Tiger Milk (23 page)

Pepi isn’t allowed to go home, Jessi screams, Mama said so.

Why not, I ask.

They said we had to stay here, I hear Pepi say, he’s in the doorway standing with one foot on top of the other and his toes curled up.

Who said?

Nico.

And Mama, says Jessi.

They went to the police, Nico said, right away, and then, says Pepi, and then they said we have to stay here and not open the door for anyone.

The police?

Yeah, the police.

Get dressed right away, I say.

I go to the stereo and turn off the music and then take the DVD out of the DVD player and take Amir’s box under my arm into my room. I grab the ashtray that’s sitting outside on the windowsill and crumble apart old cigarette butts and collect the dregs until I have enough leftover tobacco to roll a new one. I inhale deeply on the dregarette and the old tobacco burns down fast, I take another drag straight away, smoking like Dragan, inhaling so hard that it can’t keep up, and then with my fingers trembling I open Amir’s box. There’s a pile of DVDs inside with naked people on the covers, mostly women, the one on top shows a woman blowing a guy. I take the DVDs out of the box and lay them cover-down on the floor in front of me like I’m playing memory, like this will somehow help me figure out why Amir gave all of this to me. One after the next I turn the covers right-side-up. I still can’t figure it out.

I put the DVDs back in the box. On the last one there’s actually a cute guy on the cover. He’s reaching with one hand into his underwear and grinning, he has the same blue eyes as Tarik and the same dark curly hair, but I’ve never seen Tarik so happily grinning like that, Tarik only smiled sadly and unlike the guy on the DVD Tarik’s hair never looked cute because whenever it started to look cute Tarik cut it immediately. Tarik never wanted to be cute even though he could have, but then again that’s exactly what I liked about him. I take another deep drag on the cigarette as if it will help fend off the sadness and then I see that there’s blood on the filter. I go to the bathroom, shove toilet paper into the back of my mouth and look in the mirror.

Noura said one time that brave people are the ones who do things they are afraid of, that is, when someone does something they’re not really afraid of anyway, like diving off the ten-metre platform, then no matter how brave it looks it has nothing to do with bravery.

I put the DVDs and the box into a rubbish bag. Jessi and Pepi are sitting on the sofa watching TV, they’re in normal clothes. I go to the goodie cabinet and grab a packet of cookies and put it on the coffee table in front of them.

Listen up, I say, you stay here just like Mama and Nico said, eat cookies and watch TV, I’ll be right back, don’t open the door for anybody, not even someone you know, understand.

Yes, says Jessi and nods.

I sprint down the street like an idiot, I run as fast as I can, like the red-haired girl in that one movie, I saw it on TV, she ran through the entire city and was just as out of breath as I am now, and just like me she had a plastic bag in her hand though hers had 100,000 euros in it instead of pornos. I run panting across intersections, cars beep their horns, up on top of the minaret of a mosque a muezzin howls, a flock of black birds that Jameelah would say were rooks not ravens takes off fluttering totally directionless around the minaret, swarming, they look like a giant Palestinian scarf floating in the wind.

On the pavement in front of the police station I brace my hands on my knees and pant for breath. The children’s hospital, the lead doctor, the green park, Nico’s kisses, it all seems impossibly far away, like I was never there, I must have dreamed the whole thing. This, this is real life, side stitches, pornos, and the taste of blood. I pull the wad of blood-soaked toilet paper out of my mouth, toss it into the plastic bag with the rest of the crap, and go inside.

The station smells like file cabinets and coffee and like rooms where you’re not allowed to smoke anymore. I run down the hall but I don’t have to go far because I can already see them all sitting there, Nico and Mama, Noura and Jameelah, and two police officers with serious looks on their faces. Nico looks away when I show up. What a coward.

Mama comes up to me.

What have you got yourself into again this time, she says as if this kind of thing happens to me all the time, as if I might as well live up there in the play fort at the playground and constantly watch as girls are stabbed to death by their brothers next to Amir’s linden tree.

Is this the other witness, asks one of the policemen.

