Tiger Milk

by Stephanie de Velasco

  It’s not so bad. I don’t want to live in Germany anymore anyway. Did you know I can do my middle school equivalency right here in jail? The teacher is nice, not like that witch Frau Struck. I might even be able to finish my high school degree and start college. I’ve been thinking I might want to be a doctor. Or maybe I can do something related to soccer, I don’t really know.

  Doctor or soccer, says Jameelah tapping her forehead, you’re crazy, you’re in jail, don’t you get it, you’re going to be sentenced for a crime you didn’t commit, that’s insane.

  Leave me alone, says Amir.

  Did Tarik tell you some bullshit, asks Jameelah, did he say that you’d be the hero of the family if you took all the blame on yourself, that all the doors would be open to you, is that what he said, yeah?

  Just go over to that guy and tell him the truth, I whisper nodding toward the guy in uniform.

  Cut it out, says Amir, I thought you wanted to visit me.

  We do but are we supposed to just sit by and watch you throw your life away?

  What I do with my life is none of your business, it’s only to do with me, with me and my family.

  You’re a coward, says Jameelah, saviour of the family my ass. You know what you are? You’re a little girl exactly like Tarik always said.

  Shut up shouts Amir, you always know everything, you always tell us what we’re supposed to do. Jameelah says it’s like this and that’s the way it is, like you have a clue about life! Believe me, there are things that you don’t understand at all, things that aren’t logical but are still right, but you’ll never get it because you don’t have a family, you don’t know what it’s like to think of anyone but yourself!

  Jameelah jumps up and her chair falls over.

  You can kiss my ass, she shouts turning toward the door.

  You kiss my ass, says Amir.

  Cut it out, says Nico grabbing Jameelah’s arm.

  The fuck I’m going to sit back down, she says, what the fuck do you know anyway you fucking kraut. You act as if you have a clue about what’s happening here. It’s pathetic.

  Settle down, calls the guy in uniform, otherwise the visitation permit will be immediately revoked.

  Nico makes a fist. I look pleadingly at Jameelah. She hesitates, looking at the door, then sits back down on her chair shaking her head.

  Listen, says Nico looking at Amir, we just want you to think long and hard about what you’re doing. Family is important but Jasna was family too. You’re innocent I know it, even if I can’t prove it. But if you protect the person who really did it you open yourself up to other charges.

  With his arms folded on his chest Amir looks out the window.

  She wasn’t my real sister anyway.

  What?

  Only half.

  What do mean only half?

  She had a different father, says Amir, it happened during the war.

  Aha, says Nico.

  The sun streams through the window and the tiny dust particles float in the air like in outer space, weightless, without a care in the world, they’ve got nothing else to do in life other than fly around and then gather into a dirty pile. From the perspective of the universe, like Herr Wittner always says, the earth is no different than a speck of dust. Who knows, I think, maybe the particles here in this room are planets and we’re just too big and stupid to see the life living there and all the stuff happening there, bad stuff and beautiful stuff, who knows, that’s the way it is with earth after all which is nothing more than a speck of dust, a rotten speck of dust full of blood and shit.

  What’s up with you says Nico.

  Jameelah rummages around in her trouser pocket but Amir is faster and pulls a huge checkered handkerchief out of his pocket, the kind only old men carry around.

  Don’t cry he says holding it out to me.

  I blow my nose. I don’t know if it’s the grandfather handkerchief or what, no idea, but I’ve never blown my nose so loudly in my entire life, it sounds like the old men who sit in the park and blow their noses and the only thing missing is for me to hold one nostril closed and shoot snot from the other one onto the path. For as long as I can remember Jameelah and I have tried to protect Amir, from the boys who tried to throw his book bag in puddles and said things like what’s the point of all the books and folders you can’t read anyway you can’t write anyway, from the girls who opened shaken up soda bottles in his face and said you stink take a shower, and most of all from Tarik who would smack him on the back of the head and say stop crying you’re not a little girl but now I realize that Amir’s not little at all, no smaller than us, he’s just as big, bigger even, and much bigger and adult and older than all of us combined. I never had a grandfather but this is how I’d imagine him, like Amir, giving me his handkerchief and saying don’t cry like he’d become fifty years older from one day to the next. Maybe that’s how it is, maybe we all get old all of a sudden. Can that be true I wonder, is it possible that it’s not the passage of time that makes us old but the things that happen to us, that make us despair, but that we have to go through whether we want to or not because they are bigger and stronger than we are because life is bigger and stronger than any one person, that maybe it’s these things that make us old.

