Girl from Mars

by Tamara Bach

  “Yes, congratulations. Great job,” I mumble.

  She seems satisfied. She burns down the tip, blows away the ash and lights the joint properly. She inhales deeply, waits and then lets the smoke out slowly. She takes another drag and hands the joint to me.

  “You’ve smoked pot before, right?”

  “Mmmhh.” I almost believe it myself. I take a drag, get a lungful of smoke, practically have to cough. I hold the smoke inside me like Laura, my eyes fill with tears and I think I’m about to die when I slowly breathe out. I take another drag, this time more carefully, until my lungs are full, then I hand back the joint. Breathe out.

  I feel warm. We are sitting on a bench in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in a forgotten galaxy. Time stands still. Maybe time is nothing but inhale, wait, exhale. Doesn’t matter whose breath it is, yours or mine. The world only moves when you and I are breathing.

  Below us the houses are lit up like Christmas. I’m not at all cold, even though it’s winter. I take another drag, and my coat and my hat and scarf keep me warm.

  Breathe out. My hands might be freezing, but I won’t ask them, because then they can’t complain. I listen to Laura’s breathing, I can see the little glow in her hand, take it from her, breathe in, wait. The earth is spinning very slowly tonight. Breathe out. Everything is quiet. Peace on earth and good will toward men. It would be nice to hold her hand now, but I can’t move, can’t move my head. My gaze is fixed on the valley, on the lights of the little houses.

  Suddenly Laura starts to talk.

  “I had a really nice afternoon. With Phil.”

  The P-word.

  “We listened to music and Mum cooked and we ate together. And then she told me she has to go away again, for three weeks or so. Three weeks. Maybe even longer. She just handed me some money and said she was pushing off, just like that. And I was pissed off. I told her that she should think about me, too, and she said I sounded just like my father. It was almost funny. No, actually it was sad. Phil just stood there and said absolutely nothing. Nothing. You know? And then I got mad and threw him out. Shit.” She sniffles. “Was it stupid of me to do that?” She looks at me, but I have no idea. Phillip. How do I know what he’s like?

  “Too bad he isn’t here,” she says, giggling a bit. “I think you’d like him when he’s stoned. Although, what do I know? But I think you two could actually get along.” She stops giggling. “In any case.” Pause. Takes a drag. Talks again as she’s exhaling. “Phillip is great. You can really have a great time with him. We’re good friends. Too bad. Whatever.” She’s quiet again.

  I smoke the end. The filter is getting hot. I throw away the butt.

  Suddenly she leans her head on my shoulder, so all I can do is sit still and stare out over the valley.

  “Go on,” she says. “Tell me about your friends. About Ines and Suse.”

  But as I sit here, unable to tear my eyes away from the houses down there, I don’t know whether they’re my friends or not. I don’t know what friends are, or whether I would talk about Suse and Ines the way Laura talks about Phil, even though she’s mad at him. I don’t know anything any more. I’d shrug my shoulders, but she’s leaning her head on me and I don’t want her to move it. I’m afraid that she’ll take it away if I move.

  “You’re not saying anything.” She giggles again, and I’m trying to think of what I can tell her.

  There’s so much I want to say and so much I want to know about her — so much — but my mouth is dry and my thoughts can’t find their way out of my head. I feel so good so let’s just leave everything like this. And leave Ines and Suse out of it. They’ll spoil things.

  “Mi, look at me.” She flicks on her lighter and it lights up our faces. I turn my head toward her in slow motion. It lasts for hours.

  When Laura sees me, she starts to giggle again.

  “You’re stoned! Ha! Look at you! Stoned!” Then she laughs out loud.

  The corner of my mouth moves up toward my ears. I’m the Cheshire cat. I can’t stop myself. My face muscles have a life of their own. I start to hum and try to remember which song it is.