Yes, I say, but the thing with the jewellery, I can explain that, I wanted to take it, not her, I say pointing at Jameelah, she had nothing to do with it. At first we threw it all away but then we went back but the bin men had already taken it.

It’s alright, he says, your friend already told us everything.

So, I say, are we going to get in trouble?

No, he says laughing but then he frowns.

You’re bleeding, he says.

Yeah, it’s my wisdom teeth, I say, the stitches popped out.

And that on top of it all, says Mama.

The policeman hands me a tissue as a young female officer comes down the hall.

We got him, she says, he was apprehended at home.

And, asks the policeman, any drama?

Not really, he barricaded himself in and we suspected he was planning to harm himself, but the team got in and was able to subdue him. No corporal damage.

Corporal damage. I let the phrase float past me. I know what it means, everyone around here does because they always say it on the train when somebody jumps in front of an S-bahn and you have to wait until they’ve scraped the corporal damage off the tracks before the train can continue. Sometimes it’s better to die than to live with whatever has happened, which is probably what Tarik was thinking. I’m sure that it’s true.

Mama pulls me to her.

How do you get yourself into these things, she says stroking my hair.

I shrug my shoulders.

No idea, I say, no idea what I’m supposed to say, I didn’t get myself into anything, I didn’t do anything at all. Mama doesn’t get it, she’s forgotten everything off on her island though I’m really only realizing it now. I try to look past Mama to Jameelah but she looks away, off in the other direction, though Nico does look at me and I give him the dirtiest look of all time, at least I hope that’s the way it comes across.

Sorry, says Noura, what has happened with little Selma and her mother?

They’ve been taken to an undisclosed location, says the policewoman, because of the press.

And the boy?

He’ll be released from custody as soon as everything is verified, says the policeman.

And then what? Where will he live?

I don’t know, to begin with he’ll probably be put in a home of some sort.

Can’t he live with us for a while, asks Noura.

Yes, theoretically, says the policewoman, you’ll just have to clear it with the department of youth services.

They’ll certainly allow it, says the male officer putting a hand on Noura’s shoulder, and don’t you worry about the immigration department. There is absolutely no downside to coming forward as a witness like this for you or for your daughter. It would be crazy if it was permitted to have a negative effect.

Mama stands up.

Can we go now? I have two little kids at home.

Sorry, says the policewoman, we still have to take your daughter’s statement, but the rest can go.

Nico gets up. He comes over to me and starts to open his mouth.

Leave me alone, I say and turn to Jameelah.

Noura stands up.

Come on, she says to Jameelah, but Jameelah doesn’t move, she just sits on her chair with her arms crossed and a blank look on her face. Cautiously I sit down next to her.

Did you hear that, I say, you don’t have anything to worry about. Everything’s going to be fine.

Like in slow motion Jameelah turns her head in my direction. I wince.

Traitor, she whispers while glaring at me. If looks could kill.

Ramadan has arrived. I actually like Ramadan, the men sit zonked out on the benches in front of convenience stores and do nothing but fiddle with their strings of beads with their eyes closed and wait for the sun to finally go down.

It’s funny in school. Half the class is hungry and does stupid shit. Orkhan and Tayfun keep having short outbursts. Today Orkhan tipped his chair over backwards and smashed into the wooden map of Germany the class has been working on and it fell to the floor with a huge crash and when the entire class started laughing Frau Struck was so irate that I thought for a second she was going to keel over.

Everyone is agitated the way only Jessi is normally but then it gets dark and the lights go on all over the city and it’s absolutely silent in the streets, all you hear is the faint sound of laughter and clinking dishes wafting out of windows. Then people start streaming out of the buildings, the women carrying Tupperware containers, people wishing each other happy holidays and the best part is that the children are allowed to stay awake as long as they want. Ramadan is like a month of New Year’s Eves, just with no fireworks. Normally I like it. Normally Jameelah comes by in the evening and brings a plate of rice with raisins and roasted carrots. We sit on the balcony and stuff ourselves, drink Tiger Milk out of a chocolate Müller milk container so Mama doesn’t notice, and think up A-words. Ramadan is an A-word so when it’s Ramadan we take a Ramadan from O-words and switch to A-words, which is tougher, but it’s alright, steering becomes staring not storing and Anna-Lena is Frieda Gaga instead of Frieda Giga, which suits her better anyway and I think Jameelah would agree but this year she and I can’t agree on a single thing because this year we don’t spend a single evening on the balcony together speaking in A-words, Jameelah and I don’t speak to each other at all anymore.

