Tiger Milk (4 page)

Behind her come Nico, Nadja, and Tobi.

S-bahn party, shouts Nico throwing his hands up and starting to run across the plaza toward the station. I can hear the beer bottles clinking against each other in his backpack. We run after him toward the S-bahn. As Lukas plays around with Anna-Lena a few steps ahead of us, Jameelah stares at him as if she’s in a trance.

She loves him, Jameelah whispers.

Yeah, I whisper back, but he’s her cousin.

So, says Jameelah, it’s not illegal.

Still, you just don’t do that, I say taking her hand, which is ice cold.

The creature in my dream, says Jameelah, he captured it for me, he showed it to me, and then he kissed me, he captured it for me and not for her.

I know, I say.

Mama lays on the sofa basically all the time. Most of the time her eyes are closed, but when I come home she sometimes opens them and asks, where were you. When she opens her eyes she always looks horribly tired, like she’s just arrived from some faraway place and only flopped down on the sofa here in our living room by blind luck. I don’t think she’s really looking for an answer to her question. Me on the other hand, I’d love to know where she was, where she always goes behind her shuttered eyelids, all those hours she spends alone on the sofa. Mama’s sofa is like a remote island she lives on. And even though that island is in the middle of our living room, a thick haze obscures it from view. You can’t dock on Mama’s island.

Lately Jessi’s been lying on the sofa with Mama more and more often, she lies next to her with her head buried in her breasts, motionless, like she’s in a coma. Maybe Mama’s disease is contagious, though Mama isn’t even really sick, I just always think she is because that’s how it looks. I know that Jessi drinks. Out in the hall above the goodie cabinet, where all the sweets are stored, is a glass-front cabinet. Jessi gets into that and drinks the Eier liqueur. I bet if Mama knew she would slap Jessi in the face. I only know because last week when I was in the kitchen I heard the click of the glass-front cabinet. You can open the goodie cabinet silently, but the glass-front cabinet has a magnetic catch that clicks, that’s how I heard it. And also you can see the remnants of Eier liqueur stuck to all of Mama’s JOY glasses. Jessi drinks the liqueur out of the dusty glasses and then just puts them right back on the shelf in the cabinet, like nothing ever happened. Then she lies in her bed like she’s dead. Her room reeks of alcohol, like alcohol and little girls, like the gym when the fifth graders have been in there right before us.

Once a week I sit down with Mama on the sofa and brush her hair. Rainer went out of his way to buy an expensive brush for that at Spinnrad, all organic materials, just like Mama said it should be. Sometimes Mama cries when I brush her hair but I act as if I don’t notice, I think it’s better that way. Jameelah’s mother says you can wake someone who’s asleep but someone who’s only pretending to sleep you can never get to wake up.

When I look out the window in my room I see the playground where I played as a child. We’ve lived here forever, just like Nico, who lives directly across the courtyard from us, on the same floor. I learned how to walk and how to ride a bike on the pavement in front of our place. Once I roller skated on the sandy path that leads from the playground out to the street where Jameelah lives. Jameelah was coming the other way, also on roller skates, the same kind as mine, only in red. I traded her my blue left skate for her red left skate and we roller skated until the ball bearings were clogged with sand. Then we climbed the old oak trees and tied pieces of yarn onto the branches. One oak belonged to each of us. Actually, no, that’s not true, Amir’s tree was the one linden tree right in the middle of the oaks. Nico was allowed to climb in my tree and I was allowed to climb in Jameelah’s, but nobody was allowed up Amir’s linden tree except Amir. The trees all had names but we all forgot them except for Amir. I haven’t climbed my tree for ages but Amir says the yarn is still hanging from his. Over the years the bark has grown over the yarn, but the ends of the strands are still visible, which is proof that we didn’t just dream the whole thing up, at least that’s what Amir says.

When I go to Jameelah’s I always cross the playground. The playground’s pretty big and right in the middle of it is a huge sandbox. Somebody drew an invisible line through the middle of the playground and the German and Russian kids never go on the slide and the Arab and Bosnian kids never go on the swings. Back when Jameelah and I roller skated around the playground there wasn’t yet an invisible line.

