You wish you weren’t part of it. They’re so far removed from you that you could call to them and they wouldn’t hear you. Your voice, yes; the words, no. And when they have left, peace settles in as if the cinema is holding its breath. The only sound is the murmuring from the corridors, then the door falls shut and it’s completely still. The cinema breathes out and it sounds like a sigh. The world has been switched off. You are the world and you wish you were someone else. A tear in the curtain is a tear in the screen is a tear in your life. You look at your wrist, the tattoo gleams dully. Gone. You can’t take your eyes off those four letters and wonder what would happen if you saw all the things in your dreams that you didn’t want to see in real life. Things you close your eyes to. Things you don’t want to imagine because they’re so terrible. And what if all those things stepped out of your dreams and suddenly appeared in real life—and it doesn’t matter if you want to see them or not, they’re there and you have to see them. What then? Would you stop living and go on with dreaming?
I don’t know.
“Sorry, I’d like to leave you sitting here, but I can’t, I’ll get into trouble.”
She’s standing at the end of the row, she’s the same age as you. Short hair and those round glasses. You’d never dare go out of the house like that. She looks like she listens to Beethoven and bakes Advent cookies with her family. You’d like to ask her if she just feels like screaming sometimes. You’d also like to smell her skin and let her know she’s definitely as real as you are. Even though it sounds nuts, that’s exactly what you’d like to say to her. You’re sure she doesn’t know what she’ll be one day, but she knows she’ll be something. And who can say that with any certainty? Not you, just for the record.
“Sorry,” she repeats, and you look at each other and you can’t get up, you’re bolted to the seat, however much you might try, right now you can’t budge from the spot. Perhaps she sees that, or perhaps she knows the feeling, because she leaves you alone. Respect. She goes out of the cinema hall, the door shuts and again there’s this silence, for one wonderful moment the world is switched off. You’re sitting in row 45, seat 16. The movie is over, and the things from your dreams crouch growling on your shoulders and want to be real. You lean your head back, because whatever you do, your only option is to cry.
Everything about you is crooked; however you stand it all slips away. Your T-shirt, your jeans, your hair, your earrings, even your mouth is askew. You look as if Picasso’s had a bad day. There’s a pimple beside your nostril, and you know if you try to do anything about it it’ll turn into a war zone. You lick your fingertip and dab crumbs of mascara from your cheek.
It could be worse, you think, when there’s the sound of flushing behind you and one of the stall doors opens.
“I bleed like a pig!”
Schnappi chucks a tampon wrapped in toilet paper in the bin, then joins you at the basin, holds her hands under the tap and meets your gaze in the mirror.
How can her eyes be so beautiful? you think.
Schnappi’s mother is called San and she’s from Vietnam, her father’s called Edgar, and he’s been a subway train driver in Berlin for thirty years. He met Schnappi’s mother on vacation. Schnappi insists on that version. She doesn’t want anyone to think her father ordered her mother from a catalogue.
Schnappi soaps her hands and asks if you understood the movie. You don’t like just her eyes, you like everything about her, particularly the fact that she’s so incredibly energetic. No one in the crowd is more loyal. It would be ideal if she talked less.
“What kind of killer was that guy? I mean, didn’t he play Jesus one time? Can someone who played Jesus suddenly become a killer? Nah, don’t think so. You remember? Jesus had to drag his cross around the place and then he got tortured for two hours? I mean, somebody was trying to make us feel really guilty, right? Fucking church. Stink fell asleep in the middle, she hardly missed anything, we covered our eyes the whole time because it was so disgusting and all the time I was …”
Schnappi can talk as if there were no tomorrow. If you keep your mouth shut for long enough, she automatically starts over again, as if every conversation has to come full circle.
