One Another

  I ride to the park, sit on a bench, and from my bag I take the pages the students handed in. I leaf through them, looking for Jennifer’s paper.

  By Jennifer Heitmann. A girl stands on the platform. She is Janua. She was meant to be a boy called Januar, but something went wrong. Janua has known Kalim forever (since he came to Germany = five years). When things are hard for her (most of the time), she calls him up and gets some grass. Now she’s on her way home from street-dance practice and has to change trains at the main station. All of a sudden she sees her father, arm-in-arm with another woman. She runs up to them, pushes the woman onto the tracks and hits her father. But then she sees the two of them board the next train and realizes it was only a dream. She feels faint. She calls Kalim, she needs something to calm her down. They meet near the top of the escalator. Kalim has had a crush on Janua for years, but she doesn’t care. She’s interested in someone else, but hasn’t ever told anyone who it is. The end.

  Next page. A collaboration.

  By Büşra Demir and Nesrin Gül.

  Any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental!

  Hi everyone, I’m Ludovic. I’m handsome and vain. My parents come from Togo. I play basketball and have a good body. My girlfriend’s name is Latoya. But maybe I’m just making that up. Of course, I’m always convinced that all girls are in love with me. Though it is true in a few cases, but I won’t name any names. The stupid racist, Kalim, I know by sight. I’d like to beat him up even though he’s much stronger and more brutal than I am. I’m just waiting for a good opportunity.

  I look at two girls. They could be in my class. They’re standing indecisively in front of a park bench and can’t bring themselves to sit down because it looks too dirty. One of them is on the phone and chewing on her cuticles. The other one is looking for split ends. A small, beige dog sits in her handbag and yawns. The girls make signs at each other, tapping their temples, rolling their eyes, laughing noiselessly. What was I like at that age? What was it like to be seventeen? I knew what was right. I had definite opinions about almost everything. I sometimes envy that today. I didn’t believe in God, but had an absolute view of good and evil. I was fundamentally on the side of the victim, the weak, the underdog, and the oppressed. Violence in any form was to be rejected, always, and in every case. No one had the right to kill another, not under any circumstances, which included mothers and their unborn children, no matter how young. A few years later, I myself decided against my child—that was the terminology used by the doctors and counselors I had to speak with before I lay down. I didn’t kill it, I just decided against it. I decided. At seventeen, I would have spit in my face for this, would have turned my back. At twenty-five, I saw no other way.

  Mathieu writes: (11:48): I’d like to speak with you.

  I can’t believe my eyes. It’s late, I’m tired, and Mathieu has written. I drain my wine glass in one gulp and go to bed. My husband comes home, goes straight to the living room, turns on the television. The gunshots, the squealing tires reach me through the covers. I lie awake. I have nothing to talk about with you, Mathieu.

  At 4:14 I write: What’s it about?

  At 9:13 he writes back: My father insists that I finish school, but my uncle wants to take me on as an apprentice.

  (9:15): Of course you have to graduate first.

  (9:56): I have to explain it to you.

  Mathieu lives in the east part of the city, I live in the west. I agree to meet him briefly in the center of the city in the afternoon. He suggests the escalator in front of the train station. Where Kalim always hangs out. Kalim, the dealer he invented.

  It’s two o’clock. From a distance, I see him standing near the railing, one leg bent. I wheel my bicycle across the station square. He raises his arm, waves, and comes toward me, saying hello with a smile and looking unsteady on his feet.

  There’s no bench in the entire square. They don’t want any bums here, Mathieu says. We sit on the red, imitation leather bench in the ticket office. You need to take a number, says a friendly railroad employee. Mathieu stands up and pushes the button. The machine spits out a ticket, and the employee nods, satisfied.

  How often do you practice? I ask to avoid any silence.

  At least twice a week and there are tournaments.

  I see you have your own cheerleading squad.

  He sighs. Yes, unfortunately. He pulls a note from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. Go ahead, open it, it’s from Jennifer.

  Hate me, love me, yell at me, hit me, kiss me, whatever. But don’t ignore me.

