True, I say, though I have no idea who Enid Blyton is and again I wonder how Jameelah knows this kind of stuff. She always remembers names and all sorts of trivia, like the whole thing with the leaf-miner moths, that they come from the Balkans. It’s so German of her, and I want to tell her that, but I’m too hot to bother.
Seriously, says Jameelah, if I’m Stella Stardust and you are Sophia Saturna, then Anna-Lena is Frieda Giga. Frieda Giga, the most frigid cow in the world.
We should ask Amir, I say.
I’d rather not, says Jameelah scratching her upper arm, shit, I got bitten by a mosquito.
Where’d you get that weird scar, I ask pointing at her arm.
I told you before.
No you didn’t.
I did so.
Did not.
Really? They’re from immunizations I got when I was little, says Jameelah. They shoot it into your arm with this thing that’s like a gun, and it leaves a scar. It’s not like here, not like the shot they give you for measles or whatever.
Where’d you get that one, she asks pointing at a scar on my neck.
That’s from a time I choked on a wurst casing and had to get a tracheotomy. My parents were still together then, they didn’t understand what was wrong when I started running around the table like a madman. The EMT who responded cut a hole so I could breath. Then I went in an ambulance to the children’s hospital. I got to stay overnight. My father left soon after that. I know because when he told us he was leaving I still had the bandages on my neck.
I was in the children’s hospital once too, remember, because of this, Jameelah says and lifts her foot and points to a narrow scar on her ankle, I was in the bathtub, leaning my foot on that thing that holds the soap. It broke off and cut open my leg. It bled really bad and they had to give me stitches. The doctor who stitched it up was so nice. I was really sad when I had to go home again.
Me too, I say, I didn’t want to leave, I was jealous of the kids who got to live there, even though they were really sick, you know, I didn’t care, somehow I thought they had it good there despite that.
Going to the outdoor pool always makes you incredibly tired. We shuffle from the train station to the playground. Like two exhausted pilgrims we let ourselves fall to the ground in the sandbox and bury our feet in the cool sand. The sand sticks to our bare arms and legs like in a magazine photo. I close my eyes but Jameelah says, don’t fall asleep, it’s not allowed and I shake my head and reach for her hand and we lie there next to each other and let life float by because we have so much time, because the clock has only just struck fourteen minutes past birth, meaning we have nearly another fifty to go, and that’s a long time.
Jameelah suddenly stands up.
What is it?
Do you hear that, she asks.
What?
Somebody’s crying.
I try hard to listen but still don’t hear anything.
Seriously, it’s coming from the top of the slide, up there in the play fort.
We cross the sandbox, go past our trees, and over to the play fort. Now I can hear it too, someone is quietly sobbing.
Hello, says Jameelah, is someone up there?
Two henna-tattoo covered hands slowly come over the wall of the play fort and then a crying face appears. With her legs pulled up to her chest Jasna is sitting in the fort surrounded by cigarette butts and blue mascara is running down her cheeks in long streaks.
Are you okay, asks Jameelah.
Stupid question, I think to myself.
Do you guys have cigarettes, asks Jasna.
Of course, says Jameelah pulling her tobacco out of her pocket.
I don’t know how, says Jasna smiling sheepishly and pointing to the loose tobacco, I don’t know how to roll them.
No problem, says Jameelah, I’ll do it.
My fiancé always has real cigarettes. I only smoke real cigarettes, that’s why I don’t know how to roll them.
Where is he, I ask.
He’ll be here any minute, we arranged it. I just don’t want Tarik to find me. I waited until he had to go to the bathroom and then I ran out.
What an asshole, says Jameelah, at the pool today.
I swear, says Jasna, if he doesn’t leave me alone there’s going to be real trouble, but I don’t want that. Tarik’s my brother after all. Without your family you’re nothing.
Without your family you’re nothing, what an insane sentence, I think to myself, and it’s not even true. Everyone always says it but only because other people are always saying it and that certainly doesn’t make it so. With her long fingers Jasna reaches for the lit cigarette Jameelah holds out to her and she smokes it in a series of deep tokes, kind of like Dragan. Did she pick it up from him, I wonder, and why do people always become so similar when they’re together.
Tarik’s just jealous that you’re engaged, says Jameelah.
Are you guys really engaged, I ask.
Yeah, says Jasna.
Show us the ring.
Jasna shoves the cigarette into the corner of her mouth, pulls up her right sleeve, and sticks out her henna tattooed hand. I stare at the ring like an idiot, dumbstruck, like when you run into someone you haven’t seen in ages. It’s narrow, made of gold, with three stones in the middle, two little white ones on either side of a big green one.
Is it real, asks Jameelah.
Jasna nods.
Where’d you get it, I ask.
What do you mean, Dragan gave it to me.
I mean where did Dragan get it?
It’s from his mother, and she got it from her mother, it’s a family heirloom.
