Stephanie de Velasco - Tiger Milk

Jameelah stops jumping and lets herself drop onto the bed and looks at me with worry in her eyes.

What’s wrong with you, she asks.

Nothing, I say.

Something’s definitely wrong.

I dab toilet paper around my mouth.

Nothing, I say, my mouth just hurts. I think you were right.

The stitches came out?

No idea but it’s definitely bleeding, but don’t worry somebody’s coming to have a look in a little while. Have you heard anything from Amir, I ask.

No, says Jameelah.

I called him, I say.

Really? I didn’t know you could call him.

Me either but Nico told me.

So?

He wasn’t there, he’s only allowed to go to the phone at certain times.

Aha.

I look out the window.

What is it, says Jameelah.

Maybe we should go to the cops after all, I say.

Don’t start that again.

What happens, I ask, if it turns out that somebody saw us?

Who could have seen us?

I don’t know but it’s possible. If somebody did we’re accomplices to murder, you can go to jail for that.

Where did you hear that?

Nowhere, it just occurred to me last night.

Last night?

Jameelah looks at me suspiciously.

You didn’t tell Nico did you?

Bullshit what do you think, I say and fidget with the bedclothes making lots of small folds and looking out the window, at the bed, out the window, at the bed, out the window, in the reflection I can see Jameelah chewing on her nails and spitting chips of nail polish out on the hospital floor, then she pulls out her keychain and works at her nails with a key and then suddenly she looks over at me and there’s a smile across her entire face.

I’ve got it, she says.

What?

Shaglings.

What?

Shaglings. That’s what you call two friends who lose their virginity on the same day.

Sounds stupid to me, I say.

No it doesn’t, you’re just saying that.

No I’m not.

Yes you are.

Kiss my ass.

I go over to the window and look out at the park.

The playground’s open again, says Jameelah.

Really?

Yeah, the day before yesterday they took away the barriers.

Cross.

Jameelah looks at the clock.

I have to go, I’m meeting Lukas. Just wanted to tell you the news.

Sure, have fun.

I stay at the window. A few minutes later I watch Jameelah run off through the park, jogging between the trees until she’s just a tiny black hopping dot. I lie down under the covers and try to sleep but I can’t. I pretend I’m sleeping, lying there like the burned girl, like Mama when she’s on the sofa, on her island, like Papa when he says the connection is bad, I’m on the train and then hangs up, that’s exactly the same as pretending to be asleep, I can do it too, if Mama and Papa are so good at it maybe it’s genetic and I have the gene too. You can wake up a sleeping person but you can never wake somebody who’s just pretending to be asleep, I think but I don’t think it in a normal way I just keep thinking the same sentence over and over again like the Catholics with that one poem they keep repeating and call it praying, or like those Indians in the orange robes who lie on a bed of nails or on glowing coals, they always repeat some phrase, that’s why they don’t need to eat or drink because it’s like some kind of magic spell that protects you, it’s like saying abracadabra and managing to do something that’s actually impossible in the normal world.

I open my eyes suddenly and gasp for breath like after a bad dream.

I need to get out of here, I need to do something, I can’t wait for the doctor to come, I grab my suitcase out from under the bed and pack up my stuff as fast as I can then I creep down the staircase and out through the park.

Mama, I call when I unlock the door to the apartment, but Mama isn’t there and instead I hear ‘Mr Boombastic’ coming from the TV at deafening volume. Jessi and Pepi are in the living room in their underwear jumping up and down on Mama’s sofa. Jessi has stuck something into the front of her underwear but I can’t tell what it is.

Mister Boombastic, sings Pepi jumping from the sofa to Rainer’s comfy chair, Mister Boombastic, he has a carrot in his underwear and the orange tip is sticking out. Next to the TV is Amir’s box, open.

What’s going on here, I shout.

Watch, screams Pepi pointing to the TV.

Only now do I realize that the music is coming out of Rainer’s stereo and that the TV is on mute. I look at the TV but the whole screen is the colour of flesh, what kind of movie is this I wonder, and then at second glance I realize what I’m looking at is a close-up of naked flesh. A naked woman is lying on a lounge chair and having her upper body smeared with oil by a hairy man while she shoves a hairbrush up her ass. I notice my jaw is hanging wide open as the woman with the brush moans.

Oh my god, Jessi yells bouncing on the sofa like a rubber ball, oh my god, and then I see that Jessi has a courgette stuck into the front of her underwear. The woman on the lounge chair moans, the man has his hands on the brush now and he’s moving it faster and faster.

Stop, I shout, both of you.

Jessi squeals, Pepi jumps off the sofa and runs to the door and the carrot falls out of his underwear.

Go straight home do you hear, I call after him.

Jessi starts to cry.

I pull the TV plug out of the wall, jump onto Mama’s sofa and smack Jessi, I grab the courgette and throw it to the other end of the apartment.

What are you thinking messing around with my things, I shout while shaking her.

Pepi isn’t allowed to go home, Jessi screams, Mama said so.

Why not, I ask.

They said we had to stay here, I hear Pepi say, he’s in the doorway standing with one foot on top of the other and his toes curled up.

Who said?

Nico.

And Mama, says Jessi.

They went to the police, Nico said, right away, and then, says Pepi, and then they said we have to stay here and not open the door for anyone.

The police?

Yeah, the police.

Get dressed right away, I say.

I go to the stereo and turn off the music and then take the DVD out of the DVD player and take Amir’s box under my arm into my room. I grab the ashtray that’s sitting outside on the windowsill and crumble apart old cigarette butts and collect the dregs until I have enough leftover tobacco to roll a new one. I inhale deeply on the dregarette and the old tobacco burns down fast, I take another drag straight away, smoking like Dragan, inhaling so hard that it can’t keep up, and then with my fingers trembling I open Amir’s box. There’s a pile of DVDs inside with naked people on the covers, mostly women, the one on top shows a woman blowing a guy. I take the DVDs out of the box and lay them cover-down on the floor in front of me like I’m playing memory, like this will somehow help me figure out why Amir gave all of this to me. One after the next I turn the covers right-side-up. I still can’t figure it out.

I put the DVDs back in the box. On the last one there’s actually a cute guy on the cover. He’s reaching with one hand into his underwear and grinning, he has the same blue eyes as Tarik and the same dark curly hair, but I’ve never seen Tarik so happily grinning like that, Tarik only smiled sadly and unlike the guy on the DVD Tarik’s hair never looked cute because whenever it started to look cute Tarik cut it immediately. Tarik never wanted to be cute even though he could have, but then again that’s exactly what I liked about him. I take another deep drag on the cigarette as if it will help fend off the sadness and then I see that there’s blood on the filter. I go to the bathroom, shove toilet paper into the back of my mouth and look in the mirror.

Noura said one time that brave people are the ones who do things they are afraid of, that is, when someone does something they’re not really afraid of anyway, like diving off the ten-metre platform, then no matter how brave it looks it has nothing to do with bravery.