  I fold the note up again.

  Are you a couple? Or were you once?

  Good God, no, Madame, honest.

  OK Mathieu, you wanted to talk to me about your uncle?

  Yes, he says and hesitates, as if he were reluctant to change the subject. My uncle is a businessman, a very good one. He says I shouldn’t waste my time. He’s not going to wait for me. Now or never, Mathieu, he told me. I’m already seventeen.

  You should definitely get your diploma and then find yourself a proper apprenticeship.

  What do you mean by proper?

  Not an informal one in the family, but an official one through a trade school with references and all that.

  I figured you would say that.

  Mathieu, everyone would say that, absolutely everyone and you know that perfectly well. Why are you asking me, of all people?

  Don’t know. You seem nice.

  And there it is, the silence that immediately becomes significant. So to say something, anything, before it’s too late, I ask: Your father’s a pastor?

  Yes. And he wants me to be a pastor, too. It’s a good path, he says, but it’s not mine, it really isn’t. He looks at my hands, clasped in my lap.

  What kind of church? I ask and loosen my hands.

  The Ewe Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Mathieu looks me in the eye. That’s my people, the Ewe, from Togo, Madame.

  Hello! the friendly railroad employee calls, Five-five-three, isn’t that you? It’s your turn!

  Yes! We jump up and have to laugh. Then we run out of the ticket office without a word.

  I bend down and unlock my bicycle. Mathieu stands behind me. Do you have to leave already?

  Yes. I stand up.

  Thanks for the advice, he says. I turn around, his mouth speeds toward me and plants a kiss on my cheek.

  Mathieu, please don’t.

  Why not? It’s normal for friends.

  I’m not your friend. He looks me up and down like the first time we met. He gives me a stubborn look. The thing is I like you, he says softly.

  And Latoya?

  Oh, her. He laughs. I made her up, too. Do you think I have talent?

  As a writer?

  He nods.

  Could be. But you wanted to become a businessman.

  He shrugs. I climb onto my bicycle. Goodbye, Madame. I ride off. Do you speak French at home? I call after him. He looks around. Of course, Madame. He keeps walking. His feet are huge.

  P.S. Mathieu is not insulted that Büşra and Nesrin have written him into our story as Ludovic, on the contrary. He also thinks it’s fine that Janua, the street dancer, is in love with him. But he insists that he, of course, will not be in love with her.

  I won’t be part of that, he says.

  But somehow you have to be motivated to beat up Kalim, who everyone knows is into Janua.

  I’ll think of something, Madame, don’t worry. I’ll take care of that racist. I’ll kill him if I have to, with good reason, just wait. To get a break from it, finally.

  Yes, as long as we do it with you, I mean that we write it with you, I’ll be there. Just wanted to say.

  With best regards, Mathieu.

  9

  Swimming and flying

  I don’t know how things will continue. Either in this book, or in my life. I’m secretly waiting for someone to stumble into my life again and write more of the story. Number nine of twelve. Soon winter will b
e here. It blows on me in the morning, when I drag my bicycle out of the cellar and carry it, groaning, up the stairs, when I breathlessly ask the dog, whose winter coat has grown in, where she’d like to walk, and when, getting no answer as always, I drop my head back and watch my breath rise into the air. Soon winter will be here. What else? What has love got planned? Love. As if you don’t have enough problems, my grandmother would say, first bread, then love! I press my lips together. Philipp had given me a kiss in the morning. The first in more than half a year. But he avoided my eyes, kept his closed; his lips were raw and moist at the same time.

  I climb onto my bike and ride down the sidewalk, up to the next driveway with the sunken curb. Someone yells, don’t fall! and my heavy utility bike promptly falls over. I recognize the voice right away. Creditor Number 17, our neighbor two doors down. He offers his hand, pulls me upright, takes a look at my trousers. Then he picks up my bicycle, checks the brakes, makes sure the seat and handlebars are straight. Did I startle you?

