Olga Grjasnowa - All Russians Love Birch Trees

“And you were afraid of Masha as well?”

“Totally, man. I thought, now she’s going to kill me.” Sami laughed.

“If you knew what a scene she made today. In the ladies’ room.”

I placed my head in Sami’s lap and Cem leaned over me and said that it’s a shame we’re no longer together. His best friends.

Sami was hungry, and Cem and I trudged after him. Most shops on the Kaiserstrasse were already closed. A few older women with bleached, stringy hair were still out and about. We passed a twenty-four-hour Laundromat. Inside sat an older couple. Both looked like junkies. He was doing a crossword puzzle, she was clutching a plastic cup, fixated on the swirling laundry with an empty gaze. Their bodies didn’t touch.

It had become difficult to go anywhere at night. In the area around the train station everything slowly morphed into grocery stores and fish shops. Granted, it was hard to get cheaper and fresher groceries anywhere, and at noon long lines formed, populated by tired women in tight dresses or ample hijabs, guarded by pimps or other male watchdogs. Sami pulled us into a kebab place and he and Cem ordered. The floor was sticky. A rat skittered across the room. The rotating skewered meat glistened. I ate baklava while everything spun around me. The air was sweet and my body melted into the honey.

My head was buzzing. I was lying naked in a dark room. Behind the bed hung posters of horses and pubescents who either sang or acted and were shot in similar poses and colors as the horses. Sami’s cellphone was on the nightstand, my dress hung neatly over the back of a chair, Sami’s shoes stood in front of the chair. He had always had the habit of tidiness. Even in our relationship everything had been orderly to a fault, but with time the memories of who had left and humiliated whom had faded. What remained were the memories of a few good moments, of a diffuse happiness and of desire. Back then it had been physical desire, now it was more the desire to be desired as one had been before.

I quickly got dressed and went into the hallway. In the kitchen, Minna was humming an unfamiliar melody. The air was heavy with the smell of food. It was as if somebody had just deleted the last three years of my life. I saw it all in front of me again. The afternoons shared with Sami, when his little sister never left us alone and Minna constantly told her to do just that. The dinners with Sami’s parents, when we spoke a mishmash of French and Arabic, the CDs of Fairuz, that in the morning were accompanied by Minna’s song, the feeling of being drunk with love, Sami’s touches and the emptiness following the high.

“ Salam alaikum .” Minna cframe and smiled at me. I was happy to see her, even though I would have preferred not to run into her. I wanted to get to the bathroom quickly to wash off last night and Sami.

“ Alaikum salam ,” I greeted Minna.

She gave me a big hug and urged me into the kitchen, where she poured me a flower-decorated mug of Turkish coffee. The breakfast table had already been set.

Minna sat down across from me and curiously examined my face. Her gaze didn’t bear the slightest trace of accusation. In the past I had admired her the way you admire other mothers more than your own. When I met her for the first time I swore to become just like her: cheerful and full of warmth. A small Palestinian flag was affixed to the fridge with a black magnet. Minna had been born in a refugee camp in Lebanon.

Sami came out of the bathroom wearing shorts and a worn-out white T-shirt. He didn’t look me in the eyes and I glanced away, too. He wore Adilette slippers that were at least two sizes too big for him.

“Habibi, what a sight you are!” Minna said.

Sami gave her a kiss and looked at me, embarrassed.

“Where is Leyla?” I asked.

Leyla was Sami’s little sister, and it was her bed I’d woken up in.

“At the Vogelsberg. On a class trip.” Sami piled food on his plate that he then didn’t touch. Instead he nervously played with his fork. “Abu is at a conference in Switzerland.”

“It’s a pity he doesn’t get to see you. I know he would have loved to. We miss you around here.”

“Mom.”

I still avoided looking at Sami directly.

“ Kullo min Allah .” All comes from God. Minna smiled at Sami and me encouragingly, as if to say, It doesn’t matter. Nevertheless we both felt uncomfortable. Minna understood, straightened her large body, hugged me, and said, “I hope you’ll come back.” With these words she left the room.

“ Alors ,” I said and took a bite of the pancake that had been sitting on my plate.

“How are you?” Sami asked after a while.

“Hungover.”

Sami stirred his coffee noisily. He stood up, opened the fridge, took out some jam and put it on the table. He stopped behind my chair and massaged my shoulders. I didn’t move. Sami kissed the part in my hair, gentle and exploratory. I felt his warm breath on my neck and tightened all my muscles to keep from reacting. His hands left my back and he returned to his seat across from me.

I stayed where I was, paralyzed, unable to say anything. Sami took the jam and looked at the back of the jar, his bushy eyebrows furrowed. He read: “ ‘Arabic Dream — Peach fruit spread with vanilla and a hint of coffee. Our fruit spreads are made from handpicked fresh fruit from the garden, the local region or mixed orchards.’ What are mixed orchards?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“ ‘… which are then turned into exquisite compositions by partially blending them with exotic fruit.’ Do you think the exotic fruit are also grown on local mixed orchards? ‘A high fruit rate, a pleasant sweetness without artificial additives mark the hand-stirred specialty of our artisanal jam production.’ Something is not right about the grammar here.”

I wished he would stop reading out loud, but he seemed to enjoy it: “ ‘Not only breakfast, but many other meals are enriched by fruit spreads. Indulge in the delights of our exquisite compositions.’ What the fuck?”

“OK. Let’s talk,” I said.

“Do you want coffee?” he asked.

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“I could make some. No trouble at all.”

“Sami.”

“You could add a spoonful of the Arabic Dream to it.”

I stood up. He looked at me. “OK, you want to talk.”

Sami jumped up, poured two cups of coffee, full to the brim. Then he started searching through the drawers, turning his back to me.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Sugar,” he said.

“I don’t take any. As you know.”

“But I do.”

“You don’t take sugar in your coffee.”

He turned around briefly and said, “I do.” Then he resumed digging through the cupboards.

“No you don’t.”

“In the States I got into the habit.”

“You used to find that disgusting. You can’t suddenly like sugar.”

“Everything there is way too sweet. Why should coffee be an exception?”

“I can’t imagine that Minna wouldn’t have any sugar,” I said.

“Maybe she used it up, or I can’t find it. What do I know?”

“Let’s talk.”

“Now?”

“Preferably.”

“Fuck, I think I have to go to the gas station. We’re all out of sugar.”

Sami ran out of the kitchen, then I heard the door slam. I raced back into the room, grabbed my things, fell over my own feet, landed flat on the floor in the hallway, and then tried to leave the apartment as quietly as possible. In the stairwell I did my best to avoid another encounter with Sami by climbing up the stairs and waiting one floor up, crouching down while monitoring the staircase. When Sami returned and closed the door behind him, I left my hideout and fled the building.