Tiger Milk

by Stephanie de Velasco

  That’s not true, it’s the opposite.

  And what about Amir? Why don’t you care about him?

  What a load of shit that I don’t care about you guys. Man, don’t you get it, I’m trying to protect you.

  That’s not true, I say, you’re only thinking of yourself. Amir doesn’t matter to you. And you say you don’t want to go to the police because you know I won’t go on my own.

  Listen to me, says Jameelah taking my hand, we will go to the cops, just not yet. First we’ll talk to Amir. He has to tell the truth. We’ll try to convince him to tell the truth. It’s the only way I’ll consider doing it. Until that happens we can’t tell anyone, nobody can know that we saw it. He has to say it first, then everything will work out.

  And what about the ring, I ask.

  Jameelah rolls her eyes.

  Fine we’ll go get the ring, she says, but first you have to swear. Swear that you won’t say anything to anyone.

  I swear, I say.

  Pinky swear, whispers Jameelah holding out her pinky finger.

  Okay, I say, pinky swear. I hook my pinky into her pinky and kiss my thumb.

  On TV people who’ve seen something bad always wake up drenched in sweat. They dream about the bad thing night after night and each time they wake up they’re happy that this time it was just a dream and they fall back to sleep exhausted and everything is alright again. It’s in scenes like those that you can tell they are actors, you notice it especially with the whole bathed-in-sweat thing. I mean, what would have to happen for someone to wake up drenched in sweat? You only ever see people bathed in sweat on TV, there’s no such thing in real life, which is how you can tell that very few people have ever really been through something bad, because I know how fake that is now that something bad has happened to me.

  In reality it’s the other way around. Everything is dark and quiet at night but when the light comes through my window in the morning that’s when everything comes back, Jasna’s bloody clothes, the smell of blood and jewellery and Tiger Milk, and anything unpleasant takes on huge proportions, way bigger than it should, like Jessi’s crying or Mama’s sofa and pillows, and anything nice seems insignificant, like the sun, the food at the pool, the planet, the summer school holidays. Some things also look different or sound different, for instance I’ll think I see the moon but it is just the light atop a crane, or I’ll see a face sighing at me in the sauce warming up on the stove even though it’s just crap spaghetti from a can. The whole world is warped and distorted like you’re cross-eyed all the time. It’s only when it gets dark again that it stops and everything is quiet, though in summer it gets dark so late, which is why I wish it was winter.

  Rose petals were strewn around the scene of the crime it says in the tabloid. And next to that caption is a photo of Amir from our class ski trip last year. Jameelah is standing right next to him but they’ve put a black bar across her eyes, so stupid, a bar like that doesn’t do anything you can still easily recognize Jameelah, she’s smiling and like in every class photo she’s making a V with her fingers behind Amir’s head so he looks ridiculous. The photo should be enough for anyone to tell he couldn’t be a murderer but because of the caption it has the opposite effect – the clowning around makes it all seem creepy.

  The newspaper is still sitting next to my bed in my room but today I’m going to finally throw it out, today is the right day for it because today we’re finally going to visit Amir. It’s really the only thing I’ve been looking forward to, that and when I’ll go to the children’s hospital to get my wisdom teeth pulled.

  Actually Jameelah and I went to visit Amir more than two weeks ago but we had to turn around immediately.

  You can’t just pop in, the man at the gate had said. He gave us a telephone number and Amir’s case number and we had to call the number and set up a visit. Since we’re underage we can only visit Amir accompanied by an adult but Nico changed the 1996 on his ID to 1988, his was the easiest to change because all he had to do was add a half circle to the bottom of the nine and the top of the six with a pen he got at the shop where he buys his spray cans. Nico can pull it off, he looks a lot older than he really is. When we called the number we were given another number that Nico called to get an application for a visitation permit, without a visitation permit you can’t talk to Amir. We had to go to the middle of nowhere to pick up the visitation permit and once we got there we had to wait an eternity before they gave it to us.

