Tiger Milk (19 page)

Are you crazy, I shout.

Nico laughs and races down the emergency lane as cars honk like mad as they whizz past.

We’ll be off again in a second, it’s a shortcut.

He leans into a curve and turns off at the next exit ramp. We go under an S-bahn bridge, straight ahead until the lights become smaller and less frequent. The noise of the autobahn gets softer and softer and at some point you can’t hear anything at all anymore, just the swaying of the tree tops in the forest. The BMX bike bucks like a young horse over the tree roots. Nico brakes.

You’ve lost your mind, I say.

The opposite of living is being bored, says Nico grinning.

What the hell kind of bullshit saying is that?

Don’t be like that, it all went just fine.

My eyes slowly get used to the dark. It seems like an eternity since Jameelah and I carried Amir’s gift basket along this very same trail even though it was only this afternoon. Twigs snap beneath our feet and something chirps not far away.

Do you hear that, I say. It’s a nightingale. Did you know there are more of them here than in Bavaria? Jameelah told me.

This is the animal capital of Germany after all, says Nico lighting up the joint that he’s had tucked behind his ear up to this point.

Animal capital of Germany, what does that mean?

No idea, people just say it. Probably because there are so many dogs. It’s just like the cows in India except here it’s dogs.

I like dogs, I say.

Me too. I like all animals, says Nico.

Most men hate animals, I say.

Bullshit, says Nico.

It’s true. They rip off their wings or burn them with magnifying glasses or shove straws up their asses to blow them up until they explode. It’s true that’s what boys always do.

I don’t know, says Nico.

They do, I say, that’s the way it is and do you know what they do with the most beautiful animals of all? The most beautiful animals are captured and stuffed. Or they spear them, like with Jasna.

You’re crazy, says Nico.

In front of us you can make out the prison in the distance. There’s a bright light above the wall, it rotates like the beacon in a lighthouse and shines over the tops of the trees. We stop at the edge of the woods and Nico hides his bike in some bushes.

Listen, he says putting his hand on my shoulder, you stay here and watch the road for people or cars coming past. It doesn’t matter what kind of car you yell, okay?

Okay.

Have you ever seen
Forrest Gump
?

Yeah, why?

If I say run then you run as far and as fast as you can, got it?

Okay.

Nico grabs a mask from his rucksack.

Why is it a crime to paint walls anyway, I ask.

Painting walls isn’t a crime, putting an innocent person in prison is a crime, says Nico putting on his mask.

I must have fallen asleep somehow.

Sleepyhead, whispers Nico shaking me gently.

Sorry, I murmur.

Do you want to have a look?

Yeah, I say getting slowly to my feet. My legs have fallen asleep and they tingle as I cross the street. I can already make it out from far away. I want to go closer but Nico shakes his head. We stand silently in the bushes with the freshly painted wall in front of us. Sad it says in big blue letters on the wall, dark blue outlines, light blue inside, and all around the prison wall, the letters are round and soft and funny. The rotating beacon lights up Nico’s face at regular intervals.

Blue is Amir’s favourite colour, I say.

Blue also means sad, says Nico.

Somewhere behind there he’s sleeping, I say.

Maybe he’s not sleeping at all, says Nico, maybe he’s lying awake thinking about what we said to him today, maybe he’s shitting himself about throwing his future away and is finally coming to his senses.

Yeah, I say, I hope so.

But the other guy, says Nico, I’ll bet he’s sleeping nice and sound.

What other guy?

The real murderer of course, says Nico looking at me.

He puts the empty spray cans back in his bag and pulls his bike out of the bushes.

Come on let’s get out of here.

We walk silently along the path through the woods. I keep turning around because I think somebody is following us.

There’s nobody there believe me I’ll never get caught, says Nico, but I keep turning back anyway. I’m worried that there will be cops there, I’m afraid of the shadows that look like a giant black horse. If only this had all never happened, I think, if only Jameelah and I hadn’t seen anything, if we’d not gone out to the playground, if only Lukas had just fallen in love with Jameelah straight away, then that giant black horse wouldn’t be following me, that giant black horse is the whole experience but I don’t want it to follow me I want to bury it, bury it and then stomp on the dirt on top of it, but how am I going to bury a giant black horse all by myself.

