Tiger Milk (9 page)

Before I head out I call Amir but he doesn’t answer. I go and ring his doorbell but when nobody answers there either I take the bus to the planet. On the way I see that Nico has painted a new
sad
at the Yorckstrasse S-bahn station right where the homeless guys beg for tickets. I’m kind of excited. I know that it stings when I cut my thumb, that it throbs when I stub my toe and that it turns blue, I know that it burns when you fall down and skin your knee, but I don’t know what the pain is like when you sleep with somebody or even why it’s supposed to hurt. Maybe it’s not even true that it hurts and anyway it’s pretty unlikely that it will happen today.

Still I did put on my white knee-highs with the little black bows on the them and the underwear Jameelah gave me for my birthday last year, the checkered ones with hearts on them. For a second I feel like stupid Frau Struck in her stupid dress. She must have done it for the first time too, why doesn’t she just teach us about it. Actually I can’t picture Struck in bed with some guy. It was probably like one of Rainer’s pornos with pubic hair all over the place and red lingerie and crumpled sheets and right in the middle a big red stain.

Written in thick sharpie ink on the telephone booth at the planet it says
Party and concert at Viovic’s rehearsal studio!

While I’m reading it I realize that the whole booth is shaking like it’s excited about the party and is trying to lift itself off its base so it can come along. I can’t see who is moving it around from the inside because it’s filled with smoke, but I can guess who it is. I crack the door open and a hand reaches out and grabs me and pulls me inside. I squeal but then Nico whispers close your eyes and shuts the door quickly behind me. It reeks of hash inside.

You could suffocate in here, I say, help.

Nico says that’s the way it’s supposed to be, I hear Jameelah say next to me.

Yeah that’s right, says Nico, this is our opium den, don’t worry just close your eyes and breathe deep, you’ll get used to it.

I squeeze my eyes shut and inhale deeply. After a few breaths my legs start to feel like jelly, my head feels heavy, and the telephone booth starts to shake again like an old lift that doesn’t know which way to go, lurching up and down. Nico keeps blowing fresh puffs of smoke into the air and otherwise it’s silent, like we’re in a cave.

Somebody coughs.

Who is in here, I whisper.

Me, says Nico.

Me, says Jameelah.

Me, says somebody else and when I squint I see Lukas’s closed Bambi eyes through the fog of smoke, he’s smiling and his long lashes nestle against his white skin. It must be weird for him to be here with us so far from his wide-open habitat, I think, flying ever farther from his green surroundings travelling through the galaxy in a phone booth and even though I don’t feel one way or another about Lukas I think it’s pretty cool. Who knows maybe his green habitat isn’t so green at all, maybe it’s not the way I picture it and maybe ours isn’t so hot and sharp-edged either, no idea, when you’re fucked up life is soft around the edges and everyone’s surroundings are the same colour.

Nico and I sit in the back row for the entire bus ride, totally high, singing
we R who we R
. Nico holds my hand with one of his hands and with the other he scribbles
sad
all over the seatback in front of us. I find it hilarious because Lukas and Jameelah are sitting in front of us playing rock paper scissors and the whole thing with Jameelah and Lukas really is sad though maybe I’m reading too much into it all which I often do when I’m wasted. When we hop out at Grunewald there must be twenty of us. Anna-Lena and Nadja prop up Tobi who felt so ill on the bus that he had to puke under a seat.

What did you do to him, says Anna-Lena to Nico nodding at Tobi.

Nothing, says Nico, why is it always my fault?

You don’t have to get so fucked up all the time, says Nadja.

Shut up, says Tobi to her, I’m feeling better.

Nico smacks me on the ass as he walks by.

What’s wrong with you, I say.

There was something on you.

Haha very funny, I say even though I do think it’s funny.

Did you ever notice, he says putting his arm around my shoulders, that they’re all stupid, we’re the only ones who aren’t he says snorting like a horse grazing in winter. Nico doesn’t smell like Weleda, if he smells of anything at all it’s Nivea but first and foremost he smells like alcohol and cigarettes. Weird, for some reason all the men I like smell like alcohol and cigarettes. Papa smelled that way too when he came home from work in the evening and drank a beer in the living room while I sat in his lap, my nose buried in his clothes, that’s exactly the way he smelled.

