Tiger Milk (11 page)

It’s none of your business.

Tell me what’s in it, Jessi screams throwing one of her puffy slippers at me as I walk away.

Quiet, shouts Mama from the living room, or I’ll boil you both in a cauldron.

I slam the door to my room shut.

Where were you, says Jameelah.

Amir, I say shoving the box under the bed, I’m supposed to look after that in case something happens to him.

Jameelah picks up the box and shakes it. Something knocks around inside.

Do you get it?

Nope.

Something’s not right, I say, but I can’t get a word out of him.

You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, says Jameelah.

That’s stupid.

No it’s an ancient Irani saying.

More like an ancient irony saying.

Jameelah smiles.

You are the true queen of O-language do you know that?

Yeah but that won’t help Amir.

Come on you know him, says Jameelah, he loves to be asked. He’s just waiting for us to squeeze it out of him. We’ll grab him tomorrow and you’ll see how much he talks once we plead with him a little.

Yeah, I say shoving the box under my bed again and hoping Jameelah’s right.

We watch
Gilmore Girls
and later, once Mama has fallen asleep, we watch one of Rainer’s pornos and almost die laughing. Rainer thinks he has them well hidden under a loose floorboard in the kitchen closet. But come on, people stick things under loose floorboards in every single bad movie and it wouldn’t even surprise me if Jessi had also discovered them.

When we finally leave the apartment just before eleven-thirty we wear nothing but long tank-tops and flip-flops with no underwear but that’s not really because of the spell, it’s because it was so hot all day and barely cooled off after dark. Out of the bushes next to the playground we pull the plastic grocery bag stuffed with the rose petals we nicked from Tiergarten earlier that afternoon and the Müller milk container, the Mariacron, maracuja juice, and milk and climb up the slide to the play fort.

Now we just have to wait for midnight, says Jameelah, pouring the chocolate milk out of the Müller container and mixing the juice, milk, and brandy and stirring it with her long fingers. We take turns drinking Tiger Milk, we look into the sky and say nothing, we just let life float by because we have so much time, because the clock has only just struck fourteen minutes past birth, meaning that we have almost fifty minutes of life to go, and that’s a long time. A bird sings off in the distance somewhere, very loud, almost as if it realizes how nicely it sings.

That’s a nightingale, says Jameelah, there’s a lot of them around here, even more than in Bavaria, and there’s supposed to be so much more nature there, pfff, as if.

Is that another question from the citizenship test?

No I read it in the free paper on the U-bahn, says Jameelah blowing cigarette smoke into the sky. I hope it all goes well.

Of course it will, what could go wrong with a love spell, I say.

I mean at the immigration office you idiot, says Jameelah looking at the clock, it’s exactly midnight. She lifts her tank-top over her head, grabs the grocery bag and smiles at me.

Here we go.

I have to admit I feel like an idiot running around the playground naked like that, tossing rose petals as I go. Actually the whole rose petal thing isn’t so bad, but having to whisper the name is annoying. When you say Nico over and over it doesn’t even sound like his name after a while, and it makes me lightheaded, so at some point I just scatter the petals. The grass is sunburned and rustles beneath my feet, and as I watch the rose petals fall past my legs to the ground I suddenly feel tiny. I don’t know if it has something to do with the darkness or it’s just because I don’t have anything on, but for whatever reason, here on this playground, where I learned to walk and to ride a bike and to roller skate, all of a sudden I feel too small for this world, like you could just stick me anywhere, the same way you shove a vacuum cleaner in a dark corner and nobody notices it, like you could just make my naked body disappear because it’s so small and unimportant.

Jameelah hops around the playground doing pirouettes and the rose petals flutter around her like confetti. I can’t help but smile and I think to myself, come on, don’t do it like that, it’s too funny. I run back to the middle of the sandbox where the shopping bag is, hoping secretly that we’ll run out of rose petals soon, and that’s when I see someone coming toward the playground.

Someone’s coming I hiss and grab the bag.

Luckily Jameelah understands what’s happening immediately and we run as fast as possible up the slide and hide inside the play fort. At first I think the person’s just going to pass through the playground but that’s not the case, the person comes straight toward us, limping, goes around the sandbox, past our hiding place, and over to the trees, stopping directly under Amir’s linden tree.

