Freak City (21 page)

“That you want her back. I thought that’s what you’ve been wanting all these weeks!”

Once again, Claudio hadn’t understood a thing. “That’s not the point anymore. Now there’s another girl. Leah, remember? We sat here on this bed and talked about her!”

Claudio slapped his forehead. “Oh, right! There was something else. Still waters run deep, is all I have to say on that score. Does she wear a hearing aid?”

“No!” I glared at him. “Can you stop making stupid comments about her?”

Claudio nodded. “But that was a serious question. Does she really hear nothing at all?”

I nodded. “Absolutely nothing. No sounds at all.”

Iris came storming back into my room. “Mom said yes! I can go!”

“Okay,” I capitulated. “But I’m not going home at nine o’clock for your sake! If you get tired you’ll have to just deal with it!”

“And Sandra?” Iris looked at me pleadingly. “We can call her and ask her to come with us. I know she’d like that!”

“I’m getting together with Sandra on Sunday.” I pressed the newly burned CD into my sister’s hand. “Tonight, I’m taking Leah.”

“Hello.” Claudio and Leah looked at each other uneasily. Tobias and Ellen had also arrived right on time. The two of them stole glances at Leah like she had just climbed out of a UFO.

“Are these your friends?” Leah asked me in sign language.

“Yeah, unfortunately,” I replied, and we smiled at each other.

“No way!” Claudio shook his head. “You can really talk with her! What did she ask you?”

“If you’re the famous two-and-a-half-minute guy,” I replied.

“Does she need his services? I think I have a slot free tomorrow between four fifteen and four twenty.” We laughed.

Leah looked at us questioningly. I tried to translate the bad joke for her but didn’t manage. An uncomfortable silence settled in. Tobias, Claudio, and Ellen stood there like they were expecting me to make a speech. No one said anything else, Tobias sneezed, and Ellen cleared her throat.

“Bless you.” That was Leah in her monotone voice.

“Hey, there’s Barbara!” Claudio cried, relieved, and waved to a girl riding a black and yellow striped bicycle.

Barbara was kind of short and pimply and off-the-scale artsy-fartsy. She was wearing batik pants and a blouse that looked like a potato print experiment gone wrong. But she had freed my best friend from the burden of dreadful virginity, so I decided to love her unconditionally.

“Hey everyone,” Barbara nodded at the group.

“Hi,” I said.

“Cool bike,” Ellen observed. “Did you paint it yourself?”

Barbara nodded. “It was an art project. Janosch’s tiger-duck, as you can see.”

“Janosch is the best,” Tobias said. “What kind of paint did you use? Is that enamel?” Barbara started to explain.

“And you and Claudio, did you really meet in Madrid?” That was Ellen again.

Barbara turned red. “Yeah, at the breakfast buffet. Claudio poured a whole pitcher of orange juice on my pants.” We laughed.

Leah didn’t laugh. I snuck a peek at her. It just wasn’t possible to translate the quick exchange of words for her.

“And where do you live in Munich? Near downtown?” Ellen talked to Barbara like a waterfall. Tobias hung on her every word, too. I didn’t get that. She wasn’t his type at all.

While everyone immediately wanted to talk with Barbara and bombarded her with questions, at the same time they acted like Leah wasn’t even there. Leah looked over at the bonfire longingly.

“Who are you?” Barbara asked, who at some point noticed her silent presence.

“She’s deaf,” Claudio explained.

“Oh.” Embarrassed, Barbara lowered her eyes.

“Should we head over?” Ellen took Tobias’s hand, Barbara hooked her arm in Claudio’s, and together they walked toward the bonfire. Leah and I followed them.

I was disappointed in my friends somehow. They weren’t making the slightest effort to make Leah a part of the group, to get to know her, to communicate with her, nothing.

“They’re nice,” Leah said nonetheless. I nodded halfheartedly. Maybe they just needed some time to get used to the new situation. Where had Iris gone off to, anyway? I looked around for her. I had left her by the lake, where she wanted to throw stones into the water with some other kids. Leah hadn’t even met her yet.

We walked next to each other on the stone path along the shore, following the others. Many people had come, and music was playing all around us. I finally found Iris on the dock. She sat there with a few other kids listening to a guy who was squatting a few yards away, all alone, and playing a guitar.

I called her name, but she didn’t hear me.

Claudio and Barbara, Tobias and Ellen had spread out our blanket near the biggest bonfire. We sat down with them.

“Tell me, do you color your hair yourself?” Barbara and Ellen were deep in discussion again. Claudio and Tobias unpacked our dinner. Potato salad, meatballs, rolls, and cold beer.

“Barbara and I want to go to Lake Garda for the weekend. Would you want to come, you and Ellen?” Claudio was talking to Tobias. He caught my eye. “You’re going to Sandra’s concert on Sunday. Otherwise I would have asked you to come, too, of course!” I nodded at him. Leah stared into the fire.

“Will you ask her if she wants some meatballs?” Claudio looked at me and avoided making eye contact with Leah.

“Do you have any cigarettes?” A girl from the next blanket had bent over toward Leah.

Leah looked up. “I’m deaf,” she said aloud. “Can you repeat that slowly?”

The girl made a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s okay. I’ll ask someone else.” She jumped up and left Leah behind.

“What did she want?” Leah looked at me, upset. “Did I do something wrong?”

I explained it to her. She seemed sad.

Iris appeared behind us. She was barefoot and her clothes were a little wet. She’d probably wake up tomorrow with a cold.

“Is this her?” she asked breathlessly. “Leah, who doesn’t hear anything at all? And who knows a secret language?”

I nodded.

“I’m Mika’s sister!” Iris said enthusiastically, pointing at herself. She beamed at Leah. “I already know a whole bunch of mime language!” She plopped herself down right in between us.

