Tiger Milk Read online

  But Amir is our friend, says Jameelah.

  I know, but there are things even friends can’t help with and it’s best not to get involved in something like that.

  I’m not getting involved anyway, says Jameelah, I’m just giving my opinion.

  I don’t want you to give your opinion either, says Noura, I want you to stop talking about it, she says as she glares at us like our teacher, Frau Struck.

  Fine, says Jameelah.

  We have to stay for detention again. During ethics class, Jameelah kept making comments the whole time. It was about Christmas, and whether Jesus was really born on 24 December. Jameelah said that there was no way sheep would be standing around outside a manger in the middle of winter like it says in the Bible.

  In Bethlehem everyone goes skiing, Jameelah said, and to be honest if I were God or the Messiah I would be totally insulted if my birthday was celebrated on a completely different day than the actual date of my birth.

  Frau Struck had replied that Jameelah shouldn’t speak to her in that tone and that she shouldn’t carry on about such things.

  I disagree, Jameelah said, it’s not verboten, but that’s when Struck went off.

  Why are we talking about Christmas right before summer break anyway, I asked at some point, but that was a mistake because Struck said we should both be quiet or else we’d be kicked out of class and she had no desire to discuss the matter further. Struck hates it when anyone tries to discuss anything with her.

  We were quiet for the rest of the class, we thought up good O-words, poke instead of puke, shot instead of shit, coke instead of cake, and we also played city-country-AIDS. Frau Struck realized what we’d been up to when she collected all of our notebooks.

  Detention, she said then, detention for both of you.

  Detention meant going to Tiergarten and gathering leaves with leaf-miner moth cocoons on them. We have to gather chestnut leaves because those are the ones the moths use. The pupae bite into the leaves like little pit bulls and then spawn like crazy when they come out. This year they’ve arrived early, so to keep the plague from getting any worse we have to gather leaves. Nobody seems to care that there’s no point, that the whole city is full of the moths, and that it just gets worse every year, with more moths and more damaged trees.

  It’s just an arbitrary task, Rainer always says, they have to make you do something.

  They’re a bit like us foreigners, says Jameelah, you just can’t get rid of them.

  What Frau Struck doesn’t get is that we actually like to go to Tiergarten. There’s a boy there I like. He’s a gardener and he sits in front of the shed where we have to go to get the bin bags and rakes we use to gather leaves. He always smiles so sweetly at us when we show up, once again, and sometimes he smells of Weleda lotion, which I like.

  So what did you guys do today, he asks.

  Nothing, says Jameelah, we were just playing city-country-AIDS.

  City-country-AIDS? What’s that?

  It’s the same as city-country-river, only we use diseases instead of rivers. We don’t know the names of too many rivers, you know.

  It’s nice and cool in the park. We walk around the lawn barefoot and collect leaves while trying to come up with more normal words that you’re not allowed to say.

  UFO, says Jameelah.

  UFO doesn’t count, I say.

  Why not, says Jameelah, UFO is a normal word but you can’t say it too loud or believe in it or else everyone thinks you’re crazy.

  Yeah but saying something and believing in it are two different things, I say.

  Not at all, says Jameelah, words only exist because people believe in them, otherwise the word wouldn’t have been thought up, UFO is like the word God, the only reason we have the word God is because people believe in it.

  Bullshit, I say.

  Really, says Jameelah, do you think you would know the word leaf-miner moth if there was no such thing? Admit it, it’s just too deep a concept for you.

  No it isn’t, I say.

  They come from the Balkans by the way, says Jameelah, just like Amir.

  Who does?

  The leaf-miner moths, Jameelah says holding up the bag full of leaves, they emigrated just like Amir.

  No way.

  It’s true, I read it the other day in the free paper on the U-bahn.

  All the things Jameelah knows. Sometimes it can be really annoying because it makes it difficult to say it’s bullshit when she says, for instance, all that stuff about belief and the existence of words. You can never tell someone they’re wrong when they think they know everything, especially when they actually do know everything.

  We head to the outdoor pool. I love it there. I love everything about it, the smell of the chlorine you get as soon as you walk in the gate, the suntanned boys, the noise of the splashing water, the way the girls shriek when the boys do cannonballs, I even like the mouldy showers and the way little twigs and pebbles press into my back through the towel. But the thing I like the most is the food. Sometimes I think I would go to the pool for the food alone.