Where is Jameelah, I ask.

She’s up there with whatshisname.

His name is Lukas.

I have no idea what his name is but he’s a poof no matter what Jameelah thinks.

You can’t say that. Anyway we’ll see, there’s something brewing today.

That’s not your type right?

What do you care, I say punching him in his side.

As if, says Nico grabbing my leg and throwing me over his shoulder.

I scream like an idiot but Nico doesn’t put me down until we reach the door to Viovic’s house. There’s already a lot going on inside, people everywhere you look, even Apollo and Aslagon are there sitting on a giant leather sofa in the living room. Apollo has a porcelain doll in his lap and is bouncing it on his knee like a little kid.

I had one just like it, he says, I was just a little kid and my mother smashed it.

Why, I ask.

I have no idea.

His lower lip is trembling.

Maybe you deserved it, says Aslagon taking the doll and tossing it into the corner before spreading a big piece of paper across the coffee table.

Give me a hand instead, we have stuff to do.

I’m still pretty high. I squeeze my way through the packed kitchen to the refrigerator and grab a beer and head to the basement. The rehearsal studio is bursting at the seams. Viovic have a couple of go-go dancers on stage, sweet thin boys who strip while Viovic play. Lukas and Jameelah are jumping around in the front row. I try to fight my way over to Jameelah but there’s no chance, zero, and anyway I’d probably just be bothering them if I did make it over there so I stay near the door and take a big gulp of beer. For the first time it occurs to me that Lukas and Jameelah kind of look like each other, the same dark hair, same dark eyes. Lukas reminds me of someone else too.

Whenever my beer is empty I go upstairs to the kitchen and then back down where I stand next to the door and every time I see Jameelah and Lukas again I think it will come to me. But I can’t think of who it is he reminds me of, not through the entire concert though it could also have something to do with the fact that now I’m not just high I’m totally drunk.

This is our last song, says Viktoria smacking the go-go dancer next to her on the ass just like Nico did to me before, and you, you get back to my dressing room, she says and everybody shouts.

People clap and howl and shout encore and Viovic bow. I clap and look over toward Lukas and Jameelah but I can’t make them out in the crowd. Instead I see Anna-Lena standing against the wall next to the stage. She’s glaring at the dance floor with a horrified look and when I follow her gaze I see why. Right in the middle of the crowd Jameelah and Lukas are hooking up. I jump up and down and clap like crazy for Viovic but really only for Jameelah because Viovic played as bad as they always do and as I’m clapping it hits me who it is, Lukas looks exactly like the boy in the black and white picture on the shelf at Noura and Jameelah’s place, the photo of Jameelah’s brother Youssef, and then I stop clapping because I get a tight feeling in the pit of my stomach but it could just be from all the beer.

The house is absolutely jammed but Viovic just disappear. In the kitchen it looks like a bomb has gone off. Somebody must have tried to bake a cake, the sack of flour has exploded. The entire kitchen is covered in a layer of flour.

Where are Viovic, I ask a guy with green hair sitting at the kitchen table munching on tiramisu out of a tupperware container.

They’re cruising around in their father’s Jaguar, he says grinning, they’re out of their minds but it’s pretty funny, eh?

I go into the living room. The first thing I see is the porcelain doll hanging upside down from the chandelier. Its long hair has been cut off and its skirt is dangling down over its face and you can see its underwear. Below the doll Apollo and Aslagon are writhing around on the floor.

You miserable dog, shouts Apollo pointing at the doll, why do you always do this, why do you always destroy anything beautiful?

It’s a sign, Aslagon screams back, everything breaks eventually, sooner or later everything rots.

Cut it out, screams Nico opening the door to the terrace. Apollo and Aslagon disappear into the garden. I sit down next to Nico on the sofa. For a second I wonder whether he’s just been sitting here in this same spot the whole time on the couch with the bong in front of him and his lunchbox in his lap filled with his magic mixture. I take the bong, stuff a bud in, and when I finish smoking up I roll myself up next to Nico like a ferret and I’m out immediately. At some point, no idea how much later, the room gets loud again.