  “I’m hungry,” Laura says suddenly. She takes my hand again, and my hand fits in hers like a little squirrel in its den. Slowly we walk down the path and this time she’s leading me. I realize I’m singing this song and I have no idea where it came from. It was inside me, and now I’m singing, but where did I learn it? Doesn’t matter, I just keep singing, louder and louder, all the way down the hill. All the way to the chip stand.

  Hooray! And I’m thirsty!

  “I’m thirsty, Laura!”

  “Yeah, me, too!”

  And then I sing some more and Laura squeezes my hand.

  The streetsweeper is standing by the chip stand. We all know him because he says hello to everyone and is always so friendly.

  “Two large fries, one with ketchup and mayonnaise and the other...?”

  “With, um, mustard?” Yes, mustard. “And a Snickers bar. And a large diet cola.”

  The chip man is happy to make a little money at the end of the day, and I spend the rest of my money on the food, but I don’t give a shit. I’m happy that I have a mouth I can open and stuff all this delicious food into. That I have teeth that chew and a nice chip man who really puts mustard on the fries. And that I have a throat so I can wash it all down with cola, and a stomach to hold it all. It’s fun to eat. It’s fun to watch Laura eating.

  When we’ve finished, the chip man sticks two Jägermeisters in front of us.

  “Here, girls, these will warm you up.” And we say thank you politely, like good little girls. Laura starts giggling again, and the streetsweeper grins and takes a sip of his beer. I suddenly burst out laughing and start singing again. Then we take each other’s hands again, just like little girls.

  We keep walking, and then Laura suddenly stops and takes my face in her hands and presses her mouth against mine, very softly, very lightly. It lasts forever and for no time at all.

  Then she pulls me into the Erdbeereis, where we see Mario and a few other kids, so we sit with them. Laura gets a pack of cards from the owner and we start playing a game of Mau-Mau. Mario gets us a beer. I win, Laura winks at me and plays badly, but she laughs.

  This is probably the best evening of my life. Better than any evening I can remember. We have another beer and then we go back outside and Laura rolls us a couple of cigarettes.

  I am only fifteen but it’s great to be fifteen. I’m fifteen and I’m sitting in some street or other in the middle of winter and Laura is rolling us cigarettes by the light of a phone booth. And we are smoking and drinking and then I start to talk. I’m not singing any more. I’m saying ridiculous things like “In summer the sky is much bigger, did you know that? Bigger than in the city. Here the sky is gigantic. Much, much bigger. And in the summer you have to lie on the ground in the middle of a field, at night, of course, and then look up and when the sky is clear it’s...the sky is so big and it’s...”

  Laura looks up and keeps walking.

  “Like it is now?” she asks.

  I look up and the sky starts to spin a bit.

  “No. Not so wobbly,” I say.

  Laura starts to giggle again.

  “I’m tired,” she says. She stops. “I have to go this way.”

  “And I have to go that way,” I say and point in the other direction.

  We stand in the middle of the intersection, and I want to say, Laura, that was great. I want to tell her how much better and nicer and bigger it was than any evening I’ve ever had, but suddenly it’s like before, and I can’t get it out.

  Laura grins and sways a bit, and I’m swaying, too. We are holding hands again, or still — I don’t know. She pulls me toward her or I pull her toward me and her face is close. Then her mouth is on mine, this time longer and softer, and her lips are a bit rough. A little kiss, then another one, and my lips between hers become softer, warm. I open my mouth a bit and she opens hers, and I am kissing
her upper lip, her bottom lip, and her tongue is stroking my lips, stroking my mouth.

  I hold her hand. I want to be closer to her, I want to hold her face. Her lips are on my neck, her ears are cold, everything becomes warm and I am all flushed. My eyes are closed. And we kiss again and again, and...

  Then I open my eyes. Laura looks at me — different, smiling. She gives me a little kiss.

  And then she turns and goes.

  How long do I stand here?

  How cold it is all of a sudden.