  I grab the handlebars without a word. He does not let go. Our hands almost touch. I’m in a hurry, I say, and push off. He blocks my way. I haven’t seen a cent yet.

  I follow the debt consultant’s advice for such instances. I reply: Please talk to Philipp.

  No, I’m talking to you, I’ve run out of patience, says the neighbor, who lent my husband exactly three thousand euros.

  I stick to the debt counselor’s advice, give an understanding nod, and say: You got the debt payment schedule. It says when you’ll get your first installment.

  The schedule says that I won’t get anything for two years, the neighbor replies, but I need the money now. His voice cracks. Now, he repeats.

  And then I say exactly what the debt counselor emphatically warned me never to say: Fine, I’ll take care of it.

  I ride off without saying goodbye. My dog runs after me. A few weeks earlier, when the neighbor first blocked my way and wanted to know when he was going to get his money back, I didn’t fall off my bike, even though it would have suited the situation. I just stood there, waiting to suffer the expected stroke. What money? This man, the head of a small family, was not on the list of creditors. More debts? One more person Philipp owes money to?

  Philipp turned pale when I confronted him. His hands shook. He said he’d completely forgotten that one. No, he hadn’t gambled again. He raised his right hand and swore that it was an old debt, not a relapse. He simply must have repressed it, he didn’t know how. Unpleasant things just slip away from Philipp. It took me seven years of marriage to understand that they just disappear for him, cease to exist. That’s not reassuring.

  A penguin flies overhead. A _____? Penguins can’t fly. Not for fifty million years, they haven’t. Besides, there are no penguins in this country. And yet: instead of watching the street, I look at the sky. It’s gone. There’s nothing up there, nothing flying by. I stop. I close my eyes and try to picture it. The stout, milky, shimmering body, the streamlined head, the narrow wings, black like its face and beak. I don’t really know much about winged creatures. I used to watch Humboldt penguins in the zoo and saw them again on television recently. It looked exactly like them. Exactly? Hang on. Did it have that characteristic black breast-band? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps not. So maybe it wasn’t a penguin. Just a bird. We mostly saw that kind of bird on Heligoland. We, that is Philipp and I. Last year, early in the summer, when everything was still in complete confusion, happily chaotic; when we were still a couple, not just parental units with joint property and lost trust, we decided at the last minute to get a baby- and a dog-sitter and take the boat to Heligoland. The sea was calm. When we landed, we were greeted by earsplitting birdcalls.

  We rented “a romantic room for new lovers,” sight unseen. A disgusting hole without windows or a bathroom and with a sagging, stained, but thoroughly comfortable bed. It was evening before we went for a walk on the beach. We reached the Lummenfelsen, the cliffs thick with murre colonies. In the fading light, we could just make out an entire swarm of countless little bodies, plump as potatoes, hurtling down forty meters, black against the black rock face. Lured by their parents’ heart-breaking cries, the flightless chicks, only a few weeks old, shuffled toward the cliff’s edge until they tipped into the void and were swallowed into the depths. After a few minutes, it was too dark to see anymore, but the cries of the parent birds didn’t stop.

  And some kind of murre like that just flew over me? In late autumn? From Heligoland to Hamburg? Murres are marine birds that spend the winter on the open seas and don’t fly very well. Their stubby wings are better suited to paddling than flying. Their penguin-like body shape is an expression of their having adapted to life at sea. No, the idea that it was a murre is not convincing. The only possibility is—?!

  Don’t fall, I call after the creature whose breast I hadn’t looked at carefully. I notice my dog’s puzzled look and I click my tongue since words fail me. She gives me a resigned nod. I push into the pedal. I trust my dog to follow me on the sidewalk. Instead of looking at the street, I search the sky, but don’t see anything. Empty, cold air. Wintery air. Now what? Neighbors become creditors. Penguins fly. There! There it is again!