The transmission’s fucked, my father’s going to kill us, says somebody, and turn the music down the neighbours are complaining.

I open my eyes, I’m dizzy and nauseous and the shitty beer is gurgling in my stomach. The first party casualties are lying around the room passed-out and I wonder how long I’ve been asleep.

Where is Jameelah, I think, and go to stand up but can’t manage it. Nico picks me up and carries me upstairs. The next thing I know I land softly on a mattress.

Here, drink this, says Nico holding out a glass of water, and after I do I feel a bit better. I take off my socks and skirt and lie down under the white sheets.

Thanks, I say, and Nico leans down and kisses me. I kiss him back as best I can but I’m still feeling dizzy, I grope for his belt and take off my t-shirt but whenever I close my eyes everything spins.

Shit, I mumble, I have to go to the bathroom.

You need to sleep cutie, says Nico buckling his belt again.

Yeah but first I need to go to the bathroom.

In the hall I feel my way along the wall when somebody suddenly looms toward me.

Do you know where the bathroom is I want to ask but then I realize it’s Jameelah in front of me wearing a bathrobe that’s way too big for her.

Where’s the bathroom I need to get there right away, I say.

Down there, I have to go too, she says looking at me sceptically, is everything okay you look like shit.

Yeah I just need to stick my finger down my throat.

It’s cool in the bathroom. I grab the longest eyeliner pencil I can find on the makeup shelf and stick it as deep as possible in my throat and drop to my knees in front of the toilet. The shitty beer and the noodles with ketchup from home shoot into the toilet and I can’t remember the last time I felt so relieved.

I have to pee, says Jameelah fidgeting around next to me, hurry up.

Finished, I say filling up a cup with water and sitting down on a big laundry basket.

What’s going on with Lukas?

Jameelah gives the thumbs-up as she pees.

He’s lying down in the next room.

Where?

In the father’s room.

What do you mean, their father has his own bedroom?

Yeah he snores so bad that’s why. What about you and Nico?

We kissed but nothing more is going to happen tonight I’m too fucked up.

Jameelah pulls up her underwear and sits down on the toilet seat wrapping her arms around herself.

Do you think it hurts, she asks looking at the floor.

What?

What do you think.

Oh, right. I don’t know.

Do you think it’ll bleed a lot?

I have no idea, that’s the sort of thing you always know better than me.

Half of all women don’t bleed at all.

See.

I go to open the door but Jameelah grabs my arm.

Nini, she says, if it really does happen tonight what should I do with the sheets?

What do you mean, I ask.

You know, if I bleed. What should I do with the bloody sheets?

She looks at me like she’s being shipped off to a war zone.

We know how it works, I say, we’ve practised with frogs and corpses, we’ve practised it all.

Yeah, she says shrugging her shoulders, still it’s different now.

You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I say.

Yes I do. And it has to be Lukas, definitely, says Jameelah, he trapped that animal for me.

Maybe it will hurt, maybe it will bleed, but maybe not, I say.

It really is a little like being in a war, I think, and I wonder why nobody else ever thought of it. War hurts and causes blood but Tarik said the bad part about war isn’t the pain or the blood but the way war changes people and the fact that nothing is ever the same again after a war. For a second I’m really happy that I’m too fucked up to sleep with Nico tonight.

So?

What?

So what do I do with the sheets?

Oh right, just throw them in the laundry.

The next morning I go to the room where Jameelah and Lukas are sleeping and cautiously open the door. Nobody’s there and the sheets are still on the bed. I wander through the entire house, there are party casualties passed-out all over the floor, I have to step over them but none of them is Jameelah. Apollo and Aslagon are asleep in the garden, lying together like spoons. I walk past flower beds and keep going farther into the backyard. In the farthest corner next to a pond with goldfish in it I find her sitting with her bare feet dangling in the water.

So, I say letting my feet plunk into the water next to her, how was it?

It wasn’t.

What do you mean?

Nothing happened, says Jameelah, he fell asleep at some point or pretended to and when I woke up just now he was gone.

He must have got scared.

Scared of what, why, I don’t get it, says Jameelah, like women are so mysterious.