Amir lives in the same building as Jameelah, right behind the playground, down the path and out to the side of the building that faces the street. In front of the door to the building I see Dragan standing around. He’s smoking. Well, actually, smoking doesn’t really describe it. He’s sucking on his cigarette like he’s trying to hurt it, and every now and then he spits violently on the pavement with a loud splat. A dark pool of spit has formed at his feet. The name Dragan says it all. It sounds evil, like dragon or Dracula. I mean, there’s a lot of Serbs named Dragan but maybe Tarik is right, maybe all Serbs are evil, I have no idea, but this one is for sure. I slink toward the door to the building, trying not to draw attention. I push the doorbell for Amir’s apartment.

You, says Dragan but I don’t acknowledge him, man, why doesn’t the stupid door buzz open.

Turn around when I’m talking to you, girl.

What is it, I say.

Dragan flicks the butt of his finished cigarette into the pool of spit and it sizzles as it sinks in and he smiles and spits again. I feel sick. And Jasna is in love with this guy, disgusting.

Are you going up to Amir and Tarik’s place, he asks.

I nod.

Tell Jasna that I’ll wait down here for her no matter how long it takes, I’ll wait for her.

How romantic, I think as the door finally buzzes open.

The door to Amir’s apartment is open and inside it smells like coffee and dirty nappies, just like it always does.

Hello, I call wondering whether I should take off my shoes. In the entry hall is a folding drying rack hung with men’s underwear that must be Tarik’s.

Hello, I say again then I walk into the living room and find Tarik and his mother sitting there. She never says guten Tag, she just nods and smiles. Maybe because she can’t speak a word of German, seriously not a single word. Jameelah says you can’t even borrow an onion or an egg from her because she doesn’t know the words onion and egg.

Hello, kiddo, says Tarik.

If I had a big brother I’d want him to look just like Tarik. He should have the same dark blue eyes, the same strong shoulders. I used to have a serious crush on Tarik. I’d listen to the lambada all day and imagine dancing with Tarik. In my daydreams he was bare-chested and wearing just a ripped up pair of jeans. I told Jameelah about it once and she just about died laughing and said Tarik couldn’t dance the lambada because he has only one leg because he lost the lower half of his left one during the war, as a kid. It’s true that he limps a little but I still can’t believe that he’s missing part of his leg, I mean, when he stands around he always looks so solidly planted, with his legs spread confidently.

Tarik can be really funny, no matter what Jamelah says. Just because she doesn’t get it sure as hell doesn’t mean he’s not funny. He does a great MC Hammer impression, for instance. Maybe he doesn’t do it in front of Jameelah because he knows she thinks he’s an idiot, that only makes sense. But he can also be really strict, which I actually think is good. On the back of Tarik’s jacket it says
Teddy Dragon
, which kind of sums it up perfectly. I think he tries to look out for me, for Jameelah, for Jasna and for Amir, all of us. Of course Jameelah hates the idea that he looks out for us.

I don’t need anybody to look out for me, she says, Teddy Dragon, what the hell is that supposed to mean, have you ever stopped to think what a teddy dragon would look like?

Jameelah says Tarik was only ever useful when he was still reading
Bravo
magazine and Amir could steal copies of it for us, and that was a long time ago, about as long as the bark has been growing over the yarn in those trees.

Amir comes down the hall holding Selma in his arms, she’s crying and Amir’s face looks funny too, like maybe he got smacked again. Loud music is coming out of Jasna’s room.

We want to go to the planet, you want to come, I ask, but Amir isn’t listening.

Jasna, he says tapping his finger on his forehead, she’s gone crazy.

What’s up, I ask.

Dragan bought her a bikini and she wants to go with him to the pool, he says banging his fist on the door to Jasna’s room.

Turn the music off, he yells, we’re all going to get in trouble otherwise.

The door flies open.

Get out of the way you dwarf, says Jasna, shoving Amir aside.

Hey, girl, she says to me coming right up close, her breath smells like Slivovitz. She dances off in the direction of the bathroom. She’s not wearing anything except a bright yellow bikini. There’s no question that it’s cool, along the hips and neckline it’s covered with bling and it sparkles as Jasna moves. Her impossibly long hair hangs down to the top of her impossibly long legs and it looks great no matter what Amir says.

Tarik hops up, walks over to Jasna, and grabs her by the arm.