“… mustn’t think I’m not joining in. But I’m not decorating any gym! As soon as school’s over you won’t see me close to this prison, or were you going to the party? Let’s do our own party. Maybe Gero will come, I could eat him up with a spoon. Look at this. I think my hair’s looking tired. Maybe I should dye it. I think I’m getting old. If I end up looking like my mother, chop my head off, promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, what’s up now, are you coming to the playground or not? You’ve got nothing on at home, and then we might take a detour to the bar on Savignyplatz, or do you not want to because of Taja? I can see that, but you know what Taja’s like. She’ll come back if she feels like it, and till then none of us will hold our breath. Wait, let me just get rid of this for you.”
She opens her backpack that looks like a weary panda, and takes out a blemish stick. You’re thinking about Taja and all the messages you left for her.
“Stand still.”
Schnappi’s half a head shorter than you, and has to stand on tiptoes. She dabs at your pimple, puts the blemish stick away again and says it’s perfect now. You look in the mirror.
Perfect.
Schnappi takes your arm and steers you out of the ladies’ room and up the stairs and out of the cinema as only she can. She would be a great bodyguard, she always gives you the feeling she knows what she’s doing. There’s no one standing outside the cinema, just a few people sitting outside Café Bleibtreu.
“So did you get that movie or not? Because I didn’t get any of it, nothing at all, cross my heart and die.”
Schnappi laughs and deliberately puts her hand on the wrong side, stops laughing in the middle and looks at you, really looks at you at last, and says, “God, Nessi, stop looking like this.”
You want to tell her that there is no other way to look right now. You have no idea what she wants to hear. Everything is a blur. You remember the movie as if you’d been blind and deaf for the last two hours. Everything that comes toward you flows around you and disappears without a trace, behind your back, lost and gone forever. But then your thinking apparatus clicks back in and you work out that this isn’t really about the movie; Schnappi’s language is a secret language, she says one thing and means another. She’s been asking you the same question all along and just wants to know what’s up with you and why you’re not saying anything, while she goes on talking and talking. And of course she’s right, you have to give her some kind of answer, but you can’t come up with a good one, so you turn the answer into a question and say weakly and quietly, “And what if I’m pregnant?”
Rather a big mouth than no tits, was always your motto, but maybe now’s not the time to announce it. Nessi needs to hear something else. Something like: “Bullshit, you’re not pregnant!”
“Why not?”
“You don’t just get pregnant like that.”
“But—”
“Have you done a test?”
“No.”
“Without a test you’re not pregnant, okay?”
Nessi can’t reply to your logic, so you drag her up Bleibtreustrasse to Kantstrasse and then into the nearest pharmacy to buy her a pregnancy test, as if you were offering her a kebab, except that those tests are really expensive.
“Why are they so expensive?”
The pharmacist shrugs as if she didn’t think that it was expensive. You read the instructions and whisper to Nessi that the pharmacist is one of those people who never get pregnant, that’s why a test like that costs a fortune, and then you turn back to the pharmacist and say with a sugary smile, “Eight euros? Are you sure this really costs eight euros?”
The pharmacist puts the packet through the scanner again.
The price is right.
“We’ve got a double pack,” she sa
ys. “It’s 10.95.”
“Well, that’s a bargain, isn’t it?” you say, and look at Nessi. “Do we need two?”
“Two would be good.”
“We’ll take the bargain,” you say to the pharmacist and smile at her as if you’d pulled a brilliant trick on her.
From the pharmacy you go to the nearest café. Before the waiter can move, you tell him you just need to pee. In the bathroom both of you squeeze into one stall. Nessi is pale, it’s all going too quickly for her.
“Come on, girl, take a deep breath.”
Nessi takes a breath.
The sticks are wrapped in foil, you hold them up in front of Nessi.
“Now you pee on it and we’ll know, because as long as you don’t know, you’re not pregnant. It’s like math.”
Nessi looks at you as if you’ve been speaking Vietnamese. It’s a weird moment and you ask yourself for the first time why Nessi’s actually worried. In your eyes she’d be a great mother. You other girls are either too thin or too young or too stupid even to think of being mothers. Nessi seems like someone who’s experienced everything; in your opinion she can master everything if she wants to.