Jasna, whispers Jameelah.

What’s she doing here?

No idea.

Beneath Amir’s linden tree a lighter clicks and smoke starts to rise.

Can’t we just get out of here I say, we’re done with the spell right?

Let’s wait to see if the evil Sorb shows up, says Jameelah.

Why, I ask, looking around for my shirt.

So you can throw a rock at his head says Jameelah smiling at me, then you’d finally be even.

I don’t want to be naked anymore, it’s cold, or maybe it’s not but either way I want to put some clothes on right away. But then Jameelah whispers, shhhh, someone’s coming, but it’s not the evil Sorb, and when I realize who it is I know it’s too late. It’s Tarik I can tell from his gait, he’s the only one who walks like that, with his left leg dragging behind a little. They both limp now, I think, how weird, but then again it’s not that weird since they are siblings after all.

Keep your head down, whispers Jameelah.

For a second I think Tarik’s seen us but actually he’s just checking things out. He lifts an arm and motions around at the rose petals. Jasna shrugs and takes a drag from her cigarette, not really looking at him, staring at the ground, looking past him, fidgeting with her hair or whatever.

Why don’t they just make up, I whisper.

Jameelah shrugs her shoulders.

Why can’t they just make up, I think, if for no other reason than for Amir and Selma, but also just because, I mean, at the end of the day you always have to make up. Me and Jameelah do all the time no matter how bad a fight we’ve had and I even make up with Jessi every time. In the end you always have to make up.

Can you hear what they’re saying, Jameelah whispers.

Not a single word.

Shit, she says, shhhh I say, and Tarik says something or other.

What, says Jameelah.

Shhhh, I say again, because otherwise you can’t get a word of what he’s saying.

At one point he says something about family and feet, then something about speaking and helping. Jasna leans her head back and laughs like he’s just told a great joke. She sucks on her cigarette and runs a hand along the bark of Amir’s linden tree, she stands there and then blows out the smoke as if Tarik is nothing more than the air that she’s exhaling. Tarik keeps speaking to her. I can’t understand a word of it until Jasna suddenly interrupts him. Her voice gets loud, Tarik flinches, and she says something about in the past and couldn’t stick up for myself, but now, says Jasna. But Tarik interrupts her and Jasna flicks her cigarette butt away and blows her last drag of smoke right in Tarik’s face. Not your cleaning lady I hear her say and then they switch to Bosnian and it sounds like they are really fighting. Bosnian, Bosnian, Bosnian. It seems like forever until Jasna finally says, I can’t do anything about it, but I can’t understand what Tarik answers. I just see him kick Amir’s linden angrily with his bum leg.

Man that must hurt, I think, but then I remember that his leg is made out of metal or something.

You should be ashamed I hear him say, loudly and precisely, like the other day at the pool, only this time it’s Jameelah who flinches. Jasna doesn’t react at all. She just lights another cigarette and starts talking again, so quietly that we can’t catch a single word.

Then, loud enough for us to hear, she says it’s not fair, and suddenly everything is silent. I see Tarik take a deep breath, I see how his upper body straightens and then relaxes again. There’s a weird calm, though it’s not really calm, not when Tarik is standing there perfectly still, with his arms so stiff you’d think he had razor blades in his armpits. We crouch in the wooden play fort and peek through the gaps between the slats. My knees are boring deeper and deeper into the floor planks and it hurts, and even though I know it hurts I barely feel it, especially when Tarik starts doing something really strange. He turns away from Jasna and walks around the sandbox in big, slow steps.

He’s completely lost his chador whispers Jameelah.

Jasna leans against Amir’s linden tree and smokes, staying very still, just her cigarette hand moving up to her mouth and back down, just her eyes following Tarik like she’s watching a wild animal, the kind of animal you’re not sure has rabies or not. When Tarik is standing in front of her again he puts his hands up to his eyes and his whole body starts to shake.

Is he crying whispers Jameelah.