  I didn’t want her to die you have to believe me, says Amir, you have to believe me, I didn’t want her to die.

  I hand the handkerchief back to him.

  We believe you, I say and look at Jameelah.

  She’s sitting with her arms crossed looking at the toes of her Chucks then she looks up at Amir, at me, out the window and then back at Amir.

  Of course we believe you otherwise we wouldn’t be here, she says reaching for Amir’s hand.

  Slowly I reach out my hand and put it on the table on top of Amir and Jameelah’s hands then Amir puts his other hand on top of mine and then Jameelah does the same and then I pull out my other hand and put it on top of hers and Amir smiles and pulls his hand out from under ours and puts it on top of the pile of hands, Jameelah, me, Amir, just like when we were kids, one for all and all for one Jameelah always used to say, she got it out of some book but now, I think, it’s not like in a book, nothing is like it used to be no matter how many games we play with our hands.

  The uniformed guy clears his throat loudly.

  Time’s up.

  Dig in man, says Nico nodding at the food and shaking Amir’s hand, and think it over, take some time to really think it all over.

  Salam brother, says Jameelah.

  See you soon, I say.

  See you soon, says Amir handing back the handkerchief, here, take it, consider it a gift, you can wash it and keep using it. Not bad, eh? They’ve got tons of them here.

  Thanks, I say putting it in my pocket.

  Do you still have the box, Amir whispers when Nico and Jameelah have moved off to the door.

  Of course, what do you think?

  Get rid of it.

  Why?

  Get rid of it. Don’t open it just throw it away, okay?

  Fine.

  I’m not a bad person Nini.

  I know, I say, I know who you are. We’re going to help you, it’s a promise.

  No, says Amir, it’s too late and now that it’s too late I’d rather bleed than break.

  Totally sad, says Nico when we’re back outside the exit. He takes a sketchbook and a pen out of his lunchbox and walks off along the prison wall. The gift basket is between me and Jameelah and we open the cellophane and take turns drinking from the second bottle of lingonberry juice.

  What are you doing, I ask but Nico doesn’t answer he just stands in front of the wall and doodles in his sketchbook. The sun beats down on us.

  Jameelah rolls her eyes.

  The master artist at work.

  I’m already finished anyway, says Nico stuffing the pad and pen back in his lunchbox.

  What’s the story, says Jamelah.

  This place needs to be tagged, he says, right there on the wall it needs to sa
y sad.

  Jameelah looks at him in disbelief.

  Aerosol really kills brain cells, eh?

  Oh shut your mouth.

  Nico this is seriously stupid, I say, there must be cameras all over the place.

  Nope I saw it when we went in, they can’t see the bit right up close to the wall just around the corner here, he says bending down to the gift basket. He pulls out a can of hunter’s stew, rips open the pull tab, and gulps it down cold.

  You’re an animal, says Jameelah turning away in disgust.

  What’s the problem, says Nico with his mouth full, it’s the perfect dish for this weather.

  How can you eat right now, says Jameelah, especially that stuff that was supposed to be for Amir.

  Sorry, I’m hungry, says Nico, what am I supposed to fast? That won’t get Amir out.

  His calm face and his hands which he keeps wiping on his stained trousers are somehow settling to me. Things will go on. Everything will go on. The trains will continue to run chugging from station to station and the sun will continue to cross the sky, no matter what happens the earth just keeps spinning and us with it, no matter how sad or hopeless you feel, everybody has to eat and drink and shit sooner or later and not just us, Amir too, whatever it is he gets to eat.