An old soul, you think with envy.
A few days ago your mother took you aside again and told you about the little village she grew up in. You know the stories inside and out and you know there’s no point interrupting her. This time you found out that she can see things that other people can’t. Souls. Your mother is full of surprises. She told you: Some people have young souls and others have old ones, and then there are people without. You asked what “without” means in this context, because your mother can’t feed you any bullshit. Being without a soul is impossible, you know that. That’s like someone coming into the world without a heart. Your mother tapped your forehead with her index finger and you had to promise her that you would never, never get within ten feet of one of those soulless people. You will recognize them anywhere, because they have cold in their eyes, and when they look at you they steal your breath away. Promise me that you won’t let one of those soulless get ten feet near you. Of course you promised, otherwise you’d still be sitting beside her right now. Your mother also told you that your soul is young and inexperienced, and that your life will be a long and joyless journey.
Thanks, Mom.
You would like to know what your mother would say about Nessi, who now stands in front of you, confused and hopefully not pregnant, and asks, “Why is it like math?”
“What?”
“You said it’s like math. Why is it like math?”
“If you think about it for a long time it makes sense,” you tell her, and quickly go on talking: “Don’t think about that right now, just concentrate and pee on this. And don’t hold it the wrong way around. My neighbor held it the wrong way around, but she’s kind of retarded. And don’t pee on your hand, because that’s disgusting. Even though lots of people say urine therapy’s fantastic, I can’t imagine washing my face with my own pee, it would be—”
“Schnappi!”
You raise both hands in apology.
“Okay, I am quiet.”
Nessi tears at the packaging and can’t get it open. You take it from her and peel the test stick out of its foil. You liberate the second stick as well so that it’ll go more quickly. Now you only hope that Nessi can pee, because if she can’t pee …
“It’s working,” you say with all the positivity you have.
Nessi shakes the stick dry and looks at it.
“How long?”
“Two minutes.”
You pass her the second stick.
Afterward you both lean against the wall of the stall, each holding one of the sticks, and wait. Last year you caught your mother in the bathroom. She was sitting on the edge of the tub gnawing at a fingernail. Her skin was almost transparent, like one of those jellyfish you saw when you were at the North Sea coast. Your mother was holding the pregnancy test just as Nessi’s holding it now—vertical and pointing upwards, as if it were important to hold the stick vertical and pointing upwards. You knew your mother didn’t want any more children. She’s in her late thirties, she has her hands full looking after you. You’ve never talked about it, but it’s clear to you that she had an abortion. Since then you’ve been wondering whether it would have been a brother or a sister. You wouldn’t have minded a brother.
“Look,” Nessi says quietly.
You look, then you look at the stick in your hand, then back at Nessi’s.
“I’m not going to cry,” says Nessi, and bursts into tears.
It feels as if you’re being dragged down the street on your ass. Except that it doesn’t hurt. It is a weird feeling to sit so low. Glance to the right and you could scratch people’s kneecaps. The Jaguar purrs. You don’t say much, that’s a good feeling too, just driving around and not having to say much, understanding each other without words, drifting through the city with an empty head and a cigarette between your lips. Pure luxury.
“Hungry?” asks Neil.
No, you’re not thristy either, you’re just more content than you’ve been for ages. Your heart is still fluttering, as if someone had placed one of those hummingbirds into your chest. Flutterflutter. You give Neil a sideways glance and without thinking you place your hand on his thigh. Neil doesn’t react, doesn’t look at you, doesn’t say anything, goes on driving, hands on the wheel, wind in his face. You just have to ask, “Where are we going?”
“What?”
You are shouting it.
“Dancing,” he replies.
“Good,” you say, and leave your hand on his thigh.
