Tiger Milk (7 page)

Hi, he says and touches his hand to his hat as a greeting.

What, is he a soldier now, I think.

We’re going to the human rights group meeting at the tea shop, says Lukas, you guys coming?

Human rights group, says Jameelah, of course, and as she says it she digs her fingernails into my hand with joy.

It stinks in the tea shop. It stinks of fruit tea, of the old felt covering the billiard table in the corner, of the old books that are so shit that not even Lukas would read them, of old board games that are all missing a piece or a card so that you can never really play them right, of ancient sofas where grown-ups hang out, grown-ups who act like they know everything but who have fucked up their own lives and are so lonely that they have to jerk off every night. I know exactly what it smells like, it smells of god and his rotten earth.

On the sofa is a scruffy pillow. I don’t even want to think about how many tea drinking believers have sat with it in their laps or under their asses, but it certainly looks as if it’s seen a lot of laps and asses. I let it get knocked to the floor unnoticed, as if by accident.

Jameelah sits down cross-legged next to me and motions for Lukas to join us and he smiles back awkwardly.

I have a basic idea of what human rights are, why they are important or whatever, but I can’t say I understand why Lukas and the rest feel it necessary to meet up here regularly and talk about them. Nadja says something about some document she read online, something about a family in Guatemala. Everyone nods with concern, like they actually know the people. Slowly I begin to realize this all has to do with the fact that they plan to meet up on Saturday in the pedestrian zone to collect money for street kids in Guatemala as part of
engagement week
, to help the kids there, for a better world, that’s the slogan painted on bed sheets they must have worked on the week before,
for a better world
. One of the sheets is laid out on the brown floor tiles. I can’t help wondering whether they all just took the sheets from home and if they did, what kind of people don’t use fitted sheets and also what kind of people can just take sheets, I mean Mama would smack me if I painted a slogan on one of her sheets whether it was fitted or not. Still, I could have found the whole scene amusing if not for the awful head of the group, Herr Kopps-Krüger. He’s sitting opposite me, looks like a wolf fish, and has the worst breath in the world. Behind him is a poster,
the field of experience for the expansion of the soul
, it says, it’s from some exhibition and I have no desire whatsoever to know what will be expanded and experienced. Everybody is talking about the fundraising campaign on Saturday and how much money they need to bring in so the partner church in Guatemala can buy who knows what for the street kids.

I haven’t seen you guys here before, says Kopps-Krüger to us at some stage, would you like to briefly introduce yourselves.

I don’t feel like introducing myself but Jameelah says, so this is Nini and I’m Jameelah.

Sometimes Jameelah can be so German, it’s embarrassing, but Kopps-Krüger’s eyes get wide when he hears the name Jameelah.

It’s great that you’re here, he says to her, and as he does his head nods like crazy, as if he has that disease the pope had. I can tell that inside his head, in his third world brain, there’s thunder and lightning. I count the seconds off, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and then it’s on.

Nice name, Jameelah, really nice, he says, the Arab people are very poetic, where exactly are you from?

From here, Jameelah says.

Well yes, of course, says Kopps-Krüger smiling placidly, as if Jameelah were a puppy that had just chewed on an old pair of shoes.

But originally, where do you come from originally is what I meant to say. You’re not from Germany, surely?

From Iraq.

Aha, says Kopps-Krüger, a beautiful country, the landscape and the people, the Iraqis, unbelievable hospitality, but, he says raising his pointer finger, it’s a country where human rights are violated. That’s why you came to Germany, am I right?

What a detective, I think.

Jameelah says nothing.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he had a hard-on right now. It’s always the same with these people who pretend to care when all they really want to do is strip you naked and put you up against the wall so they can jerk off about how much better they have it than others. These people with their questions, questions like an interrogation, like Jameelah did something bad. Jameelah and I normally get into trouble together but whenever someone comes and asks these questions I feel like I’m in a cop show on TV, like I’m behind the one-way glass and I can see her but she can’t see me.

What’s up with all the stupid questions, I say, and why are we even talking about Guatemala or Iraq, I mean how far away are those places?

What would you like to talk about, asks Kopps-Krüger.

