Tiger Milk (14 page)

Yeah, well, it’s still a war zone, says Jameelah, not officially. It’s not as bad as it was before but life is still grim there, it’s like a mini-war all the time. That’s what Krap-Krüger meant. And it’s true. But what’s it to him, he should take care of his own shit.

That’s why you came here.

Exactly, says Jameelah.

But your father and Youssef, I say cautiously, they died there.

Jameelah nods.

Did it have something to do with human rights?

They died because my father got involved. But also because of human rights, because a lot of people in Iraq still go by an eye for an eye, says Jameelah taking another swig. Everyone has to get involved, wherever you go. But it just makes things worse.

Is that why you cried like that, I ask softly.

Jameelah doesn’t say anything. She grabs her tobacco out of her rucksack along with the filters, the rolling papers, her zippo. I look at her hands and her black polished fingernails, her tongue as she licks the paper.

When something bad happens my mother always fears for us, says Jameelah, it’s from before. She flicks the zippo.

What did your father do that was so bad?

Listen do you not want to understand or are you really that stupid or both, she says looking at me angrily. If there’s no human rights then you don’t die because you did something bad but because nobody protects you, even Krap-Krüger understands that.

Sorry, I say.

Sorry my ass, says Jameelah.

For a while neither of us says anything.

Sorry, Jameelah says at some point, but you know I really don’t want to think about it or talk about it or anything else. Not now, understand, not when everything is so uncertain. I just don’t get it, I mean, they can’t just send us away.

Stop saying that, I say, they’re not going to send you away, you’re crazy.

Jameelah frowns.

My mother, she says, I think she must have done something wrong.

Done something wrong, how?

No, not done something wrong, just said something stupid at the immigration office, something they shouldn’t know or something they didn’t need to know.

Like what?

Nothing bad, says Jameelah, nothing illegal or whatever if that’s what you’re thinking.

I’m not thinking anything.

It’s nothing like that, it’s just that my mother always wants to be so correct about things you know, always wants to be totally honest.

I know, I would never think she’d done anything bad, it’s more that I think you’re getting worried over nothing, I say and take her hand. But she pulls her hand away and jumps down from the electrical box and walks over toward a car that’s cruising past very slowly. The window is rolled down. The guy at the wheel of the car is bald, he looks old, he has to be over forty, and he’s not the best looking guy either.

So, says the guy, got any plans for the day?

It’ll cost a hundred euros, says Jameelah leaning down to the open window all slick and cool.

The guy rummages around in his glove box and then hands her two fifty euro notes and she tucks the money into the top of one of her stockings. I have to smile because it always looks so real, as if we’re real hookers, only this time with the whole leaning-into-the-car-window thing it looks almost like
Pretty Woman
.

Just a second, says the guy as we are about to get into his car. He points at a baby seat secured to the backseat, I have to put that in the trunk, he says.

When he’s done with that he says step right up, like at the circus. I have to laugh. The interior of the car smells like the pine tree air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror and there are cookie crumbs all over the backseat. At my feet is a ten-pack of Capri Sun juice packs that must be for his kid.

I’m Stella Stardust by the way, says Jameelah, and this is my friend Sophia Saturna.

Can I have one, I ask holding up a Capri Sun.

Sure says the guy stepping on the accelerator.

We wouldn’t even have needed to go in the car since the guy drives only a couple of blocks and then stops in front of a Thai bar at Nollendorfplatz. Thai bars all look the same with pink neon out front and the windows full of little Buddhas and those golden cats with the left arms that wave nonstop. Those cats scare me. Inside everything is sparkling clean, the bar, the little tables with the plastic flowers and candles in the middle, the floor, the windowsills. Everything looks as if it’s constantly mopped and wiped down, even the fruit machine that’s sitting in the corner next to the little dance floor.

Have you ever seen a place so clean I whisper to Jameelah.

I think it has to be, she says, like at a slaughterhouse or something, you know, wherever dirty work is done they have to pay extra attention to cleanliness.

Behind the bar is a little Thai woman. She smiles. The TV above her head is showing a news programme on mute.

