My ass it’s a family heirloom, I say grabbing her hand.
What are you doing, says Jasna and yanks her hand away.
That’s not his ring, I say, he stole it.
Stole it, what are you talking about? Watch what you say.
That ring never belonged to anyone in Dragan’s family, he stole it.
Jameelah looks at me with a questioning look on her face but then Jasna’s phone rings.
I’m on my way, she says making a kissing sound and then hanging up.
You can’t leave now, I say.
Jasna laughs.
Why?
Because of the ring, it doesn’t belong to you!
What’s all this shit you’re talking, says Jasna, standing up. She flicks the cigarette into the sand, jumps down from the slide, and walks off toward the U-bahn station.
What was that all about, asks Jameelah.
Leave me alone, I say, I need to think.
Think about what?
My mother. Her engagement ring. That was it, that ring on Jasna’s finger.
I thought your father took it.
Obviously not, because if he had then Dragan couldn’t have put it on Jasna. He stole it, plain and simple.
Jameelah looks at me sceptically.
You’re crazy. How is he supposed to have taken it?
I have no idea, but that was the ring.
Are you sure?
Pretty sure.
Pretty sure isn’t enough.
Whose side are you on anyway, I say.
Nobody’s side. What’s wrong with you?
The Sorbs shot off Tarik’s leg.
What does that have to do with the ring?
Nothing. But I can understand why Tarik doesn’t want Jasna with someone like that.
Serbs, Sorbs, nice O-language switch, says Jameelah.
Fuck O-language, I say, I want the ring back.
Just because that poor Sorb bastard makes too many spit puddles doesn’t mean he stole any engagement ring, says Jameelah.
Hello, that poor Sorb bastard is the same guy who threw rocks at our heads, in case you forgot.
Nah.
It’s true.
You and your childhood memories, says Jameelah looking at me distrustfully, but listen it’s too hot out to fight.
When Jameelah and I go shoplifting it usually works like this. We lock ourselves in the girls’ bathroom after school and drink Tiger Milk, but not too much, when we’re going shoplifting it’s not about getting wasted, it’s about getting up the nerve. I’m always really anxious about shoplifting, I got caught the very first time I ever tried to steal something. That was a few years ago now, but ever since I can’t be the one who actually grabs the stuff. I’m always Jameelah’s accomplice, but that’s just as important.
We head to the mall a bit tipsy and check our rucksacks at the front of Kaufland. We buy a large Müller milk and dump half of it into the ugly plastic plant next to the escalator, then we go into the Bijou Brigitte shop. I hold the Müller container and whisper that’s cheap, real cheap, whenever the saleswoman isn’t looking our way. That’s the signal that Jameelah can drop something into the milk. If the saleswoman is looking when Jameelah is about to put something into the container I say that’s too expensive. You can’t believe how much will fit in a wide-mouth container like that, even sunglasses and hair bands.
If Nico is at the planet we let him drink out the milk when we’re done stealing, he loves Müller milk, no matter what flavour. He guzzles it down in one go like he’s the great sea god of Müller milk draining his own ocean. Sometimes we ourselves can’t believe all the treasure lying on the ocean floor of the Müller milk container, the shiny glittering things awaiting us, we feel like real life pirates returning to hoist our buried treasure after many years.
The jewellery we like the best, we keep, the rest of it we give to the others. Sometimes we even take things back, we just leave it on the shelf again, but that’s rare I have to admit. I never return any jewellery with green stones, I always take that home even if I know I’ll never wear it, if it has a green stone it’s coming home with me. I never understood why until recently, but now I get it. I was at a session with Frau Fuhrmeister, the school psychologist, and had to paint pictures of Mama, Rainer, and Jessi as animals and then I had to paint one of Papa. I painted Rainer as a camel and Papa as a dog, I remember because those were the ones we talked about for a long time afterwards. I found it all really annoying, but in the end I realized why I had depicted Rainer as a camel and Papa as a dog, because dogs are my favourite animals and camels, well they are not. We didn’t talk that time about Mama’s engagement ring or green stones, but it doesn’t matter, I’m sure Fuhrmeister would say it’s the same as with the animals, it’s a psychological tick of mine, because of Papa, and it’s as real as the engagement ring and as real as the fact that Dragan, that Sorbian thief, managed to steal the ring somehow.
Today there’s something green on the seabed of the Müller milk container, a bellybutton piercing with a green stone, though my bellybutton’s not pierced, actually it was but it got infected as soon as it was pierced and then it closed up. I stick the piercing in my mouth and suck off the milk and Jameelah gives the look. It means watch it here comes Lukas. I quickly hide the Müller container in her rucksack. People like Lukas don’t think it’s cool to steal jewellery in milk containers, seriously, it’s the truth, so I understand what Jameelah wants.
Hi, he says and touches his hand to his hat as a greeting.
What, is he a soldier now, I think.
We’re going to the human rights group meeting at the tea shop, says Lukas, you guys coming?
Human rights group, says Jameelah, of course, and as she says it she digs her fingernails into my hand with joy.
It stinks in the tea shop. It stinks of fruit tea, of the old felt covering the billiard table in the corner, of the old books that are so shit that not even Lukas would read them, of old board games that are all missing a piece or a card so that you can never really play them right, of ancient sofas where grown-ups hang out, grown-ups who act like they know everything but who have fucked up their own lives and are so lonely that they have to jerk off every night. I know exactly what it smells like, it smells of god and his rotten earth.
On the sofa is a scruffy pillow. I don’t even want to think about how many tea drinking believers have sat with it in their laps or under their asses, but it certainly looks as if it’s seen a lot of laps and asses. I let it get knocked to the floor unnoticed, as if by accident.
Jameelah sits down cross-legged next to me and motions for Lukas to join us and he smiles back awkwardly.
I have a basic idea of what human rights are, why they are important or whatever, but I can’t say I understand why Lukas and the rest feel it necessary to meet up here regularly and talk about them. Nadja says something about some document she read online, something about a family in Guatemala. Everyone nods with concern, like they actually know the people. Slowly I begin to realize this all has to do with the fact that they plan to meet up on Saturday in the pedestrian zone to collect money for street kids in Guatemala as part of engagement week, to help the kids there, for a better world, that’s the slogan painted on bed sheets they must have worked on the week before, for a better world. One of the sheets is laid out on the brown floor tiles. I can’t help wondering whether they all just took the sheets from home and if they did, what kind of people don’t use fitted sheets and also what kind of people can just take sheets, I mean Mama would smack me if I painted a slogan on one of her sheets whether it was fitted or not. Still, I could have found the whole scene amusing if not for the awful head of the group, Herr Kopps-Krüger. He’s sitting opposite me, looks like a wolf fish, and has the worst breath in the world. Behind him is a poster, the field of experience for the expansion of the soul, it says, it’s from some exhibition and I have no desire whatsoever to know what will be expanded and experienced. Everybody is talking about the fundraising campaign on Saturday and how much money they need to bring in so the partner church in Guatemala can buy who knows what for the street kids.