There’s plenty of injustice right here, I say.

Give me an example, says Kopps-Krüger.

I don’t know, like when people are deported. That’s not right.

Shut your mouth, says Jameelah looking angrily at me.

Kopps-Krüger raises his eyebrows.

Why, he says, who is going to be deported?

All of a sudden it gets very quiet in the tea shop, Lukas pulls his hat further down over his face and I can see he’s no soldier, that’s for sure, which is fine, but he shouldn’t pretend he is.

Nobody, I say quickly, it was just an example. There are also certainly good things, too, obviously, I mean, Jameelah is about to be naturalized.

I’m pleased to hear it, says Kopps-Krüger.

Yeah then she’ll really be German and we’re going to throw a potato party, I say looking at Jameelah, right?

Yeah, she says smiling shyly at Lukas. He smiles back.

At nine-thirty on Saturday morning the doorbell rings up a storm, I’m still in bed and when I finally open the door Jameelah is standing there.

We have to go to Wilmersdorfer, it’s Saturday.

At first I have no idea what she’s talking about.

Hello, street kids of Guatemala, fundraiser, says Jameelah holding up an empty apple sauce jar with a note stuck to it.
For poor street kids
it says.

What, are you crazy? You really want to collect money for Krap-Krüger and his fucking street kids, you can’t be serious, I say.

I don’t give a shit about the street kids, I want to see Lukas!

Shit, that old Krap-Krüger only wants us to help him so he can congratulate himself for making the world a better place. And the worst part is he gets off on it, I’ll bet you anything.

He can jerk himself off until his cock’s rubbed raw for all I care, says Jameelah, I want to kiss Lukas and for that I have to help him collect money for the street kids.

I growl something back at her and a few minutes later we’re sitting in the U-bahn.

When we get out at Wilmersdorfer station my first thought is that there must be an open-air market going on but then I see it’s actually all sorts of stands set up by clubs and activists, and behind one of the tables is Krap-Krüger. Lukas and the rest are already there, unpacking stacks of flyers and booklets from a box and spreading them on the table. I can’t believe they bother with all of this, and on a Saturday morning no less, it’s all a bit like being a street kid in Guatemala, I think to myself.

Jameelah puts her hands over Lukas’s eyes from behind, the same way Anna-Lena did at the planet recently.

Salam, she says to Lukas.

I’m pleased to see you both here, says Krap-Krüger when he spots us.

Jameelah digs around in her rucksack, pulls out her apple sauce jar, and proudly places it on the table.

As far as I’m concerned we can start right now, she says, but Krap-Krüger shakes his head.

Unfortunately that won’t work, he says, lifting his pointer finger, the collection boxes have to be sealed.

He pulls a bunch of metal containers out of the box on the ground, but in the end he is one short. Krap-Krüger is having a good day and says, okay you can use the jar. The scent wafting from his mouth smells once again like god’s rotten earth.

Lukas stands behind the table.

Aren’t you going to collect money, asks Jameelah.

No, I’m staying here to pass out info, he says, but maybe later we can go to the pool?

Sure, says Jameelah nodding like an idiot.

Come on, I say and pull Jameelah with me, her apple sauce jar in her hand, we walk up and down Wilmersdorfer Strasse, up and down, up and down.

We’re raising funds for the street kids of Guatemala, perhaps you can make a small donation, that’s how it goes the whole time. I’m bored, but I have to admit that Jameelah is good at getting people to part with their money. She makes up stories about Guatemala and the mountains there. The kids sniff glue because they’re starving. They get beaten by their fathers and flee into the jungle. I can see it all before my eyes, the mountains and the wild animals in the jungle and the luscious green of the trees.

Everything is greener in Guatemala than here, greener and more luscious, says Jameelah, but also darker and more tragic, and as she says that she shakes the jar as if it’s some kind of Guatemalic folk instrument.

Guatemalan, says Jameelah when we’re in the bathroom at the ice cream shop taking the bills and large coins out of the jar. We need the money because we want to buy Amir a
Star Wars
towel we saw at Kaufland.

I mean, hey, we’re street kids, too, says Jameelah, we’re kids and the street is right out there and Krap-Krüger can’t prove we took anything, for all he knows we’re just bad at drumming up donations.