  As we’re walking across the lawn, Jameelah suddenly stops.

  Back there, she whispers digging her fingernails into my shoulder, Lukas is lying there all by himself.

  I smile.

  Come on, I say taking her by the hand. As slick and cool as possible we stroll on across the lawn.

  Hi, says Jameelah when we stop next to Lukas, and her shadow falls across his face.

  As if he’s just woken from a deep sleep Lukas suddenly sits up and yanks the white earbuds out of his ears. Strange that he even has an iPod, I think, considering that he learned how to count using dried peach pits at that crazy school of his. Laura told me that, and also that they hang tapestries in the corners so the kids don’t see right-angles and that instead of learning vocabulary words they build pizza ovens.

  Hi, says Lukas and when he sees Jameelah smiling at him he smiles back.

  I look at his earbuds again, which have dropped into his lap. They’re almost as white as his skin. Hopefully he’s put on a lot of sunscreen, I think, but then again people like Lukas are always conscientious about putting on sunscreen because they know when things are dangerous, whether it’s to do with the sun or just life in general. So people like Lukas rarely get burned by the sun or anything else in life.

  I see Amir farther back on the lawn, he’s walking toward us and waving. Jameelah lays her towel down next to Lukas.

  I have an Aladdin towel, Jameelah has a Coca-Cola towel, and Amir has no towel. It doesn’t matter, though, because I almost never go in the water and Amir just uses mine. I’m afraid of the water. Laura, Kathi, and the others from the planet sometimes laugh at me for it, but Jameelah and Amir understand even though they aren’t afraid of the water. Jameelah and Amir are afraid of firecrackers, but I never laugh at them for it. That’s how it is with friends. Which is also why I always get something for them at the snack kiosk with the money Mama gives me, she gives me money whenever I say I’m going to the pool. I walk over to the kiosk and buy a bulette for myself, a pair of chicken sausages for Jameelah, and french fries and Kinder chocolates for all of us to share.

  Last year there was a stabbing at the pool, so this summer it’s crawling with security. I think it’s good because now people are afraid to steal things. But it’s not really as dangerous a place as it sounds.

  What are you doing, I say watching Amir take alternating bites of fries and chocolate.

  It tastes good, he says, try it.

  No way.

  Seriously, Amir says, it tastes kind of like meat, but sweet.

  Steak and Kinder pie, says Jameelah.

  I laugh.

  If you barbecue beefy sweets for too long, says Jameelah, you get cinder chocolates.

  Jameelah jumps up.

  And if something goes wrong and your garden goes up in flames you’ll be left with a cindergarten.

  Lukas laughs out loud. We lay around on our towels and contin
ue to crunch words and then Laura, Kathi, and Anna-Lena show up. Once again Anna-Lena looks like she’s been freshly laundered on the gentle cycle.

  Hey, she says to me, your sister is getting off with some guy back by the changing rooms, the brother of that girl Mareike Mauel.

  Oh God, says Laura, that’s the girl with the see-through bikini.

  Anna-Lena nods.

  Got to be at least sixteen years old.

  The see-through bikini?

  No her brother, says Anna-Lena giggling, but maybe the bikini too by the looks of it.

  Kathi and Laura giggle too and I turn bright red.

  I’d love to have something cool to say right now but nothing pops into my head, which always happens in moments like this. Instead I watch as Anna-Lena lays down a huge flower-pattern towel next to Laura. I realize immediately she’s got her period, she doesn’t even take off her shorts, that’s how scared she is it might leak out. What’s the point of her even coming to the pool if she’s so worried. She reeks of flowery perfume, and now this towel. What kind of idiotic parents does she have, I wonder, buying her perfume like that and expensive shampoo and a towel like that, I mean, Anna-Lena, who would call their kid that, what a perverse way to welcome someone to the world, as if that’s necessary, such a long name, as if children haven’t been produced since the dawn of time, all sorts of things like that rush through my head but of course I can’t say any of that or they would all think I’d completely lost my chador.

  Come on, says Jameelah taking my hand, let’s go over to the diving platforms.

  Nico and Tobi come through the gate and head across the lawn toward the others. Nico is wasted, you can tell from across the yard. I sit down on the warm stone tiles next to the pool and watch as Jameelah climbs the steps to the ten-metre platform. With her arms stretched wide she lifts herself up and down on the balls of her feet.

