Tiger Milk (8 page)

Like on TV, says Jameelah pointing at the firemen who have spread out one of those things you can jump onto and when I see it I get a lump in my throat in the exact spot where the scar from the tracheotomy is and I suck in a deep breath of air like I’m going to have to stay underwater for a long time.

Amir, I say, where is Amir.

Jameelah slowly lifts her arm like she’s underwater too and with her lips she starts to form some word but I turn and see Amir and Tarik and Selma and their mother on the pavement not far from us and I go over to them but somehow they’re actually really far away even though they are all standing right there nearby and it seems like an eternity before I reach then.

Amir, I say but he doesn’t react, he just stares up at the balcony, Tarik, I say, but he doesn’t react either. Cautiously I touch his arm and when he turns to me I have to gulp again because I’ve never seen Tarik crying before, I didn’t even know he could.

Kiddo, he says putting his arm around my shoulders, go home, go home as fast as you can but then Tarik’s mother throws her hand in front of her mouth and screams. I look up at the balcony and Jasna is sitting on the railing. It’s not as bad as it seems, I think breathing deeply, it’s just a bad movie, a porno with Rapunzel in the lead role. Now the men on the street, the firemen and EMTs and police, all seem to start to stretch toward the balcony. It’s easy to imagine since Jasna’s not wearing anything but her yellow bikini.

Dragan where are you, where is my fiancé, Jasna shouts.

Can someone find this Dragan, says a police officer to Tarik, where is this man?

I think he’s at the gym, says Amir quietly, I saw him earlier with his duffel bag.

Then you can at least try to talk to her, says one of the firemen to Jasna’s mother.

She should get out of here I don’t want to talk to her, screams Jasna climbing back down from the railing, get out of here she screams and then she starts throwing all kinds of stuff down from the balcony, rubbish, the rack for drying clothes, Selma’s stroller, and everything lands one after the next on the street near us. Jasna’s mother sobs more loudly.

Yeah, now you’re crying, screams Jasna, but first, first you drag me into this world and then you leave me all alone and now, now when I want to die you cry.

Her mother shelters herself in Tarik’s arms and puts her hands on his broad shoulders and makes two fists and in one fist I can see a balled up white tissue. Always the tissues, I think, like tiny stuffed animals but for mothers, for sorrows, sad little stuffed animals made of tears, each with its own story.

A man in a yellow vest shoves me aside. On his back it says Police Psychologist and beneath that a number.

You don’t have to die, says the man, there’s always another way out, no matter what the problem.

Jasna laughs.

What do you know about my life doctor psycho?

Suddenly Tarik steps forward.

Then go ahead and jump, he shouts, jump you Serbian Chetnik whore.

You can’t tell me what to do, screams Jasna back, you’re not my father.

Your father, pah, says Tarik spitting on the ground.

The rain picks up. The firemen tussle and form a circle and one of them opens an umbrella that says Bad Weather on it.

That’s enough, says the man in the yellow vest to Tarik, how can you talk to your sister that way, this is not a situation for that sort of talk.

That thing is not my sister, says Tarik looking straight at the man in the vest.

I’ll kill all of you, I’ll kill all of you, screams Jasna and then she runs back into the apartment.

One of the firemen puts out his arms and says everyone to the other side of the street, please move to the other side of the street and remain calm.

Now the building is going to explode I bet, says Jameelah, she’s going to blow it up.

Noura comes down the street toward us, I hear the steady hammering of her heels on the asphalt, I see the white nurse’s uniform sticking out from under her jacket.

What’s going on here, she asks shaking Jameelah’s shoulders, what are you doing outside in the rain?

Jameelah mumbles something but all I can do is stare at the building as muted screams issue from it. The place has transformed into a locked music box. The ballerina inside has momentarily escaped from the box and is now losing her mind. Somehow I can understand Jasna, it must be awful to be imprisoned inside a dark box and then every time somebody opens the box you get spun around to some stupid melody. It rains and it rains. The pyjamas under my hoodie are soaked right through to my skin though it dulls the burning pain on my shoulders and when Jasna comes back out onto the balcony and climbs up on the railing again I get goose bumps.

