Stephanie de Velasco - Tiger Milk

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.