  It flies over the construction site, where a candy factory had stood until just a few days ago and now luxury apartments are being built, past the crane drill and excavators digging out the cellar, and disappears behind the neighboring building. Breast-band? Yes or no? It was too fast, it’s gone, with or without a band. Given that it’s flightless, it flies astonishingly well. As well as it dives. And when it dives—I observed this often enough in the penguin house at the zoo—it looks like it’s flying. Its wings slide effortlessly and elegantly up and down. You can only tell that it’s moving underwater and not in the air because of the swarms of fish it’s chasing.

  I dismount and look up. Where are you? The construction crane sways silently above me. I cower from its shadow.

  Our rent is tied to the “local reference rent level.” It increases with every renovation, with every new luxury building added to the neighborhood, with every euro more that a new neighbor (and the place is crawling with new neighbors) is willing to pay. Like Creditor Number 17’s rent. Like the rent of all the families who moved here a few years ago before having children. We all live in apartments that have become too small and that we can hardly afford. We all know the next notification, next increase is coming.

  I’m still looking into the sky. The crane sways to and fro, as if it had lost its mind. Take me with you, I call in the direction my penguin disappeared, but so softly that no one hears me, not even my dog, take me with you. Well, hurry up, it answers. Its voice sounds familiar. I push into the pedals and take up the chase.

  I’m twenty years younger. It’s winter, without snow, without sun, much too mild, much too gray. I lock my bicycle, an old Swiss Army bike, to a lamppost and enter the indoor swimming pool in my red pumps, the only shoes I own. The heat, the humidity, the smell of chlorine, all as expected; I loosen my scarf, unbutton my coat, take off my hat, and stare at the bare legs of the deeply tanned lifeguard, who’s wearing only a shirt, shorts, and flip flops. He’s taking his time with the customer at the register. She’s speaking softly. He listens to her. He shakes his head. He makes swimming motions. They’re talking about the crawl stroke, that much is clear. A dry-land swimming lesson. I’m hot. I turn around. Petrus, my first love, is standing behind me. He rolls his eyes heavenward and grimaces. And behind Petrus stands our mutual friend, I’ll call him Simon. Murmuring, he strokes his neck. He wraps his hands around his neck and whispers in his deep voice: Right away, my sweet. He’s not referring to me. Petrus knows this, but still asks: Did you just call my sweet your sweet? They punch each other in the upper arms. Every few days we go swimming together, Petrus, Simon, and I. Petrus leans toward me and gives me a kiss.

  Now I’m back to Petrus. From penguin to Petrus. And now I recognize the voice. The penguin’s voice in my ear. You never get free from your first love.
It’s nine months since I found out. I wrote Simon a letter, handwritten, and sent it to his Zurich address, which was still valid, according to the telephone book. I didn’t get an answer. Did you know that Petrus jumped into the courtyard from the ninth floor as twilight fell one snowy evening? is the question I asked in my letter.

  The kiss Philipp gave me this morning was sticky. I wiped it away, then wished I hadn’t.

  Can I have another?

  That one didn’t seem to your taste.

  Yes it was. I just have to get used to it again.

  Philipp went into the kitchen and put the children’s oatmeal on the burner. I watched him. He knew I was watching but didn’t turn toward me. He has the most beautiful back you can imagine. Well-shaped, straight, broad (but not too broad).

  My dog is old. Ten years and eight months. She runs bravely along next to my bicycle. Her tongue hangs far out of her mouth, like in summer. I forget to cheer her on as has become my habit when she slows down next to me (as I do, too, until I almost fall off the bike), when she seems to have lost every last drop of joie de vivre and trots along dully, sluggishly. I forget because I want to catch up with the penguin, want to see him with his breast-band, and want to ask him what he’s doing here, where he has come from and how he learned to fly. I’ve lost sight of him, but the direction is clear. I reach Alsterradweg behind the Dammtor station and there I catch sight of him, there he is, flying straight toward the main station, wait for me! and traffic on the Kennedy Bridge is thick, here! I shout and my dog follows my command to the letter, sticks close to my back wheel, together we throw ourselves into and across the street, reach the other side, have escaped once again, let’s go, come on, run! and my dog briefly raises her head and smiles.