Something to drink?

Tiger Milk says Jameelah grinning and as she tries to explain to the woman behind the bar how to make it I look over the guy. He has a three-day beard and is wearing a leather jacket with cuffs, jeans, and New Balance trainers. There’s a long blond hair tangled around his ear, probably from his wife or daughter. Maybe his wife or daughter hugged him right before he drove off to Kurfürsten and the hair got caught, I think, and maybe I should become a detective except for that you must need a degree.

How old is your kid and what’s his or her name, I ask.

I don’t have a kid, says the guy, the car belongs to a buddy of mine who’ll be here any minute.

Your buddy, says Jameelah turning to us, we never agreed on that.

No worries, says the guy putting down another pair of fifty euro notes on the table. You don’t need to worry about him he’s a half-pint.

I don’t understand, says Jameelah tucking the money into her stocking.

You’ll see in a minute and as if on cue the door opens, but not all the way, instead it kind of opens and closes part way as if a dog is trying to push its way through. The little Thai woman hurries to the door and holds it open smiling as a man in a wheelchair comes in. I can’t make out his face at first because he’s wearing a cowboy hat. It’s only after he comes closer and hugs baby-seat-guy and takes off his hat that I can see how messed up he looks. Rainer would say he shows the wear and tear of life. Because even though he’s younger than baby-seat-guy everything about him looks old and burned out, his thin blond hair, his gaunt smoker’s face. The worst part is his legs – he doesn’t have any. One is completely missing and the other is cut off at the knee.

This is my buddy and you’re going to sit on his lap, it’s his birthday today, says baby-seat-guy pushing me into the wheelchair.

Upsy-daisy, says the guy in the wheelchair smiling at me. I land on his lone leg and there’s no lap for me to sit on and for a second I’m worried it’s going to hurt him. He smells of booze, must have knocked back a few belts of schnapps before he rolled in. Baby-seat-guy hands us glasses and we sing him happy birthday. Then I raise my glass with him and toast to brotherhood which he finds incredibly funny. When I put my arm around him he grabs my thigh and his fingernails keep getting caught in my stockings which is annoying so I take his hand and kiss him. Baby-seat-guy and Jameelah are kissing too and he has his hand under her shirt already.

Let me go, squeals Jameelah trying to squirm out of his arms, smiling, I want to dance.

Me too, I say.

We go over to the little dance floor.

Can you turn the music up, I ask the woman behind the bar.

She nods and smiles and turns around and fiddles with the audio equipment behind the bar, though I have the feeling that the music doesn’t actually get louder.

Louder, I call.

It’s already loud, says the woman, but it doesn’t seem like it to me. Maybe it has something to do with yesterday, maybe it’s like when you go to a concert, I think, and the next day your ears ring. Sometimes the music just has to be loud even if your ears ring for days afterwards, sometimes the music can’t be loud enough to drown out the sound of your life and today I want to drown out the sound of my life.

The guys look at us and smile as we dance. It’s always the same when you go off with someone from Kurfürsten, that’s what’s good about it. You notice you have something they don’t have, you’re doing lots of things for the first time, you have a real life that you’re fully involved with. I get the impression that adults don’t really live, that they look at everything from outside like they’re at an aquarium. But when they put their hands on our stockings and kiss us something starts to flow inside them, they dive into the water for a little while, and sometimes they even light up like neon fish and we’re the ones who light them up, we light up and when we touch someone he lights up too because we have enough light for two.

My body feels numb and I bet it’s because of the dancing, I bet I could lift up an entire horse right now I feel so strong, I bet it’s because we saw a murder, I bet it makes you strong to witness death, we’re strong, we’re real hookers, we saw a real murder, we light up.

When the song is over the guys clap, we bow comically and this time Jameelah sits on the lap of the guy in the wheelchair.

Do you feel anything there she asks poking his half-leg with her pointer finger.

No says the guy in the wheelchair.

How did it happen?

In Afghanistan, he says.

Really, I say, are you a soldier?

I was.

So how did it happen, asks Jameelah.

It was friendly fire.