  The visitation permit is tucked into the The Modern Witch’s Spell Book along with Lukas’s photo. It’s a good place for it, won’t get lost there, Jameelah said, and I take Jameelah at her word that she would never lose a visitation permit that is stored alongside a photo of Lukas.

  Before Jameelah and I head to the prison we go to the mall, down to the lower floor where there’s a shop that sells gift baskets. I think gift baskets are the best present in the world, they’re big, they fill you up, and they all have names, like good, warm-hearted people. I’ve always wanted to receive a gift basket but since that will probably never happen I’d at least like to give one once, and this is the perfect occasion. When the salesclerk asks us what occasion the basket is for we’re suddenly not sure what exactly to say.

  It’s for our best friend, says Jameelah, we want to cheer him up.

  He’s in a bad place at the moment, I say, and he can’t really get out of it.

  He’s in a kind of hospital, says Jameelah, in the woods, a forest hospital. We think it’s a bad hospital with bad food so we want to take him something good to eat.

  Forest, food, hospital, says the woman, I think I have something for you.

  She leads us down a long aisle with various gift baskets and I read the names as we go past, Sinful Sweetie, Lil’ Stinker, the Cheese Champ, one is called Bachelor Party and is full of tampons and condoms and miniature schnapps bottles. Maybe it should be called Kurfürstenstrasse, I think, and who gave the baskets all these names and I’d love to have that job but of course that’s not going to happen. Mama applied for a job here a few years ago but they told her she wasn’t qualified enough and didn’t give her the job.

  Here we are, says the salesclerk standing in front of a green basket called Hunter’s Heil.

  Aha, says Jameelah, and what sorts of goodies are in there?

  Jagdwurst, wild mushroom soup, hunter’s stew, Jägermeister, lingonberry juice, woodland fruit compote, crackers, and shortbread.

  Jameelah looks at me.

  What do you think?

  Sounds good to me, I say, except it might not be big enough. Maybe if there was twice as much of everything, you know Amir, he eats like a horse.

  Would that be possible, says Jameelah taking out the tin of hunter’s stew and reading the ingredients.

  No problem, says the salesclerk.

  Great, Hunter’s Heil it is, but with double everything.

  And this has to go in, I say holding up the bottle of Tabac cologne we took from baby-seat-guy.

  Right, and this has to come out, says Jameelah pointing to the jagdwurst and the Jägermeister, it has to be halal.

  What do you mean, asks the salesclerk.

  No pork and no alcohol, says Jameelah, that stuff isn’t halal and we’ll have to replace it with other stuff. He’ll like the theme of Germany and the German woodlands, but we have to make Hunter’s Heil into Hunter’s Halal. Is that possible?

  I have to smile, Hunter’s Halal, that’s typical Jameelah. The woman from the shop goes into the back and returns with a huge basket that has all the things from the small basket already in it. To that she adds the stuff from the small basket and takes out the jagdwurst and Jägermeister and replaces them with a kilo of black tea and a jumbo package of chicken sausages. She puts the basket on a wooden table and rips off a bunch of cellophane wrapping paper and starts to wrap it up. The paper rustles and the noise the scissors make as she curls the ribbons sounds like Christmas and birthday all wrapped up in one. Jameelah puts a fifty euro note on
the table and I put down another fifty. The saleswoman smiles and we smile back though we’re smiling for different things. She’s smiling because she thinks we’re nice girls who have saved up our pocket money to get something for a dear friend and we are smiling because we’re thinking well at least the whole thing with baby-seat-guy and the guy in the wheelchair was worthwhile since now we’re able to buy this gift basket for Amir.

  Hunter’s Halal is ridiculously heavy. Carrying it to the train was bearable but by the time we’ve made it halfway down the forest path between the station and the jail I’m totally exhausted. My arms hurt like hell and I try not to think about it, looking up at the sky and all around at the green trees. What kind of trees they are I have no idea but the little twigs all over the path look like the skeletons of small animals.

  Forests kind of drag me down, I say.