Oh no, says Jameelah, she’s really going to do it now.

Today is the last day of school and I pick up Jameelah and Amir as usual. Amir is in the hallway trying to get rid of another couple of journalists, there have been journalists standing around from morning until night since the whole situation with Jasna.

Is it true that your sister was released from the hospital the day before yesterday, asks one of them. In his hands he has a notebook and he can’t wait to write something down in it.

Amir nods glumly. He’s had another smacking. Right under his eye is a big round purple blotch that his mother must have put there with her fat gold ring.

Your sister’s boyfriend told us that she was transported to a secret location in order to protect her from your family, is that true, asks the journalist.

I don’t know, says Amir.

Has she been in contact with you?

No she hasn’t.

You are her little brother, she doesn’t need to be afraid of you.

Amir looks over at me for help.

She only broke her leg, I say going over to stand next to him.

I mean really, only broke her leg, says the woman standing behind the guy with the notebook, it was a cry for help you need to dig deeper, and when I don’t know how to answer her she says, of all people a young woman should … but I don’t hear what a young woman should because luckily Jameelah comes rumbling down the stairs.

You’re annoying, she says to the two journalists, don’t you get it.

I’m from the biggest paper in town, says the guy.

Go interview some neo-Nazis, says Jameelah pulling Amir toward the exit.

Amir’s eye doesn’t look good at all and since we have some time before school we stop at the convenience store and buy a Müller milk and go to the playground. We sit down in the play fort above the slide and smoke a cigarette. Amir holds the cold milk container against his shiner.

In Germany it’s a crime to hit a child did you know that, says Jameelah.

I’m not a child, says Amir.

You are in the eyes of the law and if you hit a child in Germany you can be arrested for it.

Even for a smack, I ask.

I don’t know, but it’s the correct answer in any case.

Correct answer to what, asks Amir.

The German test, that was one of the questions.

Test, I say, do we have a test today?

Oh please no, says Amir.

No, says Jameelah, I mean the test for German citizenship. You have to know everything about Germany, what the duties of the president are and what holiday do you wear a mask for and all sorts of stuff like that.

I have no idea what she’s talking about.

Why would you need to know that, says Amir.

For whenever, in case we end up becoming Germans. I’ll be ready for the questions already, it’s smart.

It’s moronic, says Amir.

Jameelah looks at him angrily.

What’s moronic about it?

Nothing, says Amir, what are you trying to tell me? That I should press charges against my own mother or what?

Man, it just popped into my head, says Jameelah, don’t get bent out of shape.

Nobody says anything for a while.

I didn’t mean it that way, says Jameelah at some point, you know that, right?

It’s fine, says Amir.

Come on, I say, we have to get going.

When Frau Struck comes into the classroom with the report cards she looks the way she always does on the last day of school. She’s put pink lipstick on her thin lips and rouge on her face. To celebrate the day she also has on a dress, a white summer dress made out of linen, a typical teacher dress. The dress is so flimsy on the sides that you can see her cheap undershirt through it and because she’s not wearing a bra her breasts hang there like shrivelled water balloons. Her feet are in sandals and her toenails are painted, but no matter how much nail polish Struck uses her feet still look old, with cracks and scabby skin. Which we get put right in our faces on the last day of school, thanks ever so much.

Frau Struck always smiles on the last day of school because she’s looking forward to summer break more than all of us put together and also she thinks we can’t figure that out. She puts on a shitty dress, polishes her gnarled feet and acts all friendly, but up front on her lectern next to the report cards are her holiday books – a guidebook to South Africa and a teach-yourself-English crime novel.

So what are you all doing this summer, Struck asks as she distributes the report cards.

Fucking Frau Struck, says someone at the back quietly enough that you can’t tell who it was but loud enough for the entire class to hear.

Everyone erupts with laughter. Struck gets red splotches all over and tears well up in her eyes. For a second I feel sorry for her but when she smacks my report card on the table and I see that she’s given me Fs in maths and biology that feeling is gone immediately. She should just go and disappear without a trace wherever it is she’s heading, abducted like a character in her stupid crime novel, that would be something, Struck abducted by the Taliban and nobody willing to pay the ransom.

