Tiger Milk (6 page)

The one from the animal, asks Jameelah laughing.

Lukas nods.

What about an animal, asks Nico, looking at me, but I shrug my shoulders and look at Lukas and the way he wraps his arms around his knees and listens to Jameelah. He really looks like Bambi sitting on that green towel with his dark eyes, a Bambi who learned how to count using dried peach pits and a towel as green as the forest Bambi runs into when someone’s chasing him. I could never fall for someone like that, I think to myself, but such a green home I’d like to have, a home I could run to when somebody was chasing me. But I don’t have one and neither does Jameelah, we just have the trees in the playground, and we can’t even remember the names of those. Nico doesn’t have a forest home either though he sure has a lot of grass, and whenever he rolls a joint I’m the first one he passes it to. I look up at the cloudless sky, close my eyes, and fly away. The sun burns. Everything smells like french fries and sunscreen.

The boy in the purple swimsuit, yells the pool superintendent, dive in from the side of the pool again and you get a lifetime ban.

Life vests squeak against wet baby fat and a baby cries somewhere in the distance.

Where did you hurt yourself, asks someone.

On the wee wee, says a child crying more loudly.

Wasps buzz by, Jameelah laughs, Lukas laughs, Nico laughs.

Shit, mutters Amir suddenly.

A shadow falls across my face. I open my eyes and see Tarik standing in front of me with Jasna in her yellow bikini next to him. Her hair is wet from swimming and glistens like the bling on the bikini. Tarik is holding Jasna by the arm but she’s not struggling against him, she’s just standing there next to him with a slight grin on her face acting like she doesn’t care.

Tarik shoos Amir off the towel.

Get up and give it to me.

Amir tosses him my towel.

This is Nini’s towel, says Jameelah, standing up.

Jasna laughs.

When my fiancé sees I’m gone, he’s going to kill him, says Jasna nodding at Tarik, he’s going to kill him sooner or later anyway if he doesn’t leave me alone.

Shame on you, says Tarik.

Shame on
you
, Jasna says and then she spits in his face, making me wince. Anna-Lena stares at Jasna with her mouth open.

Let’s go in the water, says Kathi to Laura.

Tarik throws Amir his clothes.

Come on, get dressed, I’ll wait for you out front.

Amir dresses hurriedly.

Just like I said, I hear Anna-Lena say, like the Middle Ages.

Should we come, asks Jameelah.

Amir shakes his head.

No, he says, squeeze some more pimples, then he grabs his backpack, which has nothing but notebooks and pens and
fussball
cards in it since he’s still wearing his wet bathing suit under his jeans. He walks slowly across the lawn toward the exit, the green grass looks suddenly yellow and Amir like a thirsty wanderer staggering across the desert.

A blond guy in a purple bathing suit sprints past us in the direction of the exit. It’s Dragan.

It’s insanely hot in the S-bahn. Jameelah and I practically doze off as we suck on our monster slushies. It’s so hot that it makes your skin look as if you have a rash.

Man, Anna-Lena today, I say.

Jameelah rolls her eyes.

I guarantee that shit about Jessi was a lie, she says.

Not to mention the tampon string, I say, that was just sad.

She actually said the word
panties
, she says, I mean, I just don’t get it, who would ever say
panties
? We’re not living in some Enid Blyton book.

True, I say, though I have no idea who Enid Blyton is and again I wonder how Jameelah knows this kind of stuff. She always remembers names and all sorts of trivia, like the whole thing with the leaf-miner moths, that they come from the Balkans. It’s so German of her, and I want to tell her that, but I’m too hot to bother.

Seriously, says Jameelah, if I’m Stella Stardust and you are Sophia Saturna, then Anna-Lena is Frieda Giga. Frieda Giga, the most frigid cow in the world.

We should ask Amir, I say.

I’d rather not, says Jameelah scratching her upper arm, shit, I got bitten by a mosquito.

Where’d you get that weird scar, I ask pointing at her arm.

I told you before.

No you didn’t.

I did so.

Did not.

Really? They’re from immunizations I got when I was little, says Jameelah. They shoot it into your arm with this thing that’s like a gun, and it leaves a scar. It’s not like here, not like the shot they give you for measles or whatever.

Where’d you get that one, she asks pointing at a scar on my neck.