  PART II

  It’s life, but not as we know it

  1

  What are you really like?

  1. Your crush flirts with someone else at a party that you have been looking forward to for ages. What do you do?

  a) I go straight home and lock myself in my room with enough chocolate, tissues and sad CDs to last a week.

  b) Who cares? I’ll have way more fun with my girlfriends.

  c) I make the best of things. I dance provocatively, until he can’t even think about looking at anyone else.

  d) I ask my best friend for advice.

  What a load of crap. Next question.

  2. On the bus, your friends standing behind you suddenly start laughing uproariously.

  a) I turn around and start laughing, too, even though I don’t know what it’s all about.

  b) I know for sure that they are laughing at me because I have once again done something super embarrassing. I want to dig a hole in the ground and disappear.

  c) I tell them to shut up because I want to read in peace. What?!

  d) I report them to the bus driver.

  Yeah, right.

  3. Your friend asks to copy your math assignment.

  a) I tell her that I don’t understand the assignment myself, and she should ask someone else.

  b) Sure, no problem. One of these days she’ll do me a favor in return.

  c) Never. What if we’re caught? I’ll fail, just because of her!

  d) I take her aside and tell her that we can do the assignment together.

  Oh, brother. What a pile of shit.

  4. At the party that you have been looking forward to for ages, you see another girl wearing the identical top.

  a) I run straight home and change.

  b) I run straight home and stay there and never go out in public again.

  c) I rip the shirt off the bloody cow and tell her that she’d better find something else to wear, maybe something that looks good on her for a change.

  d) The girl and I laugh together about this hilarious coincidence and have a great time.

  If such a thing were possible, then maybe there is a chance for intelligent life out there in space.

  The clock says only five thirty-four. God. Turn the page.

  Or what about...

  1. A girl kisses you at the end of a wonderful evening.

  a) Afterwards everything is great, and life is wonderful.

  b) You think too much.

  c) It was a mistake. It must have been a mistake.

  2. If a girl kisses another girl, it means —

  a) You’re a lesbian.

  b) You just haven’t found the right guy yet.

  c) You were drunk and stoned and not in your right mind.

  d) What difference does it make who you kiss? Except for animals, that is. Ew.

  3. If you spend your whole time trying to remember that moment, it means you are —

  a) In love.

  b) Forgetful.

  c) Confused.

  d) Even more confused.

  ***

  Five thirty-seven. The front door slams. I close the magazine, go downstairs.

  Stomp, stomp, stomp. (Could you just once not stomp down the stairs?) I hear scraping sounds on the floor.

  Dennis is trying to drag something through the door.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “Don’t ask dumb questions. It’s a bench. Didn’t I say we needed one upstairs? Come on, grab the other end!”

  And what if it was nice? Even if you can hardly remember it? What then?

  “Where do you want it?”

  “In the basement!”

  Everything Dennis says has an exclamation mark.

  “Over there! Watch out for my hand! Careful! Okay, put it down!”

  If you have mainly checked a), then...

  “We have to sand it down!”

  “We?”

  Dennis looks up at me with this expression he often wears — mouth open, cheeks red with effort, forehead creased.

  “Yes, WE! You don’t think I’m going to do this all by myself, do you? I’ve already dragged the bloody thing all the way over here!”

  Okay, okay.

  “Go and get the sandpaper!”

  I do it.

  Which answers would she check?

  Which ones would I?

  2

  Favorite song.

  “All I Want Is You” by U2. That is a great song. Bono does this thing with his voice that only he and David Bowie can do. It sends chills down my spine and makes me want to cry at the same time. He sings about this woman who promises him everything — gold, fame — but he says he doesn’t want any of it. He only wants her. But then she breaks all her promises and it’s so sad, because at the end he doesn’t have anything, not even her.

  That song is pain set to music.

  Sometimes it’s nice to feel sad. To go to the movies and sit in the third row all by yourself and cry. It only works in the afternoons and only when you go to see old films that other people have already seen.

