Tiger Milk (13 page)

Get up here this instant!

It’s Noura standing in the window staring angrily down at us.

You have no business being down there, says Noura, no business you hear me!

It was by accident, says Jameelah upstairs, we couldn’t avoid it, and anyway what happened?

Take your shoes off, there’s food.

The table is set in the living room. Noura gently shoves me into a chair and grabs a third plate from the kitchen.

I’m not hungry, says Jameelah.

It’s lunchtime and we’re going to eat.

But I’m not hungry, Jameelah says again crossing her arms.

Then don’t eat, I don’t care. But you shouldn’t be hanging around downstairs, says Noura.

What happened, asks Jameelah again.

That poor girl, dead, Noura says, they murdered her, little Jasna.

Really, says Jameelah with a look of disbelief on her face, why, or, I mean, who?

There’s no reason why, says Noura passing me the bowl of parsley salad, it’s just the evil in the world.

I’m not hungry either but I don’t want her to notice so I take some salad. I guess this is what Jameelah means by staying a few steps ahead, ask questions first so you know what everyone else knows, your thoughts always galloping out in front of events, but I don’t think I can make my brain get out ahead, it’s like with maths and science, I just can’t do it, it makes me dizzy trying and so I stare at a piece of tomato in the salad. That’s what you do if you don’t want to lose your balance, you keep your eyes on a fixed point.

Do they know who did it, asks Jameelah.

They took the entire family to the police station, says Noura.

Amir too, I ask.

Yeah him also, says Noura.

But Amir’s not an evil person, I say.

I know but sometimes, not always, but sometimes, how do you say it the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. These people don’t know any other way. All they know is war and sorrow, they’re used to it. But we didn’t come to Germany to witness this kind of thing, she says putting her hand on Jameelah’s shoulder.

Enough Mama, says Jameelah.

No it’s true and it scares me.

It’s annoying Mama, says Jameelah.

Noura looks at her angrily.

It’s annoying that a girl in our building is murdered?

Stop it, screams Jameelah jumping up and running into the kitchen.

Jameelah, calls Noura, then she says something in Arabic and follows her into the kitchen.

I sit alone at the lunch table, just like in the old days when Mama and Papa used to fight. I stare at the cabinet on the opposite wall of the room. In it are black and white photos of Jameelah’s father and brother. I stare at the luminescent green parsley salad in front of me, back to the photos in the cabinet, at the salad, at the photos. Stupid Lukas and his stupid green life, I think, if it wasn’t for him we’d never have been scattering rose petals at the playground.

They should go back where they came from and all kill each other, I hear Noura say in the kitchen and then she switches to Arabic again and I can’t understand. Eventually the voices from the kitchen get softer and softer until they fall silent and there’s nothing to hear but faint sobbing, which I understand because crying sounds the same in every language.

I don’t want any more and set down the fork and shove the plate with salad on it away from me. I fidget back and forth in my seat as tragedy slinks around beneath the table and brushes my leg. I want to get up and leave, I want to go home. But home, is that where Rainer and Jessi live, where Mama and her sofa are? I don’t know. I have no idea where I want to go. I want to climb to the very top of Amir’s linden tree so the leaves hide me and nobody can find me. I want to find the ends of the threads sticking out of the branches and hold onto one like an ape, just hang there until somebody puts the world below back to together.

I stand up and go to the window. I brace myself on the windowsill because everything is starting to shake like during an earthquake and I quickly fix my eyes on the street below. The police are still in front of the entryway and Stanitzek is there in her bathrobe with her dog in her arms and I see Tarik standing off to the side with Selma and how she nuzzles him and he gives her a kiss on the forehead.

Enough with staying a few steps ahead. I walk down the hall and bend down to tie my Chucks. That’s when Jameelah comes out of the kitchen.

What are you doing, she says.

I’m going downstairs and I’m going to tell them everything.

You can’t do that, whispers Jameelah.

Yes I can, I say quickly, but as I move toward the door she grabs me by the arm just as firmly as she did last night.

Let go of me, I say.

