Oh that, says Jessi, that was just Pepi, she says giggling, I’ve been kissing him since kindergarten.
She points at the box.
Is that from Amir?
It’s none of your business.
Tell me what’s in it, Jessi screams throwing one of her puffy slippers at me as I walk away.
Quiet, shouts Mama from the living room, or I’ll boil you both in a cauldron.
I slam the door to my room shut.
Where were you, says Jameelah.
Amir, I say shoving the box under the bed, I’m supposed to look after that in case something happens to him.
Jameelah picks up the box and shakes it. Something knocks around inside.
Do you get it?
Nope.
Something’s not right, I say, but I can’t get a word out of him.
You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, says Jameelah.
That’s stupid.
No it’s an ancient Irani saying.
More like an ancient irony saying.
Jameelah smiles.
You are the true queen of O-language do you know that?
Yeah but that won’t help Amir.
Come on you know him, says Jameelah, he loves to be asked. He’s just waiting for us to squeeze it out of him. We’ll grab him tomorrow and you’ll see how much he talks once we plead with him a little.
Yeah, I say shoving the box under my bed again and hoping Jameelah’s right.
We watch Gilmore Girls and later, once Mama has fallen asleep, we watch one of Rainer’s pornos and almost die laughing. Rainer thinks he has them well hidden under a loose floorboard in the kitchen closet. But come on, people stick things under loose floorboards in every single bad movie and it wouldn’t even surprise me if Jessi had also discovered them.
When we finally leave the apartment just before eleven-thirty we wear nothing but long tank-tops and flip-flops with no underwear but that’s not really because of the spell, it’s because it was so hot all day and barely cooled off after dark. Out of the bushes next to the playground we pull the plastic grocery bag stuffed with the rose petals we nicked from Tiergarten earlier that afternoon and the Müller milk container, the Mariacron, maracuja juice, and milk and climb up the slide to the play fort.
Now we just have to wait for midnight, says Jameelah, pouring the chocolate milk out of the Müller container and mixing the juice, milk, and brandy and stirring it with her long fingers. We take turns drinking Tiger Milk, we look into the sky and say nothing, we just let life float by because we have so much time, because the clock has only just struck fourteen minutes past birth, meaning that we have almost fifty minutes of life to go, and that’s a long time. A bird sings off in the distance somewhere, very loud, almost as if it realizes how nicely it sings.
That’s a nightingale, says Jameelah, there’s a lot of them around here, even more than in Bavaria, and there’s supposed to be so much more nature there, pfff, as if.
Is that another question from the citizenship test?
No I read it in the free paper on the U-bahn, says Jameelah blowing cigarette smoke into the sky. I hope it all goes well.
Of course it will, what could go wrong with a love spell, I say.
I mean at the immigration office you idiot, says Jameelah looking at the clock, it’s exactly midnight. She lifts her tank-top over her head, grabs the grocery bag and smiles at me.
Here we go.
I have to admit I feel like an idiot running around the playground naked like that, tossing rose petals as I go. Actually the whole rose petal thing isn’t so bad, but having to whisper the name is annoying. When you say Nico over and over it doesn’t even sound like his name after a while, and it makes me lightheaded, so at some point I just scatter the petals. The grass is sunburned and rustles beneath my feet, and as I watch the rose petals fall past my legs to the ground I suddenly feel tiny. I don’t know if it has something to do with the darkness or it’s just because I don’t have anything on, but for whatever reason, here on this playground, where I learned to walk and to ride a bike and to roller skate, all of a sudden I feel too small for this world, like you could just stick me anywhere, the same way you shove a vacuum cleaner in a dark corner and nobody notices it, like you could just make my naked body disappear because it’s so small and unimportant.
Jameelah hops around the playground doing pirouettes and the rose petals flutter around her like confetti. I can’t help but smile and I think to myself, come on, don’t do it like that, it’s too funny. I run back to the middle of the sandbox where the shopping bag is, hoping secretly that we’ll run out of rose petals soon, and that’s when I see someone coming toward the playground.
Someone’s coming I hiss and grab the bag.
Luckily Jameelah understands what’s happening immediately and we run as fast as possible up the slide and hide inside the play fort. At first I think the person’s just going to pass through the playground but that’s not the case, the person comes straight toward us, limping, goes around the sandbox, past our hiding place, and over to the trees, stopping directly under Amir’s linden tree.
Jasna, whispers Jameelah.
What’s she doing here?
No idea.
Beneath Amir’s linden tree a lighter clicks and smoke starts to rise.
Can’t we just get out of here I say, we’re done with the spell right?
Let’s wait to see if the evil Sorb shows up, says Jameelah.
Why, I ask, looking around for my shirt.
So you can throw a rock at his head says Jameelah smiling at me, then you’d finally be even.
I don’t want to be naked anymore, it’s cold, or maybe it’s not but either way I want to put some clothes on right away. But then Jameelah whispers, shhhh, someone’s coming, but it’s not the evil Sorb, and when I realize who it is I know it’s too late. It’s Tarik I can tell from his gait, he’s the only one who walks like that, with his left leg dragging behind a little. They both limp now, I think, how weird, but then again it’s not that weird since they are siblings after all.
Keep your head down, whispers Jameelah.
For a second I think Tarik’s seen us but actually he’s just checking things out. He lifts an arm and motions around at the rose petals. Jasna shrugs and takes a drag from her cigarette, not really looking at him, staring at the ground, looking past him, fidgeting with her hair or whatever.
Why don’t they just make up, I whisper.
Jameelah shrugs her shoulders.
Why can’t they just make up, I think, if for no other reason than for Amir and Selma, but also just because, I mean, at the end of the day you always have to make up. Me and Jameelah do all the time no matter how bad a fight we’ve had and I even make up with Jessi every time. In the end you always have to make up.
Can you hear what they’re saying, Jameelah whispers.
Not a single word.
Shit, she says, shhhh I say, and Tarik says something or other.
What, says Jameelah.
Shhhh, I say again, because otherwise you can’t get a word of what he’s saying.
At one point he says something about family and feet, then something about speaking and helping. Jasna leans her head back and laughs like he’s just told a great joke. She sucks on her cigarette and runs a hand along the bark of Amir’s linden tree, she stands there and then blows out the smoke as if Tarik is nothing more than the air that she’s exhaling. Tarik keeps speaking to her. I can’t understand a word of it until Jasna suddenly interrupts him. Her voice gets loud, Tarik flinches, and she says something about in the past and couldn’t stick up for myself, but now, says Jasna. But Tarik interrupts her and Jasna flicks her cigarette butt away and blows her last drag of smoke right in Tarik’s face. Not your cleaning lady I hear her say and then they switch to Bosnian and it sounds like they are really fighting. Bosnian, Bosnian, Bosnian. It seems like forever until Jasna finally says, I can’t do anything about it, but I can’t understand what Tarik answers. I just see him kick Amir’s linden angrily with his bum leg.