Stephanie de Velasco - Tiger Milk

Nico called, I say, and Pepi’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.

The door is open and Rainer is snoring, it sounds like too much Lambrusco. As quietly as possible I close the door behind me and walk downstairs barefoot. Nico is sitting on his BMX bike, smoke is rising above him. He smiles when he sees me and runs his hand along his clean-shaven skull which is gleaming in the light of a streetlamp.

Hey, says Nico taking me in his arms.

I press my nose to his throat. He smells like the stuff in the spray cans, that stuff that Jameelah meant when she said it kills your brain cells. Nico’s not stupid, Nico’s clever, more clever than all of us together, he just doesn’t make a point of showing it like Lukas.

Hop on, says Nico putting his feet on the pedals.

I get on behind him, standing on the stunt pegs attached to his rear axle, and he pedals off.

There’s barely anybody on the streets in the middle of the night, the city drifts past us, buildings, trees, traffic lights. We ride down the length of Yorckstrasse to Kleist and then Ku’damm, we barely speak, just the sound of the spray cans rattling quietly in Nico’s rucksack. I’ve never gone so far on a bike before, I never ride bikes at all, but standing behind Nico on the pegs I like it, and I also like the way Nico never looks left or right when we cross an intersection. Theoretically we could get run over at every single intersection and it feels like we’re playing a game of rock paper scissors with our lives, but when I see that he’s turning onto the autobahn it seems a little weird to me.

Are you crazy, I shout.

Nico laughs and races down the emergency lane as cars honk like mad as they whizz past.

We’ll be off again in a second, it’s a shortcut.

He leans into a curve and turns off at the next exit ramp. We go under an S-bahn bridge, straight ahead until the lights become smaller and less frequent. The noise of the autobahn gets softer and softer and at some point you can’t hear anything at all anymore, just the swaying of the tree tops in the forest. The BMX bike bucks like a young horse over the tree roots. Nico brakes.

You’ve lost your mind, I say.

The opposite of living is being bored, says Nico grinning.

What the hell kind of bullshit saying is that?

Don’t be like that, it all went just fine.

My eyes slowly get used to the dark. It seems like an eternity since Jameelah and I carried Amir’s gift basket along this very same trail even though it was only this afternoon. Twigs snap beneath our feet and something chirps not far away.

Do you hear that, I say. It’s a nightingale. Did you know there are more of them here than in Bavaria? Jameelah told me.

This is the animal capital of Germany after all, says Nico lighting up the joint that he’s had tucked behind his ear up to this point.

Animal capital of Germany, what does that mean?

No idea, people just say it. Probably because there are so many dogs. It’s just like the cows in India except here it’s dogs.

I like dogs, I say.

Me too. I like all animals, says Nico.

Most men hate animals, I say.

Bullshit, says Nico.

It’s true. They rip off their wings or burn them with magnifying glasses or shove straws up their asses to blow them up until they explode. It’s true that’s what boys always do.

I don’t know, says Nico.

They do, I say, that’s the way it is and do you know what they do with the most beautiful animals of all? The most beautiful animals are captured and stuffed. Or they spear them, like with Jasna.

You’re crazy, says Nico.

In front of us you can make out the prison in the distance. There’s a bright light above the wall, it rotates like the beacon in a lighthouse and shines over the tops of the trees. We stop at the edge of the woods and Nico hides his bike in some bushes.

Listen, he says putting his hand on my shoulder, you stay here and watch the road for people or cars coming past. It doesn’t matter what kind of car you yell, okay?

Okay.

Have you ever seen Forrest Gump ?

Yeah, why?

If I say run then you run as far and as fast as you can, got it?

Okay.

Nico grabs a mask from his rucksack.

Why is it a crime to paint walls anyway, I ask.

Painting walls isn’t a crime, putting an innocent person in prison is a crime, says Nico putting on his mask.

I must have fallen asleep somehow.

Sleepyhead, whispers Nico shaking me gently.

Sorry, I murmur.

Do you want to have a look?

Yeah, I say getting slowly to my feet. My legs have fallen asleep and they tingle as I cross the street. I can already make it out from far away. I want to go closer but Nico shakes his head. We stand silently in the bushes with the freshly painted wall in front of us. Sad it says in big blue letters on the wall, dark blue outlines, light blue inside, and all around the prison wall, the letters are round and soft and funny. The rotating beacon lights up Nico’s face at regular intervals.

Blue is Amir’s favourite colour, I say.

Blue also means sad, says Nico.

Somewhere behind there he’s sleeping, I say.

Maybe he’s not sleeping at all, says Nico, maybe he’s lying awake thinking about what we said to him today, maybe he’s shitting himself about throwing his future away and is finally coming to his senses.

Yeah, I say, I hope so.

But the other guy, says Nico, I’ll bet he’s sleeping nice and sound.