Stephanie de Velasco - Tiger Milk

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.