The first thing we do at the end of the school day is lock ourselves in the girls’ bathroom. We dump the milk out of the Müller container we bought that morning and pour in Mariacron brandy, maracuja juice and the last school cafeteria milk of the year and take turns sipping it and roll a cigarette.

Did I tell you I’m getting my wisdom teeth out at the end of the summer, I say.

Really, says Jameelah looking enviously at me, at the children’s hospital? It’s so nice there.

Yeah.

So what are we going to do for summer break?

Not fuck Frau Struck, that’s for sure.

Jameelah laughs.

No, but how about permitting ourselves to be deflowered, she says, what do you say?

I don’t know what she’s talking about.

Lose our virginity, we’ll lose our virginity. We’ll find the nicest boys in the world and go to bed with them. I’m through practising.

Good idea, I say and though I’d kind of forgotten about it, now that Jameelah brings it up it does seem like a good idea and it’s about time though she doesn’t need to talk in such a sophisticated way about it.

Do you know who you want to do it with, asks Jameelah.

I shrug my shoulders.

I was thinking Nico.

Nico? But you’ve known him forever.

I know, that’s exactly why I was thinking of him.

What do you mean?

Well somebody I’ve known for a long time might be just the right person. Plus he’s so big and strong that it would be easy with him, and it’s probably stressful enough doing it the first time that I’d rather do it with somebody I already know well.

But it’s supposed to be something special, says Jameelah fidgeting around with the Müller container.

Do you think so? I don’t know. I just don’t want anything to go wrong.

Jameelah takes a big gulp of Tiger Milk, stares at the floor and continues to fidget with the container, the popping noise it makes puts me on edge.

Now that the time has come we’re no more savvy than we were before, she says looking at me with her big eyes, maybe we’d be better off doing it with somebody from Kurfürstenstrasse after all.

Bullshit, I say even though I’m not really sure, she might be right.

Suddenly the door to the girls’ bathroom opens. We drop the cigarette in the toilet and stand on the toilet so nobody can see our feet. The door in the next stall opens and then is shut and locked. Jameelah quietly climbs onto the toilet tank.

Salam sisters, she yells.

Laura screams.

Shit you scared me!

Kathi’s head appears above the wall of the stall.

How are your report cards, she asks, and do you have anything to drink?

The Müller container makes its way from one stall to the other.

Got an F in gym, says Laura, Herr Wittner’s nuts.

It’s because you always say you have your period, says Kathi passing the container back.

Wittner started a list so nobody could get out of gym more than once a month.

What do you mean, he writes down who has their period when, I ask.

That’s perverse, says Jameelah.

Yeah and he stares at the breasts of all the girls who sit in the front. Last week Anna-Lena wrote Hallo Herr Wittner across her cleavage and he turned bright red when he saw it.

Anna-Lena, says Jameelah, she’s frigid.

Yeah, I say, we call her Frieda Giga.

Or Fri-Gid for short, says Jameelah.

I like Wittner. I always help him push the electron gun into the physics lab and he never stares at my chest though I have to admit that with me there’s not too much to look at anyway.

You need to be home at eleven, says Mama sternly as I dial Jameelah and hold the phone away from her.

Okay, I say looking impatiently at the clock on the phone, at the latest.

Up until recently it was so easy, on the weekend Jameelah always said she was staying over at my place and I always said I was staying over at hers. Then something stupid happened. We fell asleep at the playground one morning at dawn, completely wasted. We only meant to lie down for five minutes until Noura went off to work at the clinic but then she discovered us there in the sandbox. Jameelah got smacked and wasn’t allowed out for ages and always had to go straight home from school.

Ever since then Mama always has to check in with Noura if Jameelah wants to stay at our place. But Noura doesn’t realize that Mama buries herself under the sofa blanket at eleven so that nobody can land on her island, Noura doesn’t know that Mama stuffs pillows under any part of her body that’s not resting evenly and doesn’t hear or see a thing until the next morning when Rainer comes home from working his overnight taxi shift and brings her a coffee.