You

by Zoran Drvenkar

  “Are you trying to kill me, or what?”

  “It’s just the phone,” you reassure her.

  Schnappi falls back and wants to know why you don’t answer it, when it’s just the phone. You answer it. Stink’s on the other end. She sounds hysterical and she doesn’t want you to say anything. She speaks so quickly that you only understand half of it.

  “Stink, slow down.”

  She tells you where she is. She takes a deep breath. She tells you what you have to do. You want to ask her what has happened, but she interrupts you and tells you to hurry up. She says it twice.

  “Nessi, please, hurry.”

  The lights in the ceiling flicker on. There’s room for four cars in the garage, but there’s only one there.

  “I thought her father drove a Mercedes,” says Schnappi.

  “Me too.”

  “Nessi, that’s not a Mercedes, it’s a monster.”

  The Range Rover looks as if it’s come straight off the conveyor belt. It gleams coldly in the fluorescent light and looks as remote as the starry sky you were looking at a moment before. There isn’t a speck of dust on the black paint, the windshield is an insect eye that stares at you disparagingly.

  “It’s too big for us,” says Schnappi.

  “What choice do we have?”

  At first Stink wanted you to phone one of the guys from the crowd and arrange for a car. It’s half past three on a Friday morning. You tried. None of the guys answers his phone, and it’s hardly likely that they would borrow their parents’ car to come to your aid.

  How the hell do you arrange for a car after midnight?

  Schnappi had the idea of looking in Taja’s father’s garage. And you’re there now and you feel like dwarfs. You can’t even see over the roof of the Range Rover.

  You pull on the driver’s door, which is of course locked. You look at the back tire, because Schnappi says people in movies always hide their keys on the back tire. Not in this movie.

  “Nessi, this isn’t a good sign.”

  You want to tape her mouth shut.

  “I could ask my father,” she offers.

  “Do you really think he’d drive us?”

  Schnappi shakes her head.

  “But I could ask.”

  “Rather not.”

  You go back into the house and look through all the drawers.

  Nothing.

  You think about waking Taja.

  “But why should Taja know where her father keeps …”

  Schnappi breaks off; you look at each other and have the same thought.

  “Please don’t,” says Schnappi.

  It’s time to go back into the basement.

  Taja’s dad looks just like he did yesterday. Still, stiff, dead.

  “I can’t do it,” you say.

  Schnappi groans, leans forward, reaches into the cabinet and, after feeling around for a minute, finds the key ring in his front pants pocket. She snakes two fingers in and pulls a face as if she were rummaging in a bucket full of earthworms. After she’s fished out the key ring, she hands it to you. The keys are ice cold.

  “And you’re sure you can drive that car?”

  You nod, what else are you supposed to do, there’s no turning back now, Schnappi would never forgive you. Your mother gave you driving lessons when you went with her on holiday to Greece. It was easier than you thought. That’s exactly what you say to Schnappi.

  “If it’s an automatic, I’m fine.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “Then we’ll cross that bridge.”

  Back into the garage.

  The key fits.

  You sit down in the car and search with your feet.

  Only two pedals.

  Bingo.

  For a whole five minutes you debate whether Schnappi should stay with Taja, but then Schnappi gets fed up debating and gets in the car.

  “So show me what you’re made of,” she says and puts on her seat belt.

  As far as the first traffic light you’re terribly nervous, it’s weird being so high up, it feels as if you were sitting on a pedestal and not driving the car yourself but being driven. The accelerator is very sensitive, the brake is like a feather. When you finally relax and are about to make a turn, the front tire bumps over the curb and you ram a garbage can, which falls over with a hollow crash and rolls into the street.

  “Pull up,” says Schnappi.

  You brake. The car jolts to a standstill at the side of the street. You take your foot off the brake. The car moves again. You slam your foot down on the brake again. You’re thrown forward and fly back, then all of a sudden you’re at a standstill and you set the car to park.

  “Nessi, take a breath.”