I’m standing in front of Frau Stanitzek’s store with my swim things in a bag smoking a Pall Mall I stole from Rainer. The sun is shining. I don’t like standing here, I look over at the entrance to the building. Where is Amir, I don’t want Jameelah to turn up and see me standing here, I think, making circles in the dirt on the pavement with my flip-flops, but on the other hand if she did turn up I could try one last time to speak to her normally, though the note she left, that was bad, what are you supposed to say to somebody like that.

Don’t ring my doorbell you backstabbing Schwein, I’ve already left
is what she wrote on the note she taped to her door on the first day of school. And then at school, with the new seating chart, it was the same thing. Ever since we could read and write Jameelah and I have sat next to each other, me on the right and Jameelah on the left so that our writing hands wouldn’t knock into each other. Frau Struck tried to separate us now and then but it never lasted, we always ended up sitting next to each other again in the end, first in Wittner’s class then in all the other classes and then finally in Struck’s class too but not this year, this year when we all pushed the desks together into pairs during the first period after summer break and Struck said you two up here to me and Jameelah so I can keep an eye on you, Jameelah just shook her head and said I don’t want to be next to her.

The school year is starting well, said Frau Struck smiling a broad smile, she was suddenly in a great mood. She put Jameelah in the last row and me all the way up front.

And did you have nice summer holidays, Struck asked once we were all seated, she was tanned from her holiday in Africa. I just stared straight ahead. The seat next to me was empty.

Where is Amir, Frau Struck asked, is he going to be late already on the first day of school?

Nobody said a word. Frau Struck didn’t know anything, the whole thing had passed her by while she was down in South Africa and she hadn’t had enough time in the teachers’ lounge yet to hear the news. Jameelah raised her hand at some point.

He won’t be here until tomorrow, she said.

All of a sudden somebody shoves me. Jameelah’s standing in front of me on the pavement and staring at me with an evil look.

What are you doing here?

Waiting for Amir, I say.

Wait someplace else if you don’t mind.

I can wait here if I feel like it.

Snitches are not allowed to stand around in front of my door, says Jameelah.

This isn’t your door and I’m no snitch either.

Yes you are.

No I’m not.

I hope you die, says Jameelah spitting on the ground.

Come on, I say.

Come on nothing.

Watch yourself, I say.

What for, says Jameelah, do you think I’m afraid of you or something she says and spits on the ground again.

The spit lands right next to one of my flip-flops.

One more time, I say, and there’s going to be trouble.

Jameelah laughs out loud.

Trouble? I’d love to see that you backstabbing Schwein.

She spits again, this time on my bare foot.

Bam.

Just like that. I don’t think it over, my brain turns completely off and it feels unbelievably good, my brain is completely shut down and bam, my fist is in Jameelah’s face, bam, it’s lightning fast, Nico taught me how, you never know when you might need it he said, left, left, right, left, left, right on his punching bag. This time I go straight for a right but Jameelah isn’t a punching bag and as she falls down I already feel bad.

Sorry, I say, sorry sorry.

I put out my hand but then she’s standing next to me already and in the next second her long nails jam into my cheek. I scream in pain and try to punch her but Jameelah holds my wrist and knees me in the stomach and then I’m lying with my face in the dirt on the pavement a few inches from a big pile of dog shit. I try to pull her down while on my back and for a second it’s working but as I start to roll over she gets on top of me and pins my upper arms with her knees.

Snitch! Pig! she screams.

Stop, I scream.

Backstabbing Schwein!

Stop, you’re going to break my arms, I scream and then I hear someone call out.