The bouncer doesn’t want to let you in, Neil waves a few banknotes, the bouncer still doesn’t want to let you in, Neil draws him aside. He’s exactly the same height as the bouncer, but only half as wide. He talks in a lowered voice. Very controlled. Then the bouncer looks at you again, rubs his forehead as if someone’s hit him, and waves you in. No problem now. He even smiles at you. The asshole couldn’t get close to you if he was the last guy in the world.
“What did you say to him?” you ask.
Neil makes a gun out of his thumb and forefinger, holds it to your temple and laughs.
“I threatened him.”
You push your way through the crowd, the flickering lights are dazzling, the people are jostling each other, it smells of cigarettes and artificial smoke and very faintly of limes. A gap appears at the bar, you lean against it, shout into each other’s ears, laugh loudly. There’s a mirror hanging above the bar, at least thirty feet long, and for one terribly long moment you can’t see yourself. Your palms are clammy. You see Neil, you see the people around him, light and smoke and fog, but you yourself aren’t there. Like a vampire. Invisible. Then you spot your piled-up hair, your sulky mouth, and you meet your own eye and wonder if you’re really as small and insignificant as the mirror is trying to tell you. You’ve never seen yourself like that before. You’re a sektschbeascht, Alberto used to say. But he said lots of things.
“Do you like it here?” Neil calls to you, and you say yeah even though the music isn’t your thing. Nonetheless, you bob up and down as if you listened to nothing but soul all day long. You’re inches away from singing along. Before it can come to that, Neil hands you a beer with a wedge of lime in the neck of the bottle and you clink drinks and then the beer’s gone too and you dance and touch each other and everything’s as it should be, and a bit better.
You smell Neil among all those smells—his aftershave, the sweat beneath it—and he smells good, he smells so good that you press yourself against him, and he smiles and puts his arms around you and says in your ear, “Restroom?”
You wish he would go on dancing, and yet you take his hand and follow him to the restrooms. You notice that you’re thinking too much. You’re missing the special little moments. You want to stop and say it’s going too fast.
He hasn’t even kissed me. He’s barely touched me. He’s—
Stop thin
king, you tell yourself and keep your hand in front of your mouth and hope your breath doesn’t smell bad, and hope your makeup isn’t too smudged with sweat, and try to remember what sort of underwear you’re wearing.
Please, not the red ones with the little blue flowers, please not those.
Neil steps inside the men’s room and pushes past a few guys. He rattles at the doors, finds a free stall and drags you in behind him.
Trapped.
The music is just a murmur now. The ultraviolet light makes Neil’s teeth gleam, his eyeballs are like the magnesium flare you saw in chemistry. Cold and alien. Your nervous trembling is ebbing away in little waves, the hummingbird sinks exhausted to the bottom of your chest. You’ve lost your drive, you’re fearful and shy. You don’t feel the way you did when you got into the car beside Neil. You’re an outstretched hand. Naked and sensitive. It would be nice if you could turn off the voice in your head: If he kisses me now I’ll do anything he likes. It’s the only way. I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll go along with it all, because I think Neil knows what he’s doing. He’s going to—
“I’ve got a problem,” he says, interrupting your thoughts.
“Okay,” you say far too quickly and try to smile.
“No, really,” says Neil and then tells you about that girl, maybe you saw her? On the other side of the dance floor? Just below the DJs’ cabin? Did you notice her? No? Doesn’t matter, anyway it was because of her that Neil has driven from Hamburg to Berlin. Of course he wanted to see his father, too, but he’s really here because of this girl and doesn’t know what to do now. He needs help. Help from you.
“From me?”
“Yes, from you.”
“Why from me?”
He shuts his eyes as if he can’t bear the restroom any longer. When he looks at you again, you have the feeling he’s just woken up. His expression is almost embarrassing, as if he’s about to burst into tears. Stop it, you think, and regret going with him. Guys should solve their girl problems themselves. Is that why he talked to you in the first place? Do you look like Dear Abby or something?
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