  Your hands clutch the steering wheel, your knuckles white. You loosen your grip and shake your fingers out. Dark patches have formed under your armpits. Pure panic. Your heart hammers. Schnappi observes dryly, “It’s because you’re pregnant.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Hormones and stuff.”

  “I’m just fine.”

  “I bet you’re secretly throwing up.”

  “I’m not secretly throwing up,” you answer, and push open the driver’s door to throw up in the street.

  “See,” says Schnappi and strokes your back.

  It’s really annoying being pregnant, your body’s alien to you and does what it wants. It’s even more annoying that everyone’s solicitous about you and Schnappi’s proved right on top of everything else. She reaches into the glove compartment, and points out in passing that her father gave her driving lessons too.

  “You tell me that now?!”

  “It was just a few hours, and it was a car with a stick shift, and anyway I’d never drive a monster like this. You’re doing really well.”

  Schnappi finds a pack of chewing gum and passes you a stick. The taste of mint makes you relax.

  “Better?”

  “Not bad. Maybe you should train as a midwife.”

  “Maybe I should give you a kick in the ass to make the baby come out right now.”

  There’s really not much you can say to that, so you slide your seat closer to the steering wheel, put your foot on the brake, and put the car in gear. You’re calmer now, and you pull away from the curb like a ninety-five-year-old diva on her way to the hairdresser’s. Says Schnappi, at least.

  You creep along the city highway. A pensioner on a bike would be quicker. It’s a wonder a patrol hasn’t stopped you for holding up the traffic. Luckily you’re almost the only ones on the road at this time of night, otherwise people would be beeping at you every ten seconds. If you weren’t such a dwarf, you could sit behind the wheel, but with your short legs you probably wouldn’t even be able to reach the pedals. You don’t say a word, Nessi is tense enough. If you were to ask whether she wanted a boy or a girl, she’d be sure to drive the thing off the road. So sit still and look at the lights of the city and get used to the feeling that your whole life is a miserable, endless highway in the remotest corner of Vietnam where you’re only allowed to drive ten kilometers an hour. If they even have miserable, endless highways in Vietnam, you think and remember how often your mother promised you that your real life would only begin in your homeland. There’s no life here in Germany as far as she’s concerned. It’s a prelude in hell before you’re allowed to enter paradise. You like hell, you feel good here, and the thought of no one understanding German in paradise because only the Vietnamese are allowed in really scares you. Your Vietnamese is terrible. And until twenty minutes ago you didn’t even believe in hell.

  “Do you know what hell is?”

  “Driving in a car with me?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Thanks, Schnappi.”

  It takes you fifty-six minutes to get to Charlottenburg. At the Funkturm you leave the Autobahn and head up the exit at a walking pace. The streets are deserted, the lights are green, a good tailwind might take you up to twenty
kilometers an hour. At one point a patrol car draws up alongside you and Nessi nearly faints. She tries to sit especially straight, and asks you out of the corner of her mouth whether the cops are looking over. You put your hand on her knee and tell her not to forget to breathe. But of course she does forget, and only starts breathing normally again when the taillights of the patrol car are tiny dots.

  At Lietzensee you stop in a driveway behind the Hotel Seeblick, because there are no parking spaces free around here so late at night. Nessi gets out and leans against the car. Her knees are weak, but at least she’s not throwing up again. You take your friend by the hand, and the two of you step inside the park.

