Carina Zinkeisen - Sari's Story

Rani looked at her across the table and Caroline blushed slightly. This woman intimidated her in a strange way almost as much as Mrs. Michel in Augsburg.

"So, Dieter's daughter. You teach as well?" Her voice sounded strangely tinny, almost cutting.

"Yes, at Dad's school. German and English, I studied in Germany" said Caroline shyly in a low voice.

"That's nice, then you can practice with my daughters, where is Sari actually? Yesterday was her engagement party and today she thinks that I let her get away with everything, but I have to excuse her fiancé Jay. This morning he had to go back to Phnom Penh for business with his cousin Vichay and my second daughter Sreykouch, Vichay's wife. After 5 days engagement party. At the wedding you are of course all cordially invited. It will take place in Battambang, but you know that anyway, Dieter."

Rani looked somewhat annoyed at her watch. "Simay, my youngest one, I have to excuse as well. She's playing soccer today, that awful girl. She is quite talented though. Are you actually engaged, Caroline?“

Caroline shook her head and smiled awkwardly. This woman scared her.

Her hands were as sweaty as they were at Mrs. Michel's in Augsburg. They literally stuck in her lap.

"Now stop squeezing the poor girl! It's embarrassing!"

Caroline drove around.

It was as if the world stood still for a moment and her stomach cramped up strangely.

She was weak and a warm, strangely wonderful feeling poured into her stomach.

This had to be Sari!

She spoke perfect German, as her father had said, perfect and fluent, as fluent as her mother's English earlier.

She was beautiful. Extremely beautyful.

As beautiful as Myriam was.

Even more beautiful, much more beautiful.

Two exotically distinctive beauties that took her breath away. Much more than Tobi had ever been able to do.

But why did she think such a nonsense?

Caroline took a sip of the coffee to collect herself and calm her nerves.

Then she stood up to give Sari her hand, which was still quite sticky, and smiled broadly at her. Sari was wearing a yellow sophisticatedly cut dress, in which she looked a little bit like a movie actress from the last century. She was very petite and although she wore her hair long like most Cambodian women does, she reminded Caroline a bit of Audrey Hepburn.

"Did you like Sari?

"What? I'm sorry, I was in my thoughts?"

Dieter had called a Tuk Tuk, a carriage-like vehicle pulled by a motorcyclist. It was now already quite dark, too dark to walk to the apartment Dieter had rented.

"How did you like Sari?"

Beautiful, just beautiful, she looked like Audrey Hepburn thought Caroline and was glad that her father couldn't see how red she turned and how pensive she smiled in the dark of the night.

Quite pensive and quite in love.

In love?

Definitely in love.

"Yes, very much," she said calmly and climbed ahead of her father into the tuk-tuk that had just stopped.

Her father gave the driver his address and negotiated the price of the ride in fluent Khmer. Caroline was quite surprised, how fluent he was in this so difficult to speak foreign language, which reminded her to know language she knew.

Then he turned to his daughter.

"That pleases me. You need some friends. And Sari has many friends. Also very nice Europeans, Expats, who live here. I'm sure there's one guy for you. I never liked Tobi," Dieter said laughing and nudged Caroline into the side. "Let's go to the men's front.“

Caroline did not laugh.

Slowly Caroline undressed herself.

It was still quite hot and she was dead tired with one blow.

Exhausted, she sat down on her bed and dropped the dress next to her.

A ringing tore her out of her thoughts. Who was still calling her at this late hour? Definitely Nadja, because in Germany it was a few hours earlier.

Caroline reached for her cell phone, it was an unknown number, not Nadja's stored number.

She accepted the call.

"Sari," she said quietly as the girl on the other end of the phone said her name and remembered writing her cell phone number on a napkin with a shaky hand.

"I", she heard Sari a little unclearly and held the cell phone closer to her ear. "I would like to meet you tomorrow, after your work. Have a coffee with you. At FCC Angkor, it's across the river near the Royal Palace, where the King lives, when he is in Siem Reap. Every tuk tuk driver knows it."

Caroline's heart cheered and she smiled.

"Gladly, gladly, around 5:00," she said calmly.

This time Caroline had taken precautions and already at work she wore her beloved jeans jumpsuit, which accentuated her narrow waist and suited her perfectly.

"Very chic, Caro, you look great, for whom did you get all dressed up", her father said with a grin and Caroline had to smile too because of his still Bavarian dialect. He really said „aufgebrezelt“ for dressed up.

"Hardly for your old dad, but that doesn't matter, I'm used to grief, fun aside, I can't use you tonight anyway, I'm meeting my guys for snooker, but you really have to see this live. I'm the king of the snooker table at Tempel Bar," her father joked and patted her shoulder. "Are you meeting Sari," he asked.

Caroline nodded. "At FCC Angkor, I'm going to get a tuk-tuk right away."

"Will Jay be there too? Oh no, he's back in Phnom Penh."

"Jay," asked Caroline and remembered with a thud that Sari's fiancé was called Jay.

She bit her lips.

"He went to Phnom Penh right after the engagement ceremony to liquidate his apartment and for business. I forgot all about that, but maybe you'll finally get to know Chris. He's a nice guy, I tell you. Just your type. Good-looking too, go get him. He'd make a great son-in-law."

"Yeah, Dad, there's one Chris Sari was telling me about last night. He's going to have coffee with us today," said Caroline and was annoyed by her lie. But her dad apparently didn't understand that she wasn't interested in men anymore, not at all, and that made her irritable. It was just her life and not her father's. She was 27 and no longer 15.

When her Tuk Tuk stopped at the roadside in front of the FCC Angkor, which turned out to be a magnificent, bright white colonial building with a beautiful, well-kept small garden, two hearts beat in Caroline's somehow hurting chest.

One heart looked forward irrepressibly to seeing Sari again, to meeting her, to falling in love with her, the other heart was ashamed of lying to her father.

He only meant well with her. Probably he couldn't get out of his skin. His skin, in which he wanted a man for Caroline and not a woman.

"I am so happy to see you, Caro, let's go upstairs to the second floor. You have a nice view of the garden and the coffee is excellent. They also have great fruit shakes and even smoothies. Everything totally delicious and very fresh made, great quality. And if you like ice cream, afterwards we could go to Blue Pumpkin, the best ice cream parlor Siem Reaps, no of all Cambodia. You'll love it," said Sari, who had joined her and looked simply stunning in her simple, elegant dark blue linen dress.

Her arm touched Caroline's elbow and Caroline's stomach cramped up.

They were butterflies.

Butterflies.

Her heart was beating for a woman.

For the way back Caroline did not use the Tuk Tuk, but walked. So she could sort her thoughts better. She felt just great and that unsettled her. She could think of nothing else but Sari. She still imagined every look of Sari in the most beautiful colors, every gesture, every word. Drinking her coffee and mango shake in her mind, she still had the feeling of tasting the sweet mango in her mouth.

She licked her lips with relish.

She couldn't suddenly be a lesbian? Could she?