  Nico gets off the train at Wilmersdorfer.

  I have to hit the art supply store, see you later, he says kissing me on the cheek but nearly on the mouth.

  What was that, asks Jameelah as the train pulls out of the station, are you guys a couple?

  Don’t be silly, I say, he wishes.

  And you? Don’t you wish it too?

  No idea.

  Come on don’t pretend, says Jameelah smiling at me slyly.

  Cut it out, I say looking out the window.

  I’m not pretending, I can’t possibly think about something like me and Nico at a moment like this. Amir’s handkerchief is in my pocket and I pull it out and make a knot in it, for Jasna, and then another, for Amir, and then I tie another one, for Tarik, one for each dead person, for Jasna because she’s really dead and Amir because he’ll never really have a life again and for Tarik because he’s the most dead of all of them because when you kill someone you kill yourself.

  What are we going to do now, I ask.

  I’m going to the tea shop, says Jameelah, Lukas is back and he might be there. Want to come?

  You said we’d go to the police once we’d visited Amir.

  No I didn’t.

  Yes you did, you promised even.

  I did not, says Jameelah, I promised to help you fish the damn ring out of the bin and I kept that promise. I’m sorry we didn’t find it but I’ve already said that about a thousand times. But other than that I didn’t promise anything.

  You did so.

  No you promised something or have you forgotten, says Jameelah, you promised you wouldn’t go to the police until we spoke to Amir, you even pinky swore it.

  I look at the floor and fidget around with Amir’s handkerchief and tie more knots in it.

  I kept my word, I say, and now we have to go to the police.

  Nini it won’t help him for us to talk.

  Of course it will help him if we talk.

  Right because Amir said to go straight to the cops, I rescind my confession, says Jameelah looking at me like I’m mentally disabled, I must have misheard all of that somehow.

  No, I say, but he did say he didn’t want her to die. He was sad.

  Because of Jasna, says Jameelah.

  No, also because he’s innocent.

  He said it’s none of our business what he does with his life.

  That’s just bullshit you know how he is, I say.

  Bullshit? Have you already forgot the way he shouted at me?

  You provoked him!

  Yeah because I tried to press the truth out of him! So we wouldn’t have to get mixed up in this shit and find ourselves at the cemetery just like Jasna.

  That’s crazy talk.

  No it isn’t. Ever heard of the witness protection programme? You get a totally new identity, a new name, you go to another city, it’s James Bond shit. You’re not allowed to have contact with anyone from your previous life. Is that what you want?

  You watch too much TV.

  Says you of all people! For god’s sake, they’re deciding at this very moment whether I’m allowed to stay in Germany, do you have any idea what that means? One little thing, one false word, and I’m fucked.

  You’re exaggerating, I say, I mean we’re not street kids in Guatemala.

  Jameelah sighs.

  Then go ahead. Go to the cops and tell them everything. But keep me out of it. I wasn’t with you and didn’t see anything, she says standing up, I have to get out.

  Why?

  I’m meeting Nadja at the tea shop I already told you.

  Krap-Krüger tea shop?

  Yep, you coming?

  Nah.

  Fine then don’t.

  Bye.

  Bye. Amir will be so thankful to you. And Tarik most of all.

  I don’t go to the cops I go home, into my room, finally stuff the tabloid paper into the bin and take it down to the yard. I empty the bin into an overflowing skip and the tabloid stays lying there on top, Amir and Jameelah, suspect written above Amir’s head. Up to now I always thought some things were forever, they never changed, never disappeared, like the fossils of animals in biology that are apparently millions of years old. But it’s not true, things aren’t fossilized, Jameelah is right, things always change whether you want them to or not.

  I shove a frozen pizza into the oven and sit down with it in front of the TV but when I go to start eating I notice there are mushrooms on the pizza. I hate mushrooms so I take them all off and burn my fingers doing it and then I realize I don’t feel like eating salami either or ham. At some point there’s nothing left on the pizza but cheese and tomatoes and the cheese and tomatoes are good but when I bite into the pizza I realize it’s still frozen in the middle. I run downstairs to the dumpster again with the plate in my hand. The pizza lands right on Amir’s face.