Nico stops and takes my hand.

Is everything okay, he asks.

Yeah I’m just sad. This isn’t the way I pictured summer break.

Yeah, says Nico, I know, then he puts his arm around my waist and kisses me. His mouth tastes of cigarettes and menthol, the menthol is from a piece of gum he’s chewing, a normal white piece of gum, not red, not green, not strawberry or Waldmeister, just plain old white, plain old menthol, grown up. Arm in arm we walk through the woods and he pushes his bike along beside him all slick and cool.

Have I ever told you about the engagement ring, I ask, my mother’s ring that my dad apparently took with him when he left? Mama always claimed he gave it to his new wife.

No. What made you think of that?

Jasna had a ring just like it on her finger, it looked just like Mama’s ring, that’s why.

Have you ever asked your father?

What?

If he took the ring.

No. I haven’t heard from him in ages. The last time was when he sent me something for one of my birthdays. Five euros and a stupid card. I don’t even know where he lives now and don’t know if Chico is still with him or if Chico’s even alive anymore.

Don’t worry, dogs live pretty long, says Nico.

In the distance I can make out the S-bahn bridge. Nico gets on his bike and I stand on the stunt pegs.

It’s okay if you want to go on the autobahn again, I say.

Nah, we don’t have to.

I want to now, I say, come on.

We ride under the bridge and shoot onto the autobahn. The cars honk right in my ear, I close my eyes and let the wind buffet my face as we ride, I let my hair flutter in the wind and I bet the people driving by in their cars think it looks like a motorcycle advert.

You can tell your kids about this, Nico shouts pedalling even faster.

Yeah, I shout back, but will my kids even know what a BMX bike is I wonder, maybe to them they’ll see a BMX bike the way we look at those bikes with the giant front wheel like they rode around on before the war, the kind in those pictures in that U-bahn station in the Hansaviertel, and anyway, kids, having kids sounds so strange like some exotic country, Guatemala, street kids don’t have kids, they never get old enough for that and if they do they’re not kids anymore, kids who have kids, that’s impossible, and me I’m no better than a street kid, I think, and then suddenly I’m shitting myself with fear the way I’m standing on the stunt pegs behind Nico, shitting myself about the idea of having kids and being lonely and getting old and dying young and that something bad could happen to Nico before all of that, something really bad.

Shit, I think, this is love and I quickly open my eyes. Standing on the pedals in front of me Nico looks like a tall black tower, all around him the glittering city lit up.

The birthday card with Papa’s address on the envelope is gone. I turn over my entire room and even find the blue piggy bank I thought Jessi had stolen behind my desk along with two old donald duck paperbacks, but the birthday card is gone and I’m not even sure I didn’t throw it away myself along with the CD of
The Bodyguard
soundtrack that Papa sent along with the card. Obviously I didn’t tell Nico about the
Bodyguard
soundtrack, I’m not stupid. I go out into the hallway and look in a drawer of the cabinet there for the key to the basement but there’s no basement key anywhere, just crap like an empty lighter, all sorts of stuff nobody would ever need.

Mama, I call, where’s the key to the basement but Mama isn’t home, just Jessi, I can hear shuffling around in the living room. When I hear the click of the glass-front cabinet I throw open the door to the living room and find Jessi in front of the cabinet with her skinny legs sticking out of her short pyjama bottoms. She looks at me startled.

What are you doing?

Nothing.

Keep your hands off the Eier liqueur, I say.

I was just going into the goodie cabinet, just wanted something sweet, she says.

You weren’t opening the goodie cabinet you were opening the glass-front cabinet. I heard it. And if I catch you again I’ll tell Mama, got it?

I’m hungry, says Jessi and then the doorbell rings.

I ram into the open drawer in the entry hall cabinet. It’s Jameelah. In one hand she has a thick folder with a German flag on it and in the other a package of strawberry-filled Turkish cookies.

You didn’t go to the police, asks Jameelah, right?

No, I say rubbing my bruised hip.

Are you still pissed off?

