You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I say.
Yes I do. And it has to be Lukas, definitely, says Jameelah, he trapped that animal for me.
Maybe it will hurt, maybe it will bleed, but maybe not, I say.
It really is a little like being in a war, I think, and I wonder why nobody else ever thought of it. War hurts and causes blood but Tarik said the bad part about war isn’t the pain or the blood but the way war changes people and the fact that nothing is ever the same again after a war. For a second I’m really happy that I’m too fucked up to sleep with Nico tonight.
So?
What?
So what do I do with the sheets?
Oh right, just throw them in the laundry.
The next morning I go to the room where Jameelah and Lukas are sleeping and cautiously open the door. Nobody’s there and the sheets are still on the bed. I wander through the entire house, there are party casualties passed-out all over the floor, I have to step over them but none of them is Jameelah. Apollo and Aslagon are asleep in the garden, lying together like spoons. I walk past flower beds and keep going farther into the backyard. In the farthest corner next to a pond with goldfish in it I find her sitting with her bare feet dangling in the water.
So, I say letting my feet plunk into the water next to her, how was it?
It wasn’t.
What do you mean?
Nothing happened, says Jameelah, he fell asleep at some point or pretended to and when I woke up just now he was gone.
He must have got scared.
Scared of what, why, I don’t get it, says Jameelah, like women are so mysterious.
I want to say something nice but I can’t think of anything, like always, so we just sit there next to each other in silence and stare at the pond and the duckweed and water lilies floating in it. The sun shines down on us, it could actually turn out to be a nice day.
I told him I loved him, says Jameelah scaring a goldfish with her foot, I should have let it be.
There’s no reason to run away from love, I say but Jameelah doesn’t react, she just continues to stare into the dark green pond as if the water has the answer but wants to stay out of it, like the pond is thinking let them learn for themselves. An old lady walks through the garden next door accompanied by a young couple, a couple that looks like they’re getting married soon. The way they move, they seem to sway with the anticipation of the future, her in a flowery dress and long flowing hair, him with a jumper draped over his shoulders and tied around his neck like a pair of tennis socks. They look happy but I can see that the woman’s hair is thin, right on the border of being too thin to wear down like that.
Listen, I say nudging Jameelah, someday you’re going to look like those two over there, walking through a pretty garden feeling happy, with or without Lukas, I’ll bet.
Pfff, someday, says Jameelah. Now, right now they are happy but someday they’ll split up. People like that think life is like Play-Doh, that you can make anything out of it, but someday life will rip them apart and this morning in their garden will be nothing more than a memory, a memory so painful that they’ll wish they never even experienced it. Someday they’ll cry the hardest over the moments that made them happiest. Those idiots still believe in the idea of good.
Belief, I say, is wanting things to be true that you know are actually impossible.
Jameelah stares at me.
Where’d you find that quote?
Nowhere, I thought it up myself.
Her mouth begins to crack a smile.
Hermione or something?
Shove it up your Hermione, I say.
You should write a book of, what’s it called, a book full of expressions you say.
Haha, no you should, I say though in reality I’m really happy because I was worried Jameelah had forgotten how to smile.
Come on let’s get out of here already or else we’ll go through another round of garden-depression.
We get our clothes together and step carefully over the passed-out partygoers in the living room. On the sofa directly beneath the porcelain doll that’s still hanging from the chandelier Anna-Lena is sleeping with her rucksack next to her. She looks so normal in her sleep, probably because the creases on her forehead are taking a break while she sleeps.
Wait, whispers Jameelah leaning over Anna-Lena’s rucksack and rummaging around in it.
Are you nuts, I whisper, her of all people.
I just want to get Lukas’s number off her phone, she whispers.
Hurry up, I whisper.
I don’t want to think about what Anna-Lena would do if she woke up right now but there’s an empty bottle of apple schnapps next to her which puts me at ease.
What the hell is this?
Jameelah stares at a book that she’s pulled out of Anna-Lena’s rucksack. The Modern Witch’s Spell Book it says and when Jameelah opens it a photo of Lukas falls out. Jameelah’s face goes white and her eyes get dark with jealousy and I take a step back and almost stumble over a body on the floor but only almost because Jameelah grabs my arm and says come on let’s get out of here.
The Modern Witch’s Spell Book, she screams as we’re on the way to the bus stop, see I knew Anna-Lena was a witch. She holds the book up to the sky like the Bible and her thousand bracelets jangle in my face.
It’s nothing new, I say.
And Lukas, of course she wants to put a spell on him because she can’t get him, that’s the way it is, our Frieda Giga always putting spells on nice girls with her fucking love you my angel it makes me puke, I’ve had enough!
The bus is coming, I say pointing at the yellow double-decker monster coming around the corner.
We start running and gasping for air as we try to stay with the bus as it overtakes us. The bus driver takes pity on us probably thinking that we’re a couple of the good little kids who live in this neighbourhood and need to get to our piano lesson.
Once we’re sitting on the bus we catch our breath and I say give it to me and take the book out of her hand and the photo falls out again.
Be careful, she says and I’d never be able to bend down as quickly as she disappears beneath the seat and I hear her shoes scraping against the floor like sandpaper.
Shit, she says and ouch, where is it but then she reappears with the photo in her hand. She wipes it with her t-shirt over and over again like she’s in a trance, and I think who put a spell on Jameelah and is something wrong with me because I’m not like that about Nico but then again maybe I just don’t love Nico the same way Jameelah loves Lukas.
Ever since Adam cursed Eve for feeding him the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, leading to the expulsion of both from the Garden of Eden, true love has been a bumpy road filled with disappointment it says on the first page and that as a result you should use magic to help things go more smoothly. It’s still not clear to me how taking some dirt from a footprint left by the man you love is supposed to win his love.
Who the hell walks through the dirt with their shoes anyway, I say, we don’t live on a farm but Jameelah rips the book out of my hand.
There must be more practical things in there, she says, things we can do. Here look put a droplet of blood on a used tissue then burn it together with a piece of hair of your beloved and sprinkle the ashes on a salad. That’s tough, where would I get a piece of hair from Lukas? It’s easy for you, you can just rip one out of Nico’s head he wouldn’t care why you did it, he does that kind of crap all the time.
You’re good, I say, Nico doesn’t eat salad, he won’t even eat the pickle on a hamburger, for him vegetables are garbage.
Nico, says Jameelah, typical, then she buries her nose in the book again.
I’m dead tired and lean my head against the cool glass of the bus window. It’s talking about salad that makes me realize. Even if Nico did like salad it wouldn’t matter, I don’t need to sprinkle any stupid ashes on his food because Nico loves me anyway. But I can’t just say that to Jameelah because it’s so different from what she thinks, it’s nothing like she thinks, it’s nothing like how it is with her and Lukas, no eggbeater starts churning in my stomach when I see him, no magic. No, it’s routine. Nico is just there, he was always there, and he will always be there. Which is nice even if it’s not magical. You can’t have everything, Rainer always says. Rainer talks an awful load of shit but in this particular case he’s right.