  My phone rings, it’s Nico.

  How’s it going cutie, he says.

  Like shit. How about you?

  I went to the art supply store and got spray cans. Should I stop by?

  I don’t know, I say.

  Is Jameelah there?

  No she went to the tea shop.

  And you?

  Fuck human rights, I say.

  What’s up?

  Nothing, just Lukas, I say, he gets on my nerves.

  Like I always say he’s a poof.

  Cut it out.

  Okay, okay. Is my brother with you?

  They all went to the cinema.

  Send him over when they’re back, yeah?

  I will. Are you going to head out tonight?

  Yeah, says Nico, I feel like it’s the only thing I can do.

  Can I come?

  No, better not, it’s dangerous.

  That’s why I want to. I can be the lookout.

  Fine, says Nico after a long pause, but it’ll be really late. Take a nap and I’ll call you, then you come down and meet me at the playground.

  Not the playground.

  Fine how about in front of our door. But be quiet, got it?

  Got it.

  See you then cutie.

  I hang up and want to go back to my room but just then the apartment door opens and Mama, Rainer, Jessi, and Pepi come in. Jessi has vampire teeth in her mouth and she jumps into my arms, her hands smell like popcorn and bananas.

  We went to see Twilight Eclipse, they say.

  In addition to the smell of popcorn and bananas there’s also the smell of french fries and suddenly I realize I’m starving. Rainer has two big paper bags in his hand and he goes into the kitchen and unpacks four gyro platters.

  So, now it’s time to eat, says Mama.

  Can Pepi stay to eat, asks Jessi.

  Nico called, I say, and P
epi’s supposed to go home.

  My crown, shouts Pepi and pulls a crumpled Burger King crown out of one of the bags.

  Bye, he says putting on his crown.

  Mama’s hair is down and she has something on her lips, she seems to be in a really good mood. She gets plates out of the cabinet, sets them on the table and puts utensils next to each plate and places napkins from the takeaway bag under each set of utensils. I wonder for a second if I’ve forgotten someone’s birthday but I haven’t.

  Is there ketchup, asks Jessi.

  No, says Rainer pointing first at the meat and then at the tzatziki sauce, you eat it with the white sauce there.

  Sit down sweetie, says Mama to me as she puts a bottle of Lambrusco and a bottle of coke on the table.

  Can I have some of that, asks Jessi pointing at the wine.

  Rainer laughs darkly.

  Now listen up my daughters.

  He pours wine for Mama and himself and we get cola.

  To family, he says lifting his glass.

  We clink our glasses together, I pull my hair back and start to eat. The tzatziki has no flavour, just yoghurt and salt, so I go into the kitchen and grab the ketchup bottle out of the fridge.

  Thanks ever so much, says Rainer glaring at me reproachfully.

  What, I say squirting ketchup onto my plate in a pattern of small red dots.

  Give it to me, says Jessi but Rainer rips the bottle out of my hand and puts it down on the floor next to him.

  You eat it with the white sauce there I already told you.

  Don’t be ridiculous, says Mama to Rainer picking up the ketchup and putting it back on the table. Jessi reaches for it and drowns her entire plate in a sea of red with just a few islands of white tzatziki.

  Goddamn it, says Rainer, this isn’t America.

  That’s enough Jessi, says Mama taking the bottle from her.

  I’m just playing environmental protection, says Jessi with a full mouth, this is the ocean in Japan when they are slaughtering the whales, we learned about it in school.

  And what about you, says Rainer looking at me, what are you learning about in school?

  Papa, says Jessi bursting into laughter, school’s out for summer.

  Something is beeping. It’s pitch dark, I look sleepily at my phone and it says Nico, it’s just after twelve-thirty. I drink the rest of a glass of coke that’s sitting on my nightstand, get dressed, take my Chucks in my hand and creep past Mama’s bedroom.