  Me too, says Jameelah looking up at the tops of the trees, what’s the story with the Germans and their weird obsession with the forest, can you explain it to me.

  How should I know, I say dropping the basket to the ground without warning.

  I can’t carry it any further.

  Me neither, says Jameelah, man my tongue is already hanging out, do you have anything to drink?

  No.

  We both look longingly at the lingonberry juice beneath the cellophane in the basket.

  I’m going to die of thirst.

  Me too.

  Do you think Amir would be pissed off if we drank his juice?

  No way, I say.

  That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, says Jameelah picking at the knot in the ribbon, shoving aside the cellophane, and grabbing greedily at the juice bottle.

  Hunter’s Heil, cheers.

  Hunter’s Halal, guten Appetit.

  Damn I’ve never tasted something so good, says Jameelah handing me the bottle, her teeth all purple.

  I look at the bottle and then drink.

  You’re right, I say, it’s almost as good as Tiger Milk.

  Nico is standing near the entrance to the prison smoking. His BMX bike is leaning against the wall and he has his lunchbox in his hand.

  Finally, he says, what took you so long?

  We stopped to get something for Amir.

  That, says Nico pointing at the basket, you’ll never be allowed to take that in.

  Why not?

  Because this isn’t a youth hostel, it’s a prison even if it doesn’t look like one at first glance.

  Now that we brought it all this way we’ll get it inside somehow, I say.

  Nico takes a drag off his cigarette and grins.

  I can’t wait to see how you pull that off.

  Oh yeah, says Jameelah, well I can’t wait to see how you manage to get your stupid lunchbox in.

  We lug the basket to the gate. The same guy is there who gave us the telephone number and the information packet last time.

  Identification and visitation permit, he says.

  We take the permit out of the The Modern Witch’s Spell Book and put it along with our school IDs on top of Nico’s ID, which is already sitting on the desk. We shove it all under the window and the gatekeeper barely looks at the IDs before saying, everything looks in order. As we start to go in he points to the basket.

  You can’t take that in, he says.

  It’s not for us, I say, it’s a present for a friend.

  I know, says the gatekeeper, which is exactly why you’re not permitted to take it in.

  You can search it if you’d like, we didn’t put a file in a cake or anything, says Jameelah fluttering her eyelashes. But the gatekeeper shakes his head.

  It’s not allowed.

  Are we not allowed to bring our friend anything at all?

  Prisoners are permitted to receive packages three times per year but they have to be declared in advance and sent by mail, normally at Christmas, Easter, and on the inmate’s birthday. The prisoners look forward to it that way. There’s no point in sending them without an occasion.

  He kicks open the door to his gatekeeper’s booth.

  You can leave it here and pick up on the way out.

  I knew it, says Nico grinning as we walk across a yard toward the main entrance.

  Shut the fuck up, says Jameelah.

  This isn’t a normal prison, there are no adults here, only youth offenders awaiting trial or sentencing, I read that in the information packet we got last time we tried to come here. Nico is right that it doesn’t look like a prison from the outside, more like a cross between a youth hostel and a nuthouse, what with the metal grates over the windows. But when you get to the main entrance it looks just the way you picture a prison looking. Behind glass is a man in uniform who shoves little plastic baskets through a special trapdoor, baskets like the ones Noura uses to collect dirty clothes. We have to put everything that we have with us into the baskets, including the stuff in our pockets, loose cigarettes, gum, I even have to hand over a couple of tampons.

  The case, says the officer pointing to Nico’s lunchbox, that’s got to stay here.

  Jameelah grins.

  Can’t we take our friend anything, asks Nico handing his lunchbox over reluctantly.

  When we are finished here you can use up to fifteen euros in coins to buy things from the vending machines and turn those items over to the prisoner.

  It’s like a prison here, says Nico.

  Nobody laughs.

  The noise it makes when the steel doors open and close, the heavy jingle of the keys on the hips of the officers, the serious look on their faces, it all makes me jittery, though the thing that makes me squirm the most is the fact that Amir is waiting for us somewhere in here. This must be how it feels for people to see each other after a long time, I think, just like on TV, on those reality shows about long-lost lovers.