I never was, I say and then point to the folder, what’s that?

The questions for the German test. Can you quiz me?

Have you already started studying for next year’s classes? You’re crazy.

No it’s for the test you have to take if you want to become German.

Ah right. Do you have to know them all?

Not yet but I might soon so I’m studying during break while I have time, understand?

To be honest I can’t say I really understand but before I can say that Jessi comes into the hall. She looks longingly at the package of cookies.

Can I have one, she asks with her eyes bulging.

Cut it out, I say.

But I’m so hungry.

Come on I’ll make you a sandwich, I say but Jessi says, there’s no bread. Jameelah opens the cookies.

Here, she says handing Jessi a stack of cookies.

Thanks, says Jessi walking back into the living room with her arms loaded with cookies and then the TV starts blaring.

Where’s your mother, asks Jameelah.

No idea.

I look at the jumble of stuff in the open drawer, old batteries and lighters, tangled thread, dried up bottles of nail polish, and in between all sorts of action figures, smurfs, kung-fu pandas and donald duckies lying in a coma on the bottom of the drawer with their arms wrapped around binder clips and old West German pennies. At the very back is a beginner’s knitting set with a half-unravelled strip of knitting trailing away from it. This is exactly why Papa left, I think, because of Mama and her sofa and the fridge, the beds, the air in this place, everything just like the stuff in this drawer, dirty, tangled up, and useless, I know it now and I knew it then when Papa was still here but I could never say anything.

Nothing but shit, I say and rip the drawer right out and let everything crash out onto the floor, it sounds like a thunderstorm, the kind you wait for all day.

What’s up with you, asks Jameelah putting the cookies and folder down on the entry hall cabinet and squatting next to me.

Nothing I’m just looking for the key to the basement, it has to be in here.

You mean this, asks Jameelah pointing to something shiny.

Come with me, I say grabbing the key, you have to help me. I’ll quiz you afterwards.

I don’t like going into the basement, I mean, nobody likes going into the basement but our basement is particularly spooky because the light only lights up the first part and it’s pitch black back by our storage space.

Give me your phone.

I unlock the gate and shine the light from Jameelah’s phone into the space. It smells of foul water from the heating system and musty clothes and in the front right corner there’s a pile of old coal from years ago, we’ve had central heating for ages now. Stacked against the walls are soggy moving boxes with Mama’s old clothes hanging out of them and next to the boxes is Rainer’s collection of useless electrical devices. No wonder that they keep piling up here, a waffle iron, a nacho heater, like we ever had homemade waffles or nachos. As above so it is below, didn’t Jesus or somebody say that, anyway that’s the way it is, our mouldy basement space looks like the drawer of shit in the hall cabinet, I think, and then I stumble over my old ride-on car past a broken kiddie pool and back to the Barbie dollhouse. The Barbie doll sitting in the living room is the one that lifted up that piece of chewing gum years ago, somehow it’s calming to see her, like there’s someone guarding the basement, like she’s the Hausmeister and probably the only Hausmeister in the world wearing nothing more than a metallic gold swimsuit.

Are we looking for something in particular, asks Jameelah. She coughs.

Yeah, that’s it there, I say pointing at an old guitar case sitting behind the Barbie house and covered by a thick layer of dust.

I didn’t know any of you could play guitar.

None of us can, I say pulling the thing out of the corner, my father played and he took his guitar with him, I say knocking on the case, but he forgot this.

Together we carry the case upstairs.

Jameelah moans.

What on earth is in there, she asks.

Anything I don’t want anymore but can’t throw away.

We drag the guitar case into my room. It’s filled to the brim with stuff and looks no better than the drawer in the hall cabinet. And there at the very bottom between a folder of old school essays and my autograph book is a bundle of postcards and tucked in there is the birthday card and underneath it is the CD.

The Bodyguard
, says Jameelah giggling, let me see it.

She goes over to the CD player and puts it in. There are balloons on the front of the birthday card and mice are sitting atop the balloons, not cartoon mice, normal mice with four paws. The mice are watching butterflies and ladybirds and the tails of the mice form the letters
Happy Birthday
.