  Mum and I are driving into town. She wants to shop for curtains or some other shit at a special sale. She’ll drop me off at the movie and pick me up later.

  Some people think it’s weird to go to the movies by yourself, but I like it. I also like going to the movies with other people, playing Guess the Ads, buying cheap candies at the bulk-food store and smuggling them into the theater.

  The best films are the ones where there’s no happy ending, though I like shoot-’em-up films, too. For some reason I love automatic weapons, even though I am normally a non-violent person. Must have something to do with the sound. So a film that ends with a graduation dance where the cheerleader and the captain of the football team get together is truly boring for me.

  American Beauty. Everyone else has already seen it, and it’s out on video. But I want to see it in the theater. Suse doesn’t like going to movies, and Ines usually has even less money than I do.

  The best seat at the movies is in the front half, even the first third, and right in the middle. One of my teachers once said the best spot to be in a movie theater and in a war is at the back, but he didn’t know what he was talking about. Though maybe it is true for war, what do I know.

  But my spot is taken. There’s only one other person in the whole theater and he’s already sitting there. Shit. It would be too weird to go into a practically empty theater and sit near the only other person in there.

  I walk up the aisle anyway and look down the row. It’s some guy eating popcorn, and he’s looking at me, and he says, “Well, what a surprise.”

  It’s Phillip.

  I don’t know whether to keep walking or turn around. It would be even weirder to sit near Phillip in a practically empty theater.

  He’s still looking at me. Then he holds up his box and says, “Popcorn?”

  So I sit beside him.

  And he doesn’t say anything, just sits there munching his popcorn and staring at the screen, which is empty. There’s just this design of colors, moving to soft music.

  “You really don’t want any?” he asks again and holds out the box of popcorn.

  I shake my head. I’m feeling bad already and now I’m sitting here beside this blinking idiot...

  “Phillip is really a nice guy...” I can hear Laura’s voice in my head.

  If only I hadn’t walked so far up to the front. If only I’d just sat a few rows back, then at wor
st we’d run into each other after the film was over and that would be it.

  “Have you already seen it?” he asks.

  “No.” Of course not. Otherwise why would I be here?

  “I have.”

  “Oh.” Moron.

  “Twice.”

  Sounds like someone with too much money.

  “It’s a good film.”

  Now he’s going to spend the whole movie explaining what’s going on, saying things like, “Keep your eye on the door, wait for it, now!” — just like the people who somehow always end up sitting right behind me.

  “Besides, I was bored.”

  Then he shoves another handful of popcorn into his face and chews as he keeps staring at the screen.

  ***

  Laura is totally normal in front of me. I ask myself whether it even all happened — the kiss, the kisses. I’ve been trying to remember it all week, but somehow I can’t. Maybe because I had my eyes closed. That must be it.

  But she is avoiding me. It’s true that she is in the washroom every morning, but only when Ines or Suse are already there. We are never alone.

  Maybe that’s what she wants. I’ll bet it is.

  ***

  “Have you seen Magnolia?” Phillip asks me suddenly.

  I nod.

  “And? How did you like it?”

  I cried my eyes out. “It was okay.”

  “Do you go to the movies often?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I do, mostly after school. I’m always killing time because the train schedules are so lousy.”

  How interesting.

  ***

  She still smiles at me, but only when she’s also smiling at the others. She’s nice. Still offers me cigarettes. But she is so far away.

  ***

  The lights go out and the ads start rolling.

  “The Wild West!” says Phillip.

  Oh, my God, he’s guessing the ads. Someone please get me out of here.

  “This one’s easy. Marlboro. Their spots are always the same.”

  PLEASE!

  “This one’s for...a beer. No. But some kind of drink.”

  It is not! It’s an anti-drug ad, you moron!

  “Oh,” he says when the logo appears — Don’t Do Drugs.