar a month apartment?” I asked.

   ”Nothing." She had told me that she never looked back. Obviously there were some things that didn't change. "How did you feel about moving out of yours?”

   ”Yes, I was sentimental there for five minutes.”

   ”I wouldn't expect anything less from you. Look – what does my hair look like?”

   ”It looks great!” She was back from the hairdressers. The girl had straighted out her hair so it reached down her back. ”Which do you like? This, or the other style?”

   ”I like them both. This one in the daylight and the blurred hair in the evening.”

   ”It's not blurred!” She hit me on the shoulder. ”Blurred is not the right word!”

   ”Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Are you sure?” Maybe her hair was only blurring my vision?

   "No. What are you saying?”

   ”I don't know. Something about your hair. You could shave it off and I would still like you. The night hair is wavy. Does it feel hot when it's like that?”

   ”Yes it does.” The air con was set at 16 degrees, on full blast and the room had a cool feel to it. We went to to the pool. Kate said,

   ”I'm not going to drink anything today because you know... tomorrow... travelling with a hangover...”

   So I bought her four margaritas. Maybe it was the best thing to do. We were hanging in the pool area. Arthur was also there. He was waiting for his money. Kenny was waiting for his wife to arrive. And the rest of us were also waiting, for what, I don't know.

   Kate said on her second drink: ”How come we have so many common friends and we never met before?”

   ”Because I hang out with these guys.” I streched out my hand at the round table that was the very centre where the tales of King Arthur were being told. That's when he was drunk. Arthur lit a cigarette for me. I was smoking and we were sipping on our margaritas floating around like on a water planet.

   ”How do you spell rhythm?” she said. Her eyes were miscallaneous. I tried it a few times until I got it right. ”I love you”, she said ” – that's a tough one!”

   ”Yes, it's high school stuff – Oscar Wilde spelled 'jail' as 'gaol', so the spelling changed so it would sound more like the spoken word – jail.”

   This was the kind of small talk we sometimes entertained ourselves with, and she was good at expressing herself with the English language. And why wouldn't she? She was a native speaker. And she knew some nice words and how to put them together too. And I was happy she was not using the 'fuck' word all the time. She was working in Perth as a teacher with young criminals. She had told me she had been to fifty-four countries. "I lived in Hong Kong for four years. They kicked me out from South Korea because I was working without a permit."

 

”Do you know why some expats get crazy over here?” Kate said. We were having some Jameson in the room, taking silly photos with the gargantuan lamp above as. I'm not sure why the lamp was there and what it was good for.

   But it was like with a lot of things here in Cambodia – there was stuff that just didn't make sense.

   Kate explained it to me:

   ”... especially here in Siem Reap and sok San Road, where you meet individuals who change by the month, simply because they have nothing else to do but hang out in the bars. It's like they create a void they are filling with drinks and beers and cigarettes and joints. A void that was not necessarily there in the first place.”

   I was thinking of a poem by T.S. Eliot. About the hollow men. But it was not the right poem now, after the drinks, because I felt like playing the ukulele – it should say – 'Mango, banana and tangerine...' The song from a James Bond movie. Dr No it is.

 

”You need to do some voluntary work now and then because otherwise you go crazy here in Siem Reap”, Kate said. ”I like your company. But you are totally crazy.”

   ”I'm not crazy – you are crazy.” But it was still a bucket of ice water over my head. It would take me some time to realize I was creating my own void too. We all did.

   All of a sudden the people walking up and down here on Sok San Road turned into mannequins, wax dolls, melting away in the for everlasting sun, or, well, for another five billion years or so. This was in the evening but the air was still hot. And a month was five billion years away too. She said –

   ”A few months ago I broke a few ribs and it put me to bed twenty hours a day.”

   ”What happened?”

   ”I was celebrating on my birthday party; I was dancing and the guy took me too far so I fell over a table, at the corner, and I broke some ribs. I was hurt for a long time. You changed my life.”

   ”How?”

   ”Because you took me out. I didn't see anybody for two months."