  Can someone put on Carmina Burana, she yells, I’m going to do a double Rittberger.

  The security guards look at her blankly. Jameelah springs head first into the air, arms and legs fluttering like rags. The way she hangs in the air, just like on TV, when people were jumping out of that tower in America, it scares the shit out of me, and I’m relieved when she finally hits the water with a splash. I watch her swim beneath the surface until she reaches the edge of the pool by me.

  So how was I, she asks grinning as she climbs out of the water. Her right thigh is bright red.

  It looked pretty dangerous, I say.

  Above, on the diving platform, Amir stands staring down into the depths.

  Don’t look down, yells Jameelah.

  Amir stares into the water as if there’s some sort of beast waiting below to eat him, until finally the pool superintendent says something to him and points at the people waiting behind him.

  Oh no, says Jameelah as Amir steps aside and the waiting kids push past him and splash one after the next into the pool below. Amir goes back out to the edge of the platform.

  That’s not how you do it, says Jameelah, you have to just jump, you can’t think about it or you’ll never do it.

  A couple of boys start jeering him.

  Loser, loser!

  I look up at Amir, who looks much smaller up there, smaller than he really is, he looks down at the water, up at the sky where his father apparently is, then down at the water again, but then he turns around and climbs gingerly back down the steps.

  The boys start jeering him again.

  Chickenshit, says Jameelah smiling when Amir makes it down to us.

  Cut it out, he says.

  What, she says, it’s not a crime to be chickenshit.

  You don’t know anything, says Amir, you’re a girl, you don’t have balls that can burst on impact.

  Burst on impact, says Jameelah laughing out loud, who told you that bullshit?

  It’s not bullshit, Tarik told me.

  Tarik talks shit.

  Oh, fuck off, says Amir.

  You fuck off, says Jameelah.

  Cut it out, I say, who wants an ice lolly?

  Eating sweets together always helps end a fight.

  I run into Nico at the snack kiosk. He has a currywurst and fries in one hand and at least four ice cream bars in the other and under his arm is a giant bag of crisps. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses.

  You got the munchies, I ask smiling, but Nico just smiles back and kisses me on the cheek.

  Always, he says.

  His kiss is just right, warm and a little bit moist.

  They’re sold out of ice lollies so I buy slush puppies, and as we cross the lawn I keep an eye out for Jessi in case she’s standing around somewhere hooking up, but I don’t see her. Instead I see Jasna and Dragan lying down kissing. Jasna is wearing the bright yellow bikini and she has her long legs wrapped around Dragan, he’s running his hand up and down her thigh, it’s almost like in a porn film the way they’re going at it as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist but then suddenly Dragan sits up and looks over at me.

  What are you looking at, he yells.

  I’m not looking at anything, I say.

  Look somewhere else, got it?

  Shut up, says Nico, and Dragan actually shuts up.

  Tobi and Nadja have spread out their towels next to ours. Jameelah sits down at the foot of Lukas’s towel and has him spread sunscreen on her back. A victorious smile spreads across her face and she makes a V with her fingers. Anna-Lena, Laura, Kathi, Tobi, and Nadja play Taboo, Anna-Lena brought it, I don’t feel like playing Taboo with Anna-Lena so I start to squeeze blackheads on Nico’s back, it’s fun.

  That’s disgusting, says Anna-Lena, cut it out or I’ll have a herpes outbreak.

  You get outbreaks from everything, says Lukas, you even get it when people talk about spiders.

  Spiders are totally disgusting, says Anna-Lena.

  What a load of shit, says Jameelah, spiders are the protectors of sleep.

  Exactly, says Amir, they crawl into the corners hunting evil. It’s the only reason people are able to sleep in peace.

  That sounds beautiful, says Lukas, so poetic.

  Hunting evil, says Anna-Lena looking at Amir with her best just-bit-into-a-lemon face, what’s that supposed to mean? Sounds like something out of the Middle Ages, she says.

  Shut your trap, says Jameelah.

  Right, says Amir, watch what you say.

  I’ll say what I want, says Anna-Lena to Jameelah, and by the way your tampon string is hanging out of your panties.

  Impossible, Jameelah answers all slick and cool.

  Joking, says Anna-Lena even though it wasn’t funny.

  Stop it, says Lukas, rolling toward Jameelah and whispering something in her ear.

  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.