  Your two girls are sitting on the shore looking at the water, as if they’re having a picnic. Ruth’s head rests on Stink’s shoulder. Looks okay, you think as you walk down the grass to the shore, and everything really is okay. Nessi asks what all the stress is about. Stink says: Stress keeps you young. The sports bag is on the ground beside Ruth. Ruth pats the grass. You sit down and look at the water and say it’s unbelievable that only two days ago Nessi was in the water here. Nessi just laughs, and then you ask what’s happened. And Stink points to the bag. Want to take a look? You open the zipper, the bag is full of money. All in hundreds, rolled up in bank wrappers, all yours. Your little heart gives a great leap and you say: Amazing! And Stink says: Didn’t I tell you? And then you hear how Stink met Darian at the football pitch and how she handed the bag over and got the money and off she went. And all we had to do was take a little trip on the subway, says Ruth. And you laugh again, and then you set off and Nessi drives you to the Mexican place on Krumme Strasse, and you sit there and no sooner have you ordered than your phone rings and it’s Taja, and she says she’s fine, the medication was a complete success and where have you all gone, she’d have loved to come along and get some fresh air, so you tell her where you are and say she should jump in the next taxi, and before she hangs up you hold up your phone so that the girls could call something to her, and Stink says, “I thought you’d never come.”

  You blink, you’re still standing up on the path beside Nessi, and the park encloses you in its darkness. You wonder if you’re going to have a blank every day from now on, or what? Maybe I’m going mad, maybe I’m about to start time traveling. Stink and Ruth haven’t moved from the spot down by the water. Stink looks up at you. Nessi gives you a shove, you snap out of your daze and walk down the slope. Then Ruth turns around and you both freeze again and can’t take another step. It’s as if the air in front of you has turned into concrete. You must have blanked out because you knew something was heading your way. You see Ruth’s face, and nothing’s okay anymore.

  You might be small, but you’re tough. How many fights did you get into in primary school because a bunch of girls thought you talked too much and had funny eyes? Too many. It doesn’t help that your father’s a German, in fact that makes it even worse. You’re one of those bastards who look exotic and don’t really fit in anywhere. So you do what all bastards do, you find a niche for yourself, and you’re the girl who won’t put up with anything. Your heart is softer than Stink’s, but none of your girls is a match for your rages. Schnappi in a rage is like a bear trap. Everyone knows that. And when everything goes downhill and nothing works, you crush your opponent into the ground by talking nonstop.

  “Darian?”

  You say his name as if you can’t believe that’s really his name.

  “That revolting big fucker did this? That bald-headed dickhead? If I get my hands on him, I’m gonna rip him a new asshole, you hear me?!”

  You kick the grass, a lump of soil comes away, you look around and wish you had a few stones to smash the hotel windows with. Even though you couldn’t throw that far, it’s the thought that counts, and every thought in your head is like a rocket with a burning fuse. How come Stink’s so calm? You don’t need to ask, because you see the answer in her evasive eyes.

  Scared, our Stink is scared.

  You all support Ruth on the way to the car. She can’t really walk on her right foot, her knee’s badly swollen. Nessi wants to take her to the hospital right away. Ruth says, “No way. I’ll stay with you. I know exactly what’ll happen once I end up in the hospital. They’ll call my parents and keep me in for a few days. I don’t want to leave you.”

  “By the way, we have no time for the hospital,” says Stink. “We’ve got Taja’s uncle on our backs.”

  Nessi and you stop walking.

  “We’ve got what?”

  Stink tells you what happened on the football field, that the drugs are secure in a safe-deposit box, and Ragnar Desche wants to show up at Taja’s house in the morning to collect his merchandise.

  “That’s why we can’t go to the hospital. We simply don’t have time. We have to move quick. What do you think Taja’s uncle’s going to do when he sees his brother’s dead in the freezer?”

  You’re speechless; however much you try, you can’t think of a smart comeback. You only know horrible stories about Taja’s uncle. That he used to be a soldier, and killed over a hundred people as a sniper during the Balkan war. That almost all cops get kickbacks from him, and that’s why he was able to set fire to a nightclub on Alexanderplatz and get away scot-free. That he’s crazy, and he scares the other crazies. All made-up stories, a bunch of stupid lies, but you never know.

  “But, Stink, this is Ragnar Desche we’re talking about!”

  “Yes, Nessi, I know.”

  “But … he’s a total nut job, we mustn’t get mixed up with him, he’ll kill our parents and then—”

  “Nessi, shut up,” you cut in. “It’s all just rumors. He’s only a human being. And he’s Taja’s uncle. Shift down a gear. First we need to look after Ruth, the rest can wait.”

