Stephanie de Velasco - Tiger Milk

The red orb in the sky disappears behind the radio tower, it’s nearly nighttime up here in the tree.

Visegrad, I say, the sound of the word is nice. Like a combination of vitamins and ice and grass and glad.

Yeah, says Amir, people think so. But it’s always the case that places where bad things happen sound nice, well, either funny or nice, did you ever notice that?

Yeah, I say, I thought that about Fukushima.

Or Auschwitz, says Amir, Auschwitz sounds like Slivovitz, don’t you think? It makes everything that much more awful you know, it’s like poetry, that combination of tragedy and comedy, life seems to love that sort of thing.

You think so?

Yeah, says Amir, definitely. That’s the way life is. When things are going too well something has to come along to mess things up, otherwise it wouldn’t be life you know.

Night has descended on his face, just the whites of his eyes, four half moons, glint at me.

Where was she lying, he asks.

I look down at the ground, at the dry dirt around the trunk.

There.

Where exactly?

There, I say and point down to a spot next to where we used to play marbles.

What did she look like, Amir asks.

What do you mean, I say.

I mean at the end. How did she look?

I stare at the spot where Jasna had lain. Her tight white t-shirt, blood running out of her left side and soaking into the ground, pinkish yellow puke in the corner of her mouth and her eyes like in that YouTube video where a group of men hunt down a woman and kill her in the street in some hot country.

Go on, tell me.

Peaceful, I say.

Really?

Yes. Very peaceful.

Rainer’s taxi is standing in front of the building. I go through the courtyard and up the stairs and look for the key to the apartment but I’ve barely stuck it into the lock before the door opens. Mama grabs me by my hair and yanks me into the apartment and the next second I get smacked in the face.

Do you know how late it is, she screams, you shouldn’t be roaming around like this, how many times do I have to tell you!

I duck out of the way.

First and second period are cancelled tomorrow, I say.

I do not care, Mama screams, after everything that’s happened. We get worried.

Rainer comes out to the hall.

When it’s dark you are at home, that’s what we agreed, he says, and as long as you are living under my roof you will stick to it.

I look him up and down. The way he’s standing there in the greasy coveralls that he wears at home like other people wear bathrobes, his thin grey and blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. I can’t help thinking of his porno collection under the floorboards, the way he loves to sit in front of the TV and pick at his toenails, that for him is what it means to be home, the same way he stares at the toilet paper after he wipes his ass, what is there to say to someone like that. Without saying a word I turn around and go into my room. I undress, open the window, and let my legs dangle out the window and smoke a cigarette.

There’s a quiet knock at the door.

Nini, whispers Jessi and I can hear in her voice that she’s crying.

I just wanted to go to the bathroom and then it happened, says Jessi pointing at a blood stain on her underwear. I flick the cigarette out the window and hop down from the windowsill.

Come here, I say and pull her onto the bed, it’s not so bad, are you in pain?

Jessi shakes her head.

No but I don’t want Rainer to find out, he said that when I get my period I’ll get a white jumper as a gift and have to eat tomato soup, that’s what they do where he’s from, that’s how they celebrate it. I don’t want that, I don’t want tomato soup, I hate tomatoes.

Come with me, I say and take her hand.

Quietly we creep to the bathroom. I search in the cabinet.

Here, I say handing her a tampon, put one leg up on the toilet seat like this and then you stick it into yourself.

I’m scared, says Jessi.

No need to be scared, it’s easy.

No, I’m scared of getting that shock that you can get.

What kind of shock?

From the tampon. Pepi told us about it at school, he said that you can die from tampons. You get some kind of toxic shock and then you’re done for. It’s right there on the box, there’s a warning on every package.

You’re not going to get toxic tampon shock, I certainly know better than Pepi.

Are you sure?

I’m sure. You can sleep in my room tonight and I’ll keep an eye on you.

Okay, says Jessi pulling down her underwear. You just shove it in?

Yep, I say, just shove it in.

It is easy, says Jessi looking at me with surprise.

See. It gets easier too, at some point you’ll be able to put a tampon in while standing at a bus stop or in class without anyone noticing. Just takes practice. And Rainer doesn’t have to know, it’s none of his fucking business, you hear me.

Jessi nods, pulls up her underwear, and sits down on the toilet seat cover.

Do you know, I say, that you didn’t used to want to sleep in Mama’s bed when she had her period?

I know. I thought the brown stains on her nightgown were disgusting, says Jessi pointing toward the tampon, why don’t you feel it?

No idea, that’s just the way it is, it’s normal.

That’s good.

Yeah, I think so too.

I’m hungry, says Jessi.

There’s nothing to eat, I say.

Yes there is, in the refrigerator there’s a plate that says For Nini from Noura Eid Mobarak . Are you hungry too?

I shake my head.

Go get the plate, I say, but be quiet, I need to go out again.

What if I get toxic shock?

You won’t. Lie down in my bed, I won’t be long.

I go back into my room, gather the clothes off the floor, and look down at the corner of the carpet where something is sparkling, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I open all my drawers and my jewellery box, rifle through the pockets of my jackets and trousers, I crawl around on all fours and look under my desk and my bed and then something occurs to me. Quietly I get the key to the basement out of the drawer in the hallway and go downstairs. With my phone I light up the storage space looking for the guitar case. In the little compartment inside is the ring. I go back upstairs and put the ring in an envelope.

Dragan I write on the front, and on the back flap, Visegrad .

I’m tired, the usual condition during eighth or ninth period. Frau Struck is blathering on about the citric acid cycle and diagramming some crazy shit on the chalk board and talking nonstop. Her mouth, that thick pink rubber band, doesn’t stand still for even a second. The more complicated something is, the faster Struck tries to explain it, and the fewer questions you’re allowed to ask, I know how it is so I just let it go. Normally Jameelah and I play city-country-AIDS during eighth and ninth period but now I sit next to Amir and he takes notes the whole time, what a kiss-ass, it’s like he knows I’m completely lost.

Out the window I can see a man in paint-splattered clothes re-painting the white lines of the basketball court in the playground. When he’s finished he goes over to the mushroom-shaped gazebo and has a smoke. It makes me think of Nico who is out in the city somewhere in paint-splattered clothes painting something and stopping for a smoke now and then. I look back at Jameelah as inconspicuously as possible. She’s playing tic-tac-toe by herself and doesn’t notice Struck coming toward her desk.

Wake up there, says Frau Struck snapping her fingers in Jameelah’s face, explain this chemical reaction to me.

What, says Jameelah.

This, says Struck going back up to the chalk board and slapping the right side of it with her T-square.