That’s from a time I choked on a
wurst
casing and had to get a tracheotomy. My parents were still together then, they didn’t understand what was wrong when I started running around the table like a madman. The EMT who responded cut a hole so I could breath. Then I went in an ambulance to the children’s hospital. I got to stay overnight. My father left soon after that. I know because when he told us he was leaving I still had the bandages on my neck.

I was in the children’s hospital once too, remember, because of this, Jameelah says and lifts her foot and points to a narrow scar on her ankle, I was in the bathtub, leaning my foot on that thing that holds the soap. It broke off and cut open my leg. It bled really bad and they had to give me stitches. The doctor who stitched it up was so nice. I was really sad when I had to go home again.

Me too, I say, I didn’t want to leave, I was jealous of the kids who got to live there, even though they were really sick, you know, I didn’t care, somehow I thought they had it good there despite that.

Going to the outdoor pool always makes you incredibly tired. We shuffle from the train station to the playground. Like two exhausted pilgrims we let ourselves fall to the ground in the sandbox and bury our feet in the cool sand. The sand sticks to our bare arms and legs like in a magazine photo. I close my eyes but Jameelah says, don’t fall asleep, it’s not allowed and I shake my head and reach for her hand and we lie there next to each other and let life float by because we have so much time, because the clock has only just struck fourteen minutes past birth, meaning we have nearly another fifty to go, and that’s a long time.

Jameelah suddenly stands up.

What is it?

Do you hear that, she asks.

What?

Somebody’s crying.

I try hard to listen but still don’t hear anything.

Seriously, it’s coming from the top of the slide, up there in the play fort.

We cross the sandbox, go past our trees, and over to the play fort. Now I can hear it too, someone is quietly sobbing.

Hello, says Jameelah, is someone up there?

Two henna-tattoo covered hands slowly come over the wall of the play fort and then a crying face appears. With her legs pulled up to her chest Jasna is sitting in the fort surrounded by cigarette butts and blue mascara is running down her cheeks in long streaks.

Are you okay, asks Jameelah.

Stupid question, I think to myself.

Do you guys have cigarettes, asks Jasna.

Of course, says Jameelah pulling her tobacco out of her pocket.

I don’t know how, says Jasna smiling sheepishly and pointing to the loose tobacco, I don’t know how to roll them.

No problem, says Jameelah, I’ll do it.

My fiancé always has real cigarettes. I only smoke real cigarettes, that’s why I don’t know how to roll them.

Where is he, I ask.

He’ll be here any minute, we arranged it. I just don’t want Tarik to find me. I waited until he had to go to the bathroom and then I ran out.

What an asshole, says Jameelah, at the pool today.

I swear, says Jasna, if he doesn’t leave me alone there’s going to be real trouble, but I don’t want that. Tarik’s my brother after all. Without your family you’re nothing.

Without your family you’re nothing, what an insane sentence, I think to myself, and it’s not even true. Everyone always says it but only because other people are always saying it and that certainly doesn’t make it so. With her long fingers Jasna reaches for the lit cigarette Jameelah holds out to her and she smokes it in a series of deep tokes, kind of like Dragan. Did she pick it up from him, I wonder, and why do people always become so similar when they’re together.

Tarik’s just jealous that you’re engaged, says Jameelah.

Are you guys really engaged, I ask.

Yeah, says Jasna.

Show us the ring.

Jasna shoves the cigarette into the corner of her mouth, pulls up her right sleeve, and sticks out her henna tattooed hand. I stare at the ring like an idiot, dumbstruck, like when you run into someone you haven’t seen in ages. It’s narrow, made of gold, with three stones in the middle, two little white ones on either side of a big green one.

Is it real, asks Jameelah.

Jasna nods.

Where’d you get it, I ask.

What do you mean, Dragan gave it to me.

I mean where did Dragan get it?

It’s from his mother, and she got it from her mother, it’s a family heirloom.

My ass it’s a family heirloom, I say grabbing her hand.

What are you doing, says Jasna and yanks her hand away.

That’s not his ring, I say, he stole it.

Stole it, what are you talking about? Watch what you say.

That ring never belonged to anyone in Dragan’s family, he stole it.

Jameelah looks at me with a questioning look on her face but then Jasna’s phone rings.

I’m on my way, she says making a kissing sound and then hanging up.

You can’t leave now, I say.

Jasna laughs.