Let go of me, shouts Jasna as the bling sparkles, let go of me, you cripple, and as she says the word cripple Tarik loosens his grip.

Jasna rips herself free of Tarik, runs into the bathroom, and slams the door shut behind her.

Selma cries and squirms in Amir’s arms.

Come out here, shouts Tarik banging hard on the door, but Jasna just curses, she curses in Bosnian and the curses fill the hallway. Amir looks at me as if to ask for help.

Come with me, I whisper dragging him out into the staircase.

What’s going on?

Amir sinks wearily onto a step.

Selma’s crying is getting louder and louder.

Give her to me, I say putting Selma in my lap.

Last night, says Amir, after I’d already fallen asleep, Jasna and Tarik had a fight, it woke me up. She told him that she wants to marry Dragan.

Bullshit.

It’s true, Amir says, she even has a ring, a real engagement ring, that he gave her.

Really?

Really.

The fight was so horrible that Tarik locked her in the living room but this morning she was gone, she’d broken the front door and gone to Dragan’s place.

Then what?

I took Selma into my room, she was crying because Jasna wasn’t there. At some point later in the morning Jasna came back and said she was moving out, she was going to marry him, can you imagine?

Seriously?

I’m serious. She says he’s really smart and all that, but you know he never even finished middle school. The worst part is that we can’t go anywhere since she got together with Dragan. They’ll never invite us to a wedding, you know. But Jasna doesn’t give a shit, she’s already packed her things and I know for sure that if she leaves she’ll never come back and when I say never I mean never, and now I’ll have to look after her all the time, Amir says motioning to Selma, and it has to happen now, right when the summer holiday is about to start. I’m not a girl!

Big tears roll down his cheeks and Selma starts to cry again.

Dragan, I say, you remember when he used to throw rocks down at us from the parking garage when we were little? One time I was bleeding all over the place.

He killed his dog, says Amir, he gave it so much Slivovitz that it went into a coma. That’s the type of guy he is.

I know, I say.

Amir sniffles.

Do you have cigarettes, he asks.

We sit next to each other for a while, smoking. Nobody says a word.

Are you coming to the planet?

Amir shakes his head.

I’ll call you again later, I say.

I still don’t have a phone.

Still?

No, Jasna sold her old one on ebay for three euros, Amir says tapping his finger on his forehead, three euros, it cost more than that to mail it, can you imagine. The point was not to give it to me, and really, as far as I’m concerned she can leave and never come back.

Here, I say handing the pouch of tobacco to Amir, you can keep it.

Thanks, says Amir and Selma calms down again too.

Where were you, says Jameelah when I go upstairs and ring at her door.

I was at Amir’s, I say, I wanted to see if he was coming.

Noura comes toward me in the hallway in her nurse’s uniform and kisses me on the cheek.

My little one, she says, you want to eat something?

What’s going on down there, asks Jameelah.

Dragan, I say, he proposed to Jasna and she wants to move out now. That’s why she’s fighting so badly with Tarik. She came out of her room wearing nothing but a bikini and went dancing through the apartment.

Jameelah laughs out loud.

It’s not funny, says Noura, they were screaming at each other all night, do you think that’s a good sign? I’m so tired, I couldn’t sleep at all. I have to go to work but some people just don’t seem to care, they think only of themselves.

Amir says neither of them talk to him anymore because of the whole thing and Tarik looked really sad.

Tarik, says Jameelah, he’s just jealous.

Jealous about what?

Jealous of Jasna. Because he can’t dance with his fucked-up leg. Because he doesn’t have anyone to give a bikini to because he’s just everybody’s big brother. Teddy Dragon will never find anyone, that ugly troll.

Stop, I say, that’s mean. Tarik isn’t a troll.

He is so, says Jameelah.

Enough, says Noura, you two shouldn’t get involved, I’m telling you I don’t want either of you to get involved, got it?

But Amir is our friend, says Jameelah.

I know, but there are things even friends can’t help with and it’s best not to get involved in something like that.

I’m not getting involved anyway, says Jameelah, I’m just giving my opinion.

I don’t want you to give your opinion either, says Noura, I want you to stop talking about it, she says as she glares at us like our teacher, Frau Struck.