I pull my arm but the harder I pull the tighter she holds me, let me go I shout, let me go, but Jameelah’s eyes fill with tears which swell over her lower lids and drip down to the corners of her mouth.

Why are you crying I want to say, goddamn it why are you crying, but suddenly I hear a strange noise getting louder and louder, vibrating and wheezing like a train and I think, huh, a train’s coming, but there are no tracks near here. It takes a minute before I realize that it’s not a train at all but the kettle, just the tea kettle boiling in the kitchen, and then Noura comes into the hall and says we’re going to have a nice hot cup of tea together. Jameelah says I’m not thirsty and pulls me into her room.

That’s your Tarik, your Teddy Dragon who looks out for everyone, says Jameelah. See what happens to people who don’t do what he wants.

We have to go to the police, I say.

Right, so I’ll get dragged into the whole thing, says Jameelah looking at me incredulously. No way. I told you already, I know what to do.

So what is it?

For one thing not go to the police.

But we have to tell them who did it.

No we don’t. They’ll figure it out themselves. Why should we get involved?

Because Tarik is just walking around with Selma in his arms.

Just give them a little time to investigate things.

So we’re supposed to just do nothing?

No, but we’ll let the police do their job first, there must be evidence or something, says Jameelah letting herself drop onto her bed.

What if there isn’t?

We’re going to wait. We can always go to the police later. First we have to get rid of this jewellery.

Why did we take the jewellery, I say.

We had to do something, says Jameelah, better to do something wrong than to do nothing at all.

Why did we take it, I say, why did we take the fucking jewellery, but there’s no answer.

Hanging on the wall behind Jameelah is the padded clothes hanger that we used to play shopkeeper with. Noura had hung half an orange peel from each side, look, she said putting nuts in each orange peel half, it’s like a scale. I have no idea why it’s still hanging here or why we were able to spend hours and hours playing with it.

Jameelah raises her nose.

Do you have a tissue?

I shake my head. You can hear the TV from the apartment below, someone is jumping from channel to channel.

Do you hear that, I say.

No, says Jameelah even though for sure she hears it because she always complains that Tarik turns the TV up so loud. Tarik in front of the TV with the remote in his hand, his bad leg stretched out, his eyes half closed – that’s exactly how he’s sitting down there now just a few metres below us with nothing but a thin ceiling separating us from him.

I stand up and say I have to get out of here, I have to do something or I’m going to go crazy.

Me too says Jameelah, let’s go do something.

What?

No idea, something nice.

Something cross.

Yeah, something fucking cross.

Come on, I say, let’s go to Kurfürsten.

We buy a Müller milk container at Frau Stanitzek’s shop and then stop at my place and grab the shopping bag and then walk to the station.

We should get rid of it, says Jameelah grabbing the bottle of brandy, the milk, the maracuja juice and the jewellery and then stuffing the empty bag in a rubbish bin.

Let’s throw that out too, I say pointing at the jewellery.

You’re an idiot we have to throw it out farther away, says Jameelah. She puts the various containers on a bench and stuffs the jewellery into her backpack. Rose petals are still stuck to the containers.

Hurry the train’s coming in three minutes, I say.

We dump the Müller milk out onto the tracks, mix up a batch of Tiger Milk and pour it down our throats.

When the train pulls into the station I can see our reflection in the windows and realize we look messed up. Jameelah’s eyes still look like she’s been crying and I look a bit like Amir did that time he rang my doorbell and dropped off that box. That time, I think, man, that was only yesterday, which seems impossible, but anyway, looking messed up like this is perfect, it’s exactly what the guys on Kurfürstenstrasse are into.

Here, says Jameelah handing me the empty container.

I mix another batch and we drink. The train jerks slowly along the heavy tracks carrying us from station to station, carrying us to the other side of the city, farther and farther away, away from the playground, from Tarik and Noura, from the black and white photos in the cabinet. I wish Jameelah would tell a story like she always does, something completely ridiculous she’s just thought up, something hilarious that makes me laugh, something insane that makes me shake my head and say you’re nuts, or something only a drunk would think up and I say you’re wasted. Just imagine, she should be saying, picture it in your mind, we’re at the playground in flip-flops and tank-tops and then Tarik shows up and kills Jasna right in front of our eyes, just like that.