“Sign language,” I correct her, and translated the play on words for Leah.

Leah smiled. “Show me something!” She had spoken aloud again, and Tobias and Claudio looked at us self-consciously.

“Family!” Iris formed with her hands. “I remember that one.” Two circles that come together in a large one.

“Do you hear the music?” Ellen asked.

We had eaten the last scrap of food and were a little bit tipsy. It was completely dark now, and Leah sat right next to me, leaning on my side. Iris had fallen asleep on the blanket, curled up like a baby. Claudio and Barbara were making out on the dock, and Tobias and Ellen sat right by the fire holding each other tightly.

Fragments of music wafted over from the other side of the lake. “That’s crazy!” Tobias said. “They’re playing our song!”

I looked over at the two of them. It was absurd, but I was jealous of them. For their kitschy, awful song.

Our song, our song. With Leah, I’d never had a special song we shared.

Tobias stood up. “Come on, Ellen, let’s walk over there. Maybe they’ll play it again for us!” The two of them disappeared into the darkness, holding hands.

“They’re actually really nice,” Leah formed with her hands. I held her in my arms and looked at her face, which was even more mysterious in the glow of the nighttime fire. She looked beautiful, and the shadows conjured flickering patterns on her forehead.

The lonesome guy on the beach had taken out his guitar again. “Play something!” yelled someone behind us. “Make those strings sing!”

He didn’t react to the yelling. He looked over at Leah and me. All night long, he had been observing us from time to time when we talked to each other in sign language. He tuned his instrument and started to sing.

I knew the song. The band was called Wir sind Helden, and they had played that song on the radio all the time for a while.

I see that you think.
I think that you feel.
I feel that you want to,
But I don’t hear you, I

Borrowed a dictionary,
Screamed A to Z in your ear.
I pile up a thousand jumbled words
That tug on your sleeve.

I pulled Leah even closer to me. Everyone around us had gotten completely quiet and was listening to the music.

And wherever you want to go,
I’ll hang onto your legs.
If you have to fall on your mouth
Then why not onto mine?

Dumbstruck, I stared over toward the water. The singer had a gorgeous voice, and I had the feeling he was singing that song especially for me and Leah.

It’s crazy how beautifully you don’t talk,
How you tilt your pretty little head
Giving the whole, loud world
And me the cold shoulder.

Your silence is your tent,
You put it up in the middle of the world.
Tighten the ropes and
Are quietly amazed when
A boy trips over it at night.

He had changed something about the lyrics. But it didn’t matter. I shook Leah awake, who had just fallen asleep in my arms.

“Someone’s playing our song!” I said, completely wound up. Not comprehending a thing, she just looked at me. I tried to explain it to her.

“Look, every love story, every relationship, has its own song. It’s just like every movie in the theaters has its own sound track. And right now, someone is playing the sound track to our story!”

Leah grinned. “Damn. I can’t hear the sound track to my own story.”

“But there
is
one, do you know what I mean? That’s the important thing!”

Leah looked at me with loving eyes. Then she pulled me down to her. We kissed, while our song played in the background.

Our song. Ours.

There is a theory that says all choices that are possible in any life exist in parallel universes.

If that’s true, then there were multiple variations of me that particular Sunday. There was the relieved, excited Mika who was, at that moment, pedaling his bike toward the park to finally, finally start over again with Sandra. There was the good friend Mika, who had decided to accompany Claudio and Barbara, Tobias and Ellen on their last-minute camping trip to Lake Garda and was currently hammering tent stakes into the ground. There was the exemplary son Mika, who was at home with his parents and Iris and was grilling hamburgers with his family. Maybe there was a nice nephew Mika, who was visiting his Aunt Vera and trying to convince her that even Uncle Carl was replaceable and her years with him were not wasted.

But all of that is only theory, and so there was only one version, this one decision.

I ran past the park, past the red and white roadblocks, and the ticket booths. I let the stage pass to my side, the long picnic tables, and the benches and booths. And headed straight to Freak City. In the inner courtyard, a small projector screen was set up, and a few people sat on white plastic chairs. Leah sat right at the front next to Tommek and was talking to him by writing something on a notepad.

“You’re sitting in my seat,” I said to Tommek.

He looked up. “Oh great. Whenever you’re least expected, you show up out of nowhere. I thought you wanted to go to the concert. Were the tickets too expensive?”

I shook my head. “I changed my mind.”

“I can believe that!” Tommek grinned, then stood up and politely made the seat free.

Leah stared at me in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m watching the movie with you,” I signed, as if nothing else could come in question. “And I brought this CD I made for you.”

She took the case. “My CD player broke yesterday,” she answered sarcastically.

“That’s too bad.” I looked at her lovingly. “You know, I put in lots of good love songs. Possibly the best ones ever written. Not to mention our song. It’s really sad that you can’t listen to it. I put a lot of effort into choosing them.”

Leah opened the CD case. Her eyes got as wide as saucers. On the computer, I had made a pattern the size of a CD and printed them out on thick paper. Then I had written the lyrics to the songs on those paper CDs. “The Sweetest Thing” by U2, “Here with Me” by Dido, and of course “Just a Word” by Wir sind Helden.

“That’s our song,” I signed, tapping the corresponding circle.

Leah’s eyes flew over the words. Then she looked up. I wasn’t entirely sure, but her eyes looked a little red, as if some dust had gotten into them.

“Thank you,” she said. “That’s really sweet of you.”

She bashfully wiped her face.

“I have a present for you, too.” Leah smiled. “And I even have it with me.”

“What is it?” I looked at her. Even though she hadn’t counted on seeing me, she had dressed up. If not for me . . . then maybe for Tommek?

“This here!” Leah made a sign that I didn’t understand.

“What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything, it’s your name sign. I thought really, really hard about it.”