My ass it’s a family heirloom, I say grabbing her hand.
What are you doing, says Jasna and yanks her hand away.
That’s not his ring, I say, he stole it.
Stole it, what are you talking about? Watch what you say.
That ring never belonged to anyone in Dragan’s family, he stole it.
Jameelah looks at me with a questioning look on her face but then Jasna’s phone rings.
I’m on my way, she says making a kissing sound and then hanging up.
You can’t leave now, I say.
Jasna laughs.
Why?
Because of the ring, it doesn’t belong to you!
What’s all this shit you’re talking, says Jasna, standing up. She flicks the cigarette into the sand, jumps down from the slide, and walks off toward the U-bahn station.
What was that all about, asks Jameelah.
Leave me alone, I say, I need to think.
Think about what?
My mother. Her engagement ring. That was it, that ring on Jasna’s finger.
I thought your father took it.
Obviously not, because if he had then Dragan couldn’t have put it on Jasna. He stole it, plain and simple.
Jameelah looks at me sceptically.
You’re crazy. How is he supposed to have taken it?
I have no idea, but that was the ring.
Are you sure?
Pretty sure.
Pretty sure isn’t enough.
Whose side are you on anyway, I say.
Nobody’s side. What’s wrong with you?
The Sorbs shot off Tarik’s leg.
What does that have to do with the ring?
Nothing. But I can understand why Tarik doesn’t want Jasna with someone like that.
Serbs, Sorbs, nice O-language switch, says Jameelah.
Fuck O-language, I say, I want the ring back.
Just because that poor Sorb bastard makes too many spit puddles doesn’t mean he stole any engagement ring, says Jameelah.
Hello, that poor Sorb bastard is the same guy who threw rocks at our heads, in case you forgot.
Nah.
It’s true.
You and your childhood memories, says Jameelah looking at me distrustfully, but listen it’s too hot out to fight.
When Jameelah and I go shoplifting it usually works like this.
We lock ourselves in the girls’ bathroom after school and drink Tiger Milk, but not too much, when we’re going shoplifting it’s not about getting wasted, it’s about getting up the nerve. I’m always really anxious about shoplifting, I got caught the very first time I ever tried to steal something. That was a few years ago now, but ever since I can’t be the one who actually grabs the stuff. I’m always Jameelah’s accomplice, but that’s just as important.
We head to the mall a bit tipsy and check our rucksacks at the front of Kaufland. We buy a large Müller milk and dump half of it into the ugly plastic plant next to the escalator, then we go into the Bijou Brigitte shop. I hold the Müller container and whisper that’s cheap, real cheap, whenever the saleswoman isn’t looking our way. That’s the signal that Jameelah can drop something into the milk. If the saleswoman is looking when Jameelah is about to put something into the container I say that’s too expensive. You can’t believe how much will fit in a wide-mouth container like that, even sunglasses and hair bands.
If Nico is at the planet we let him drink out the milk when we’re done stealing, he loves Müller milk, no matter what flavour. He guzzles it down in one go like he’s the great sea god of Müller milk draining his own ocean. Sometimes we ourselves can’t believe all the treasure lying on the ocean floor of the Müller milk container, the shiny glittering things awaiting us, we feel like real life pirates returning to hoist our buried treasure after many years.
The jewellery we like the best, we keep, the rest of it we give to the others. Sometimes we even take things back, we just leave it on the shelf again, but that’s rare I have to admit. I never return any jewellery with green stones, I always take that home even if I know I’ll never wear it, if it has a green stone it’s coming home with me. I never understood why until recently, but now I get it. I was at a session with Frau Fuhrmeister, the school psychologist, and had to paint pictures of Mama, Rainer, and Jessi as animals and then I had to paint one of Papa. I painted Rainer as a camel and Papa as a dog, I remember because those were the ones we talked about for a long time afterwards. I found it all really annoying, but in the end I realized why I had depicted Rainer as a camel and Papa as a dog, because dogs are my favourite animals and camels, well they are not. We didn’t talk that time about Mama’s engagement ring or green stones, but it doesn’t matter, I’m sure Fuhrmeister would say it’s the same as with the animals, it’s a psychological tick of mine, because of Papa, and it’s as real as the engagement ring and as real as the fact that Dragan, that Sorbian thief, managed to steal the ring somehow.
Today there’s something green on the seabed of the Müller milk container, a bellybutton piercing with a green stone, though my bellybutton’s not pierced, actually it was but it got infected as soon as it was pierced and then it closed up. I stick the piercing in my mouth and suck off the milk and Jameelah gives the look. It means watch it here comes Lukas. I quickly hide the Müller container in her rucksack. People like Lukas don’t think it’s cool to steal jewellery in milk containers, seriously, it’s the truth, so I understand what Jameelah wants.
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.
Tiger Milk Page 5