  When the uniformed guy finally escorts us into the visitors room Amir isn’t there yet. Our steps echo, that’s how bleak and empty the room is. It smells of Febreze. The windows are covered with pigeon shit and the sunbeams that shine through the shit illuminate the dust dancing in the air. I have to sneeze. The uniformed guy stays next to the door like a tin soldier – the only thing missing is one of those stupid bearskin hats.

  Are those the vending machines, asks Nico pointing toward the far wall.

  The guy in uniform nods.

  Next to a soda machine is a machine that looks like the animal food dispenser at the old East Berlin zoo. We went there once with our school, Amir, Jameelah, and me. I still remember how cute the deer were as they ate the food out of our hands from behind their barred cages, how warm and soft it felt on my hand, how peaceful the noise was that they made while eating, that strange sideways motion they made when they chewed, and if that machine hadn’t have been here I wouldn’t have thought of the deer in the old East Berlin zoo, and how one of us was like the deer in the cage now, just as innocent as those deer, and how we were supposed to feed him now with food from the same type of machine.

  Do you want something to drink, asks Nico, they have tea, coffee, and orange juice.

  The orange juice tastes disgusting, like the East Berlin zoo, like youth hostels, like nuthouses, like prison. It’s bright orange and way too sweet, it must have all sorts of stuff in it, just no oranges. Nico drums his fingers on the table. Next to him are a packet of cheap chocolates, a sack of fruit, and a pack of gum, all from the vending machine. Jameelah blows on her steaming plastic cup, the tag on the teabag says Healthy Happy Yoga Tea but Jameelah barely sips it as if she’s frightened she’s going to scald herself on all the health and happiness. I drink my juice and think to myself that it would taste much better with brandy and a dash of milk. That’s when the door opens.

  I see Amir’s hands first. They’re in handcuffs, steel loops clamped around his wrists until the uniformed guy unlocks them. Amir smiles. He looks tired but somebody has smeared skin cream on the corner of his mouth and the blue bruise below his eye is gone. He’s not wearing a striped outfit the way I imagined,
he has on the Picaldi shirt he always used to wear for gym class. I want to run up to him but the guy in uniform says halt, no bodily contact.

  We’re allowed to shake his hand right, says Nico going up to Amir.

  Yo, he says, good to see you.

  Amir slaps him five.

  I reach out my hand, Amir takes it and squeezes it.

  Hi, he says smiling.

  Jameelah stands up, wipes her hands on her jeans and then extends a hand to Amir.

  Salam, brother.

  Stupid question but how are you, asks Nico.

  Amir smiles again.

  Alright.

  This is for you, says Nico handing him the chocolates, gum, and fruit.

  Thanks, says Amir, how are you guys?

  How do you think with you sitting in here, says Jameelah.

  Do you have a good lawyer, asks Nico.

  There was some woman here, says Amir, I have no idea if she’s good but she said she would defend me free of charge because my case was so unusual. Not sure but I think she’s doing it as a career move. But it’s good anyway because we don’t have any money for a lawyer.

  And the trial, when does it start, asks Nico.

  Soon. It’s something to do with the juvenile justice system, it’s faster than normal adult cases because I’m not supposed to stay in pre-trial custody for too long.

  What did the lawyer say?

  If I’m lucky I’ll only get five years and then I’ll be deported directly from prison to the airport and then back to Sarajevo.

  Nico shakes his head.

  What the hell?

  What, says Amir.

  This whole thing, says Jameelah, do you think we’re stupid or something?

  We know that you’re innocent, I say softly.

  You don’t know anything, says Amir.

  Man, says Nico, we know you could never do something like this and so does anybody else who knows you even a little.

  Guilty, innocent, says Amir looking out the window, there’s no difference.

  Bullshit, I say.

  You’re throwing your whole life away, says Nico, in four years you’ll be eighteen and you’ll have a serious police record. What can you do after that? Plus you’ll be deported.