   ”So, now that your ribs are okay, how about we take a walk?", I said. Would you like to take a walk with me?”

 

We took a walk on the other side of the river, with night markets, hotels, restaurants and bars. At Hard Rock Café a band was going all in. We walked on and there was a closed shop with a quote from Anais Nin.

   ”See that sign?” I said. She read it aloud – ”The only human abnormality is the incapacity to love.”

   She had an answer to that: ”I love. I love cats and dogs. You are number three.” She laughed,

   ”Hahahahaa!” She thought it was funny, and it probably was too. What would it take for you to do something for me?

 

We had moved into the hotel connecting with Blue Bar and she was happy to use the pool. So this is the closet, – now, where is the room?

   ”Yeah, I know... and where is the kettle I was using the last time I was here?”

   It was a nice room though, and there was a big balcony just outside the door. But it was steaming in here so why not put the air con at 16 degrees and go down to the pool?

 

   Arthur was sitting by the pool. So was Kenny and Eric. Eric was a former English professor from Canada who had lived in Kuala Lumpur for ten years teaching at the university. Now he had been here in Siem Reap for two months. Kenny was still waiting for his wife to arrive. Arthur had no money so he was sober and attentive, listening to what people were saying.

   I asked for a beer from the lovely waitress. I told the guys, ”I don't want any rumble from this table while I'm staying here.” They were a bunch of philosophers so they didn't take it too seriously. I sat down with them and had a draft. Pet Shop Boys were playing on the speakers, Always On My Mind. Eric's thoughts about the future with Europe, ”Where is the money to pay for all this immigration in your countries? Trudeau fucked up my country pretty bad.”

   ”Yes, thanks to the bankers. The World Bank was created by The Bilderburg group, and so was the UN. By Rotschild and their buddies. George Soros is doing what he can to fuck things up. Europe is going down the drain. We are looking at the New World Order.” It was another conspiracy theory but we agreed on this one.

   I dived in to the blue water and stayed in the pool for the next few hours.

   ”I love this”, said Kate. It was around 36 degrees; the sun, the heat packing between the walls, the cool water all around you. We were floating. It was like the universe itself was talking to us at this very moment.

   She said,

   ”There is a series on Netflix I would like you to see. I was watching it early this morning when you were asleep. Can we watch it together later?”

   ”Sure, let's do it.”

   After four margaritas we were back in the room. We took showers. She said,

   ”I'm drunk now. I want to go to Draft Bar.” What happened to The OA, the tv series we were going to watch?

   I hated Draft Bar, and so did everybody else I knew. But Kate. It was open 24 hours and I could feel the sad vibes from all the lonely people who came there all the time. There were sometimes people in a strange mood and it happened that some of them confused kindness with weakness. Mostly everybody was nice though.

   ”Why do you want to go there? It's funny – you call yourself an empath... don't you sense the strange vibes floating around there?”

   ”I do. It intrigues me. And the girls love me. Why would they love me? Are you angry?”

   ”No. I'm hungry. Which girls?” The drama girls?

   ”The girls who work there, the staff. They are nice to me. Then, there are all kinds of people – the prostitutes, the ladyboys and the customers.” She wrapped a white towel around her. We hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast and now the sun was going down fast.

   ”You go to Draft Bar and I go to eat something. Leave the key in the reception and I'll see you in the morning.” I left the building,

   I met Torben on Sok San. ”Where you going?” he said.

   ”Red Angkor. Come with me.” We went to Red Angkor and he had a cup of coffee and I had the noodles. When I came back to the hotel I asked for the key to room 301 but it was not in the reception. I went into the room and she was sleeping tucked inside double blankets. The air con was at 16 degrees full blast as usual. She didn't make a sound. I wanted to give her some space so I went out again, to King Kong Bar.

   Cats, I was thinking. Cats. Cats?

 

On the last day, when she had packed and was about to leave the hotel room she asked me, "Are you going to miss me?"

   "Yes. And you?"

   "Yes", she said. And I remembered the very words she lived by. Never look back.