osmoala

               

                 I'm not young enough to know everything – Oscar Wilde

 

I diagnosed myself with a slight case of melancholia or loneliness or whatever the hell this was about – then she knocked on the door and all of a sudden my temporary sadness was gone.

   The last week in Cambodia, at, and around Garden Village had been a whirlwind, like a song by Ian Dury, and it had left me emotionally drained.

   That was Siem Reap. This was Pattaya.

   ”Kita...”

   ”Hello...”

   I hadn't seen her for a few years and she looked great. She was as tiny as they come in this part of the world and I didn't mind – I like them big or small or old or young as long as they have a good heart. She was dressed in a smart outfit, a combo wearing the look of a business girl on a night out on the town. I knew about her passion and now she had her own clothing store and everything else that came with it, so she picked whatever she wanted to wear for the occasion.

   ”I'm so happy to see you and you are so beautiful!”

   ”And you, handsome man.” Whatever that meant.

   ”You have changed, for the better... Your eyes – they are blue!”

   ”Contact lenses.” Marine blue eyes, but they looked good with her clothes, colours that went well together with her smooth tanned skin. I told her.

   ”Thank you. I offered here some water. She saw the uke and said, ”Play the song.”

   ”The song?”

   ”The song you wrote about me. I want to hear it.”

   I played the song. One More Time. It's more than three minutes but she listened attentively till I finished and she clapped her hands.

   ”Thank you.” She repeated – ”One More Time... I remember – I sleep very good with you,” she said and I remembered her soft skin.

   ”Yes, we used to sleep all the day.”

    She made that sound like an elevator going up a sky scraper. Same laughter as before.

 

We talked for an hour and when we touched her skin was velvet.

   ”I see you tomorrow after I close the shop. I'll buy you dinner, because now I have my own money.”

   ”Really? I'm looking forward to that.”

 

The next night we were sitting at a steak house close to my hotel. I said: ”You always wanted your own shop and now you have it. That's why you look so happy, don't you?”

   ”Yes. But now it's low season so not so many customers. Come and have a look tomorrow.”

   I enjoyed her company, as always, and she had changed. She moved with grace as always and now I could see the happiness in her eyes. She looked younger than four years ago. Now she was thirty-eight. Like a revolver of 0.38 caliber. It's funny, but sometimes it happens – some people look younger, for different reasons, than they used to do.

   I ordered fish that tasted mackarel, with salad and rice. She ordered the same without the rice but with a slice of toast bread.

   ”Where I live, in Siem Reap, it's river fish and it tastes like mud. This is very nice.”

   ”You like?”

   ”I love it!” I ordered another soda water. ”So, tell me about this shop.”

   ”Come to see it tomorrow. It's next to Big C. Central Pattaya. Come at seven because then I have not so much to do.

 

I walked over there, it took me a while to find it walking from Big C, the mega super mall and I found the boutique on the road leading back to my hotel. It was freshly painted and she had arranged the clothes and accessories in a beautiful fashion. It was like walking into the dressing room backstage of a theatre where they keep everything you need for the play.

   ”Hello”, she said and gave me a hug.

   ”Kita – this is nothing like next to the Bic C. The Big C is a long way from here.”

   ”No, only five minutes walk.”

   ”Five minutes walk is not next to the Big C.”

   She laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. ”Come, outside I show you it's not far.”

   ”I came that way. So, how is business?”

   ”I had some customers before but now quiet. Why is your fly open?” She was looking at my crotch.

   ”I have to zip it up all the time because I have no belt. Do you have any belts?”

   ”Look. You can choose.” I chose one I liked. ”How much?

   ”Hundred bath.”

   I put on the belt and gave her the money. She laughed and whisked the bill around. ”Money to the shop!” I was happy to buy something I really had some use for. The day before I had bought two pairs of jeans shorts at a at mall she had shown me a few years ago when she used to show me around in Pattaya. They were 150 bath each but still needed a belt. We sat down next to the fan.

 

It was a beautiful shop. She had arranged it all herself and she looked happy about it. We were sitting inside, she closed the door, put the air con and the fan on because it was hot outside. We sat at the table and she was putting right the bottles for colouring your eye lashes – ”This is your colour”, she said.

   ”It will make me look like a lady boy.”

   ”No. It's your colour. You have blue eyes.”

   ”So did you last night. You had blue eyes”

   She made that click click sound with her tongue when she was joking or feeling pleasure.

 

”Where is your girlfriend”, she asked.

   ”What girlfriend?”

   ”The girl on your Facebook.”

   ”She is not my girlfriend. We are friends.”

   ”She looks very nice. So why you don't have a girlfriend?”

   ”I travel too much. Where is your boyfriend, the German guy?”

   ”He's back in Germany. He come back in seven months.”

   ”You been together like... five years?”

   ”Yes, so that's why I don't go boom boom.” I had a different memory from a few years ago, but I said, ”And now you have this boutique.”

   ”Yes, but before I didn't have this shop. I only had it for two years.”

   ”I'm so happy for you. This is what you talked about all the time, remember? When we went to Bangkok and you did the shopping in Chinatown to buy gems, You had this idea all the time. You wanted to open your own shop.”

   ”Yes.”

   ”And then your Papa died and your money went to the funeral...”

   ”Yes.” She looked sad for a brief moment. ”I had to start again...”

   I dared to asked the question – ”Are you in love with the German guy?”

   ”Not really. He's a good man – but he likes to drink beer and smoke cigarettes and he is sometimes a butterfly.” A butterfly of course means a man who goes with other women.

   ”And you don't care?”

   ”No, it's up to him. When he comes here he sometimes goes to Walking Street and goes with other women.”

   ”So – you're not really in love with him, are you?”

   ”Not really. But he sends me money sometimes.”

   ”Have you ever been in love?” That was the key question. Someone else had once told me that they had never been in love in their whole life.

   ”No. I don't think so.”

   It was an enigma. How can anyone understand somebody else's feelings if they never have experienced the same emotions themselves?

   But, what did I know.

 

We hugged bye and I walked back to Big C, down the street, back on third road to the night market where I had the best deep fried chicken I've ever had. With sticky rice. I'd had it five times in the last week. I loved this delicious food.

   Does it count as love? I guess not, but it was very good. Maybe that is enough for more than only a few people.