We go back to the table and when Jameelah sees Lukas she starts shaking the leftover coins in the jar. Just as Krap-Krüger goes to take it from her, the bottom of the jar suddenly breaks and the coins fall to the ground jingling.

Oh boy, says Krap-Krüger, you two are a handful.

Wait, I’ll help, says Lukas squatting down beside Jameelah and together they gather up the coins.

So, are we going to the pool now, I ask.

Sure, says Lukas and he smiles and looks at me with his big Bambi eyes. I can see the pool in his eyes, the shimmering green lawn, his green towel and how it’s laid out on the lawn, and how he moves little by little toward Jameelah, but then just at the moment when she reaches out to touch his hair and kiss him he jumps up and gallops away, galloping off and disappearing forever in his green life.

I know you can’t really see the shimmering green lawn in Bambi eyes, I know that only works with the last unicorn. It’s just a Fata Morgana, like a thirsty wanderer staggering across the desert sees.

Oh man, says Jameelah when we’re heading home from the pool on the train, Lukas.

What about him, I ask.

Nothing, says Jameelah, he’s so sweet. The sweetest.

So?

What?

So what’s up with you two, I ask.

No idea, says Jameelah looking at the ground, nothing somehow.

Maybe it’s something to do with his school, I say, Laura told me they don’t have sex education there until they’re fourteen. Maybe he only recently learned how everything works.

No way!

Seriously. They think rape means to ask someone for their phone number.

Shut up, Jameelah says, Lukas isn’t that stupid.

Then you just need to get together with him alone, I say, not at the pool or whatever, I mean, getting him to put sunscreen on is okay as a start, but not if that’s all that ever happens.

But he likes me, I think.

Of course he likes you, I say, but he’s a skittish forest creature, he’ll never come to you on his own, he’s the type you have to hunt, or better yet lay a trap for.

Yeah, says Jameelah looking out the window, which is why I’m done.

With what?

I’m done practising.

What are you talking about, I ask.

Come on, you know.

No, I have no idea.

Yes, you do, says Jameelah with a conspiratorial look.

Oh, that.

I don’t want to practise anymore, she says, I want to go to bed with someone for real. For the first time, you know, Lukas and me.

Yeah, me too, I say, I just don’t know who with.

On the walk home I think about it seriously. What about the sweet guy at Tiergarten? It would probably be nice with him, and maybe everything would smell like Weleda, I try to imagine it but in the end I can’t imagine it with anyone except Nico.

At home I notice I have a bad sunburn on my shoulders. I put on my pyjamas even though I’m not tired at all. Jessi is lying on the sofa with Mama watching
Crimewatch
. The sky has darkened and outside it’s starting to thunder and lightning as rain begins to smack onto the dry streets. I open the window in my room wide so I can smell the storm. My phone rings.

Thank goodness you answered, says Jameelah sounding agitated, Jasna’s on the balcony and she says she’s going to jump.

No, I think, this is just another one of Jameelah’s stories.

Seriously, she really is standing on the railing of her balcony and unless a miracle happens she’s going to jump, there’s already an ambulance and a fire truck here.

Quickly I pull a hoodie over my pyjamas and run out and head across the playground. The wet sand squishes beneath my Chucks. The farther I run the louder the sirens get and there’s cops and EMTs all over the place, the pavement in front of the building is jammed with people. Jameelah is standing in the street and waves me over to her, the hood of her jumper is pulled down over her face. I look up to the balcony but nobody’s there.

She was there until a second ago, says Jameelah, Tarik locked her in their apartment but now she’s not letting anyone in. We all had to evacuate to the street because she threatened to blow the place up with the stove if anyone tried to come into the apartment.

I want to answer but just then the door to the balcony opens. Jasna has her long hair pulled into a thick ponytail and it’s hanging over her chest all the way down to her hips like in a fairytale, like someone has just shouted for Rapunzel to let down her hair. Her hands claw the balcony handrail covered with henna tattoos, blood-red. All around us are uniformed men in the street, yellow, red, blue uniforms standing around smoking and waiting to see what Jasna’s next move will be.