Jasna lets her cigarette fall to the ground and stamps it out thoroughly. She goes to hug Tarik but he won’t let her. There’s no way to hear what he says to her, the words spill out of him half spoken, half moaned. All I catch is fate and goodbye and Jasna nods. It’s so quiet that you can hear her fingernails tapping on the bark of Amir’s linden and then Tarik steps over to Jasna and pulls her tightly to him.

See, I whisper, in the end you always have to make up, but Jameelah doesn’t react. She’s staring down at Jasna and Tarik as if she’s in a trance. Jasna has her hands on Tarik’s back and Tarik has his on hers. They sway slowly to a rhythm only the two of them can hear, back and forth.

Are they dancing?

I think so.

Jameelah giggles softly.

See, he can dance. I mean, it’s not the lambada, but still.

Tarik and Jasna dance and they both start to cry, practically groaning, and it’s not a happy sound – it’s more like they’re saying goodbye forever. Who knows, I think, maybe Jasna is leaving and they’re never going to see each other again. And even though I’m relieved I suddenly get very sad because all sorts of memories race through my mind, memories of earlier times.

Tarik’s entire body is still shaking and he doesn’t seem to want to let Jasna go and he keeps stuttering – to be honest it looks really odd and Jasna keeps groaning louder and louder, so loud that I think to myself that’s weird, but then again they were all weirdly loud back when their father died, too, the whole family and all the relatives, all sorts of men with strings of beads in their hands and all of them howling like wolves all day and all night so loud that everyone up and down the street could hear them. Frau Stanitzek wanted to call the cops but Jameelah told her that’s what they do when someone dies and anyway it would be over soon enough but suddenly Jasna turns to the side and holds her hand to her stomach. I can see that something is dripping from her mouth and then she keels over. She just falls over and not like a person with arms and legs but like a statue, lifeless, like a statue falling off its pedestal. That’s the way she hits the ground too, she smacks the ground and lays there as still as a stone.

Tarik looks around in a panic. I want to jump up and tell him we’re here and say yeah we’ll explain later why we’re naked but let us help now but as if she senses it Jameelah puts an ice cold hand on my shoulder and yanks me to the floor and shoves her other hand over my mouth. I want to tear myself away from her and scream but Jameelah just holds me tighter.

His right hand, whispers Jameelah, look at his right hand and then all I hear is her terrified breathing rasping in my ear. Tarik bends down. He stays there for a while squatting next to Jasna, a knife in his right hand. Then he stands up and starts to back away first really slow and then faster and faster until finally he turns around and limps off as fast as he can go. My head, my heart, everything is pulsing like crazy, my mouth is so dry it feels like I’ve smoked a hundred cigarettes. Jameelah is still holding me down.

Let go of me I whisper.

Slowly she loosens her grip. I stretch out my legs, which have fallen asleep, and push them against the opposite wall of the play fort. In the old days people bit down on a piece of wood to deal with pain, that’s what Herr Wittner said one time, and that’s what I try to do now with my whole body, wedging myself between the walls of the play fort and pressing until I realize I’m too big to stretch out in here anymore, I can’t sit inside the fort and stretch my legs all the way out the way I have for my entire life up here in this fort at the top of the slide. I’m too big now.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I have no idea how long we sit up there. Time and concepts like up and down have ceased to exist, it’s like we’re in space, the play fort floats through the great beyond with us inside, there’s not a sound, no nightingale no nothing, just Jameelah’s voice whispering fuck fuck fuck as regularly as if she’s counting off a game of rock paper scissors, just that and her breathing and her chest going up and down, just our naked bodies, our skin, and beneath it the fear coursing through our veins like blood.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Jameelah jumps up.

Fuck she says are we fucking crazy? Let’s get out of here.

She throws me my tank-top and my fingers are ice cold I realize as I slip it on. We cautiously climb down the slide, everywhere rose petals, rose petals all around. We walk hand in hand across the lawn.

Jasna is laying there. The light from a streetlamp falls on her face. The left side of her body is all red, everything soaked with blood. Something is dripping from her mouth but it’s only when we get near her that I can see what it is. Vomit.

Careful whispers Jameelah, don’t step in anything.