Shut up, I would say, that’s too morbid.

My god, Jameelah would say, it’s just a story you baby, like having Tiger Milk come out of your breasts or like the thing about the animal Lukas caught for me, it’s just a dream. Except it feels like reality and Jameelah doesn’t say hey it’s just a story she says these fucking rose petals are driving me crazy and she fidgets with her elbow where there are rose petals stuck and with her skirt where there are petals stuck, and she picks them all off and then gathers the ones on the floor and opens the window and throws them out of the train. They flutter away so quickly that you can’t even see them go.

Someone has left a smudge on the window with their greasy hair. There’s nothing more disgusting than smudges left by greasy hair on the bus or the train. As far as I’m concerned it’s another form of shitting on something, all that people leave behind is the foul stuff. The greasy smudge is so disgusting that I can’t look away. It’s round and the swirl of fine hair in the middle shows where the forehead smacked the window surrounded by the chin, cheek, and tiredness. When you die you have to leave something good behind on earth, that’s only clear to me now for the first time and all because of this greasy hair smudge. You have to leave something good behind and it has to be something you can’t touch, something clear, something invisible, so that grease and blood and shit aren’t the only things left behind. I’m so tired that my eyes keep drooping shut but I make sure that my head doesn’t fall against the window. I’m not going to leave a greasy smudge.

Do you think it still worked, asks Jameelah all of a sudden.

What?

The magic. Do you think it will still work even though, well, you know.

You’re good I think to myself but what I say is yeah I think so, the one has nothing to do with the other.

I wonder what Lukas is doing right now, says Jameelah looking at me with her big eyes.

Probably swimming. That must be what you do at Lake Garda, right?

Yeah, says Jameelah, probably swimming.

I saw a picture of Lake Garda once at the dentist’s office. Everything was green and right in the middle was the blue lake, just the way a holiday is supposed to look.

Yeah and he’s swimming in it right now, says Jameelah.

Yeah, I say taking the Tiger Milk out of her hand, he’s got it good.

I’m pretty sure I’m drunk but it has never felt as good as it does today. Sometimes alcohol is like medicine, especially when it tastes as good as Tiger Milk, so sweet and fruity, so healthy. I guess that’s why there’s alcohol in almost every medicine, it makes sense, so clear and invisible. You can wash everything away with it, grease, blood, and shit. You can wipe away the whole of god’s rotten earth with alcohol. And then all that would be left behind would be a clean, empty bottle.

I completely forgot that today is Sunday. There’s never anything happening on Kurfürsten on Sunday. The guys would rather drive around in the green countryside with their families or go to the movies or whatever it is they do, in any event they don’t come here. Not even the woman with the dog and the liquorice skirt is here. The sky is totally overcast. We pull the striped thigh-high stockings out of our backpacks, hop up on our usual electrical box, sit down, pull on the stockings and let our legs dangle.

Nobody’s going to come by anyway, I say, and if someone does it’ll be someone who’s desperate for it.

No, says Jameelah, if someone comes by it’ll be a nice guy who has just had a fight with his wife. It’ll be someone who drives once around the block and then goes home and makes up.

Or else an old lonely bastard, all the days are the same to them.

Or somebody we know, says Jameelah giggling, just imagine, Herr Wittner or whatever.

He would never do it, I say.

You’re so naïve.

I can picture Krap-Krüger, imagine if he turned up here all of a sudden, I say.

Jameelah laughs out loud, jumps down from the electrical box and starts talking in his voice.

Lovely sense of hospitality, the Iraqis, but, she says raising her pointer finger, they violate human rights.

I laugh so hard I nearly keel over.

Jameelah hops back up next to me on the electrical box and we let our legs dangle and look at the empty street.

What did he mean anyway, I ask.

Who, mean with what?

Krap-Krüger about human rights in Iraq.