  The rest, you think, is a dead man in the freezer and a ton of drugs in a sports bag. And of course the golden question of how we’re going to get out of this alive. But you don’t say any of that, because Nessi would probably run away screaming.

  When you arrive at the Range Rover, Stink can’t believe her eyes. It’s a good feeling, still being able to surprise her every now and again.

  “Do you think you could be any more conspicuous?” she says and kicks the back tire. “You were supposed to get a car, not a tank.”

  “You can walk if you like,” says Nessi and helps Ruth into the car.

  Nobody says a word on the way home. You’re sitting in the backseat with Ruth, with her head in your lap. Later you’ll see the bruises on her arms and her back. In the glow of the passing streetlights you can see only that her left eye is bloodshot, and that there’s a nasty cut on her lower lip. Darian has used her as a punching bag, you swear you’ll make him lose at least a leg for it.

  The city flashes past you as if trying to get away.

  Streetcornershouseslightsstreetcornershouseslightscars.

  Ruth shuts her eyes. You rest your hand on her forehead and try to send her positive energy. Where you get that positive energy is a mystery to you. Your palm is pulsing, and that has to mean something.

  When you stop outside Taja’s house, you wake Ruth and help her out. It’s half-past four, the sky is a pale bluish gray, morning is so close that you can hear it breathing. You walk Ruth to the terrace and plunder the medicine cabinet, rub ointment on the bruises, and cut Ruth’s jeans open from feet to hip. Stink fetches a bag of ice and presses it carefully on the swollen knee. Ruth sighs and says it feels good.

  “What are you doing there?”

  You give a start. Taja is standing in the terrace doorway, blanket around her shoulders, water bottle in her hand. She was in the kitchen, she noticed the light outside, and now here she is. Barefoot in panties and T-shirt, thin as a rake. There are still shadows under her eyes like thunderclouds, but she’s obviously better.

  You step aside so that she can get a view of Ruth.

  “Honey, what’s happened to you?”

  You don’t know what it is exactly. Perhaps the tone i
n Taja’s voice or just the fact that Taja is standing in front of you like a normal person, and not throwing up over the toilet bowl. At any rate, Ruth shrugs helplessly and bursts into tears.

  Ten minutes later Taja knows what’s happened, and says to Stink, “So you were trying to sell my cousin the drugs that his father was storing in my father’s house?”

  “How was I supposed to know it was his drugs?”

  “Stink, why do you always have to cause problems?”

  “I thought we could bring in a bit of money.”

  “You could have asked me.”

  “Taja, you were in a coma.”

  “And she didn’t want to listen to me,” says Ruth.

  You fall silent, you look at each other, then Taja says what you’re all thinking, “Girls, we’re totally fucked.”

  “What will your uncle do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He can’t do anything to us, can he?”

  “No, he can’t. And anyway we’re related.”

  “Yes, you’re related to him,” you point out, “but what about the rest of us?”

  Taja says nothing. Nessi says, “We could go to the police.”

  Taja shakes her head.

  “Not a good idea to report somebody like my uncle to the police.”

  “We just have to put the drugs back where we found them.”

  Stink shakes her head.

  “Sorry, Nessi, but I’m not putting anything back.”

  “What?”

  “Take a look at Ruth. That guy doesn’t deserve a thing. How could he do that to our girl? If I’d given him the drugs in the park, I wouldn’t be here right now. He’s that kind of guy.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Suddenly Stink explodes, there’s panic in her voice.

  “How can you say ‘bullshit’? I talked to him, Nessi, not you. The guy really scared the shit out of me, and not everybody scares me, you know that. Do you really think he’s going to let me get away, and then when I bump into him when I’m out shopping and I say hi, he’ll tell his mates: Hey, that was the girl who tried to sell me my own stuff, but don’t worry, she gave it all back, she’s okay. Nessi, do you never go to the movies? When has that ever worked?”