Man that must hurt, I think, but then I remember that his leg is made out of metal or something.
You should be ashamed I hear him say, loudly and precisely, like the other day at the pool, only this time it’s Jameelah who flinches. Jasna doesn’t react at all. She just lights another cigarette and starts talking again, so quietly that we can’t catch a single word.
Then, loud enough for us to hear, she says it’s not fair, and suddenly everything is silent. I see Tarik take a deep breath, I see how his upper body straightens and then relaxes again. There’s a weird calm, though it’s not really calm, not when Tarik is standing there perfectly still, with his arms so stiff you’d think he had razor blades in his armpits. We crouch in the wooden play fort and peek through the gaps between the slats. My knees are boring deeper and deeper into the floor planks and it hurts, and even though I know it hurts I barely feel it, especially when Tarik starts doing something really strange. He turns away from Jasna and walks around the sandbox in big, slow steps.
He’s completely lost his chador whispers Jameelah.
Jasna leans against Amir’s linden tree and smokes, staying very still, just her cigarette hand moving up to her mouth and back down, just her eyes following Tarik like she’s watching a wild animal, the kind of animal you’re not sure has rabies or not. When Tarik is standing in front of her again he puts his hands up to his eyes and his whole body starts to shake.
Is he crying whispers Jameelah.
Jasna lets her cigarette fall to the ground and stamps it out thoroughly. She goes to hug Tarik but he won’t let her. There’s no way to hear what he says to her, the words spill out of him half spoken, half moaned. All I catch is fate and goodbye and Jasna nods. It’s so quiet that you can hear her fingernails tapping on the bark of Amir’s linden and then Tarik steps over to Jasna and pulls her tightly to him.
See, I whisper, in the end you always have to make up, but Jameelah doesn’t react. She’s staring down at Jasna and Tarik as if she’s in a trance. Jasna has her hands on Tarik’s back and Tarik has his on hers. They sway slowly to a rhythm only the two of them can hear, back and forth.
Are they dancing?
I think so.
Jameelah giggles softly.
See, he can dance. I mean, it’s not the lambada, but still.
Tarik and Jasna dance and they both start to cry, practically groaning, and it’s not a happy sound — it’s more like they’re saying goodbye forever. Who knows, I think, maybe Jasna is leaving and they’re never going to see each other again. And even though I’m relieved I suddenly get very sad because all sorts of memories race through my mind, memories of earlier times.
Tarik’s entire body is still shaking and he doesn’t seem to want to let Jasna go and he keeps stuttering — to be honest it looks really odd and Jasna keeps groaning louder and louder, so loud that I think to myself that’s weird, but then again they were all weirdly loud back when their father died, too, the whole family and all the relatives, all sorts of men with strings of beads in their hands and all of them howling like wolves all day and all night so loud that everyone up and down the street could hear them. Frau Stanitzek wanted to call the cops but Jameelah told her that’s what they do when someone dies and anyway it would be over soon enough but suddenly Jasna turns to the side and holds her hand to her stomach. I can see that something is dripping from her mouth and then she keels over. She just falls over and not like a person with arms and legs but like a statue, lifeless, like a statue falling off its pedestal. That’s the way she hits the ground too, she smacks the ground and lays there as still as a stone.
Tarik looks around in a panic. I want to jump up and tell him we’re here and say yeah we’ll explain later why we’re naked but let us help now but as if she senses it Jameelah puts an ice cold hand on my shoulder and yanks me to the floor and shoves her other hand over my mouth. I want to tear myself away from her and scream but Jameelah just holds me tighter.
His right hand, whispers Jameelah, look at his right hand and then all I hear is her terrified breathing rasping in my ear. Tarik bends down. He stays there for a while squatting next to Jasna, a knife in his right hand. Then he stands up and starts to back away first really slow and then faster and faster until finally he turns around and limps off as fast as he can go. My head, my heart, everything is pulsing like crazy, my mouth is so dry it feels like I’ve smoked a hundred cigarettes. Jameelah is still holding me down.
Let go of me I whisper.
Slowly she loosens her grip. I stretch out my legs, which have fallen asleep, and push them against the opposite wall of the play fort. In the old days people bit down on a piece of wood to deal with pain, that’s what Herr Wittner said one time, and that’s what I try to do now with my whole body, wedging myself between the walls of the play fort and pressing until I realize I’m too big to stretch out in here anymore, I can’t sit inside the fort and stretch my legs all the way out the way I have for my entire life up here in this fort at the top of the slide. I’m too big now.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I have no idea how long we sit up there. Time and concepts like up and down have ceased to exist, it’s like we’re in space, the play fort floats through the great beyond with us inside, there’s not a sound, no nightingale no nothing, just Jameelah’s voice whispering fuck fuck fuck as regularly as if she’s counting off a game of rock paper scissors, just that and her breathing and her chest going up and down, just our naked bodies, our skin, and beneath it the fear coursing through our veins like blood.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Jameelah jumps up.
Fuck she says are we fucking crazy? Let’s get out of here.
She throws me my tank-top and my fingers are ice cold I realize as I slip it on. We cautiously climb down the slide, everywhere rose petals, rose petals all around. We walk hand in hand across the lawn.
Jasna is laying there. The light from a streetlamp falls on her face. The left side of her body is all red, everything soaked with blood. Something is dripping from her mouth but it’s only when we get near her that I can see what it is. Vomit.
Careful whispers Jameelah, don’t step in anything.
She’s dead I whisper, really dead.
Jameelah nods.
She’s dead, you can see it in her eyes. They’re not looking anywhere, they’re gone, no longer on earth. It’s like in that YouTube video where a group of men hunt down a woman and kill her in the street in some hot country, they used a knife, too, and now Jameelah and I are standing in front of Jasna exactly the same as in that video, except we don’t have a camera.
The engagement ring is on her finger.
The ring, I say.
Jameelah continues to stare at Jasna’s dead body. She’s still holding the container of Tiger Milk in her hand. I wonder how she managed to get down the slide holding the Tiger Milk and the bin bag. A nightingale sings up above us somewhere and it sounds horrible.
The ring, I say again.
Shut your mouth says Jameelah and then she bends down and with trembling fingers takes the hairband out of Jasna’s hair and drops it into the Tiger Milk.
What are you doing I ask.
Don’t ask just help me, she says, then she brushes Jasna’s hair back and reaches behind her ears and undoes the giant gold hoop earrings and drops them into the Tiger Milk.
Come on says Jameelah, her watch, her bracelets, her rings, all of it, put it all in the container like we always do, that’s cheap, real cheap, got it?