Why?

Because of the ring, it doesn’t belong to you!

What’s all this shit you’re talking, says Jasna, standing up. She flicks the cigarette into the sand, jumps down from the slide, and walks off toward the U-bahn station.

What was that all about, asks Jameelah.

Leave me alone, I say, I need to think.

Think about what?

My mother. Her engagement ring. That was it, that ring on Jasna’s finger.

I thought your father took it.

Obviously not, because if he had then Dragan couldn’t have put it on Jasna. He stole it, plain and simple.

Jameelah looks at me sceptically.

You’re crazy. How is he supposed to have taken it?

I have no idea, but that was the ring.

Are you sure?

Pretty sure.

Pretty sure isn’t enough.

Whose side are you on anyway, I say.

Nobody’s side. What’s wrong with you?

The Sorbs shot off Tarik’s leg.

What does that have to do with the ring?

Nothing. But I can understand why Tarik doesn’t want Jasna with someone like that.

Serbs, Sorbs, nice O-language switch, says Jameelah.

Fuck O-language, I say, I want the ring back.

Just because that poor Sorb bastard makes too many spit puddles doesn’t mean he stole any engagement ring, says Jameelah.

Hello, that poor Sorb bastard is the same guy who threw rocks at our heads, in case you forgot.

Nah.

It’s true.

You and your childhood memories, says Jameelah looking at me distrustfully, but listen it’s too hot out to fight.

When Jameelah and I go shoplifting it usually works like this. We lock ourselves in the girls’ bathroom after school and drink Tiger Milk, but not too much, when we’re going shoplifting it’s not about getting wasted, it’s about getting up the nerve. I’m always really anxious about shoplifting, I got caught the very first time I ever tried to steal something. That was a few years ago now, but ever since I can’t be the one who actually grabs the stuff. I’m always Jameelah’s accomplice, but that’s just as important.

We head to the mall a bit tipsy and check our rucksacks at the front of Kaufland. We buy a large Müller milk and dump half of it into the ugly plastic plant next to the escalator, then we go into the Bijou Brigitte shop. I hold the Müller container and whisper that’s cheap, real cheap, whenever the saleswoman isn’t looking our way. That’s the signal that Jameelah can drop something into the milk. If the saleswoman is looking when Jameelah is about to put something into the container I say that’s too expensive. You can’t believe how much will fit in a wide-mouth container like that, even sunglasses and hair bands.

If Nico is at the planet we let him drink out the milk when we’re done stealing, he loves Müller milk, no matter what flavour. He guzzles it down in one go like he’s the great sea god of Müller milk draining his own ocean. Sometimes we ourselves can’t believe all the treasure lying on the ocean floor of the Müller milk container, the shiny glittering things awaiting us, we feel like real life pirates returning to hoist our buried treasure after many years.

The jewellery we like the best, we keep, the rest of it we give to the others. Sometimes we even take things back, we just leave it on the shelf again, but that’s rare I have to admit. I never return any jewellery with green stones, I always take that home even if I know I’ll never wear it, if it has a green stone it’s coming home with me. I never understood why until recently, but now I get it. I was at a session with Frau Fuhrmeister, the school psychologist, and had to paint pictures of Mama, Rainer, and Jessi as animals and then I had to paint one of Papa. I painted Rainer as a camel and Papa as a dog, I remember because those were the ones we talked about for a long time afterwards. I found it all really annoying, but in the end I realized why I had depicted Rainer as a camel and Papa as a dog, because dogs are my favourite animals and camels, well they are not. We didn’t talk that time about Mama’s engagement ring or green stones, but it doesn’t matter, I’m sure Fuhrmeister would say it’s the same as with the animals, it’s a psychological tick of mine, because of Papa, and it’s as real as the engagement ring and as real as the fact that Dragan, that Sorbian thief, managed to steal the ring somehow.

Today there’s something green on the seabed of the Müller milk container, a bellybutton piercing with a green stone, though my bellybutton’s not pierced, actually it was but it got infected as soon as it was pierced and then it closed up. I stick the piercing in my mouth and suck off the milk and Jameelah gives the look. It means watch it here comes Lukas. I quickly hide the Müller container in her rucksack. People like Lukas don’t think it’s cool to steal jewellery in milk containers, seriously, it’s the truth, so I understand what Jameelah wants.