That’s when you accidentally shoot the good guys instead of the bad guys, right, asks Jameelah.

Exactly, says the guy.

And did you know him?

Know who, asks the guy.

The guy who did it, says Jameelah.

Yeah we all know each other well, says the guy putting his hands on Jameelah’s hips.

That’s terrible.

Better that it was one of us than one of them, he says.

Why, says Jameelah.

Well, it’s not the pain that’s so bad or the missing leg. The bad part is when some nutjob wants to hurt you. Violence is when somebody wants to inflict pain on you, not the pain itself but the intent.

Aha.

I have no idea what they’re talking about so I say war is shit, which usually goes over well, but the guy in the wheelchair says, what the hell do you know.

Come on, no sad stories, says baby-seat-guy slapping him on the back, it’s your birthday.

Leave me alone, says the guy in the wheelchair staring at the floor.

It gets very quiet, nobody says anything. I look at Jameelah, baby-seat-guy looks at us, and wheelchair guy stares at the spot where his legs should be. Suddenly Jameelah starts laughing.

What’s so funny, says baby-seat-guy glaring at her.

Nothing, squeaks Jameelah, nothing, but it’s too late, she looks at me with her hand over her mouth and her eyes squinting then throws her head back and laughs so loud that I can see right down her throat past the tonsils and it looks so weird that I can’t help laughing too.

Stop it, says baby-seat-guy.

Don’t be so hard on them, says the guy in the wheelchair grabbing Jameelah’s breasts. She is still on his lap. He’d probably bounce her on his knee if he could, I think, and that makes me laugh out loud again even though it’s not even funny. I don’t know myself why we laugh so hard, no idea, it’s all just so fucked up, I mean, we just wanted to cast a love spell, and we scattered rose petals over the entire playground, I could die laughing.

Alright, now we drink up, says baby-seat-guy shoving the glasses in our faces.

Why, says Jameelah.

Because we’re going someplace else.

Nobody knows about the whole thing with me and Jameelah and Kurfürsten, nobody except us two. There’s all sorts of reasons for that. People would just worry, I mean if Nico knew he’d probably smack me. But basically nothing can happen to us, we have our dogs, the Grims. Two huge black dogs both named Grim, Jameelah got it out of some book. They’re not real but in our imagination they are always with us like a pair of bodyguards. I don’t really think of them much, only when I get a strange feeling. That’s when they pop up and run around us in circles so nobody can get at us. I’m not an idiot or something, these dogs do protect us and they have for a while. There are some horrible guys in the world, the types who grab your crotch as they walk past you and that kind of thing, we’ve seen it all. But since we got the dogs nothing like that has happened, seriously, if I concentrate really hard on the Grims men who I would be afraid of actually cross to the other side of the street. It’s a question of concentration. That’s why I don’t get scared anymore.

We’ve never been to a hotel room with anyone. The guy in the wheelchair is already completely drunk, I guess he can’t hold his liquor though I’m not sure if it has something to do with his legs or whether it’s just because he’s so skinny. Baby-seat-guy is also pretty well oiled, and obviously we are too. The lift opens and we stagger down the hall to the last room.

Sophia Saturna, whispers Jameelah, I think this time we have to sleep with them.

Could be, I say.

Maybe it’s not all that bad, maybe it’s even better this way, I think, at least we’ll have it behind us, this whole stupid first time thing. And who knows, maybe today is the perfect day first and foremost because if there’s going to be blood it would fit the day to a tee, it would almost be poetic. Noura always says you should live your life so it reads like a poem. She never said it had to be a happy poem, just a poem.

Baby-seat-guy unlocks the door, puts his black bag down next to the desk facing the window and lowers the shades. Under the desk is a little refrigerator that the guy in the wheelchair opens.

Can you help me onto the bed, he says, his lap full of mini-bar schnapps bottles that tinkle onto the white sheets like marbles when we drop him onto one of the two beds. He pulls me to him and fumbles around with my breasts then lifts my t-shirt over my head and the sheets rustle, they’re stiff from being cleaned so often. But my bra, the one with the little bow that Jameelah gave me for my birthday, he can’t unhook.