Oh God, says Laura, that’s the girl with the see-through bikini.
Anna-Lena nods.
Got to be at least sixteen years old.
The see-through bikini?
No her brother, says Anna-Lena giggling, but maybe the bikini too by the looks of it.
Kathi and Laura giggle too and I turn bright red.
I’d love to have something cool to say right now but nothing pops into my head, which always happens in moments like this. Instead I watch as Anna-Lena lays down a huge flower-pattern towel next to Laura. I realize immediately she’s got her period, she doesn’t even take off her shorts, that’s how scared she is it might leak out. What’s the point of her even coming to the pool if she’s so worried. She reeks of flowery perfume, and now this towel. What kind of idiotic parents does she have, I wonder, buying her perfume like that and expensive shampoo and a towel like that, I mean, Anna-Lena, who would call their kid that, what a perverse way to welcome someone to the world, as if that’s necessary, such a long name, as if children haven’t been produced since the dawn of time, all sorts of things like that rush through my head but of course I can’t say any of that or they would all think I’d completely lost my chador.
Come on, says Jameelah taking my hand, let’s go over to the diving platforms.
Nico and Tobi come through the gate and head across the lawn toward the others. Nico is wasted, you can tell from across the yard. I sit down on the warm stone tiles next to the pool and watch as Jameelah climbs the steps to the ten-metre platform. With her arms stretched wide she lifts herself up and down on the balls of her feet.
Can someone put on Carmina Burana, she yells, I’m going to do a double Rittberger.
The security guards look at her blankly. Jameelah springs head first into the air, arms and legs fluttering like rags. The way she hangs in the air, just like on TV, when people were jumping out of that tower in America, it scares the shit out of me, and I’m relieved when she finally hits the water with a splash. I watch her swim beneath the surface until she reaches the edge of the pool by me.
So how was I, she asks grinning as she climbs out of the water. Her right thigh is bright red.
It looked pretty dangerous, I say.
Above, on the diving platform, Amir stands staring down into the depths.
Don’t look down, yells Jameelah.
Amir stares into the water as if there’s some sort of beast waiting below to eat him, until finally the pool superintendent says something to him and points at the people waiting behind him.
Oh no, says Jameelah as Amir steps aside and the waiting kids push past him and splash one after the next into the pool below. Amir goes back out to the edge of the platform.
That’s not how you do it, says Jameelah, you have to just jump, you can’t think about it or you’ll never do it.
A couple of boys start jeering him.
Loser, loser!
I look up at Amir, who looks much smaller up there, smaller than he really is, he looks down at the water, up at the sky where his father apparently is, then down at the water again, but then he turns around and climbs gingerly back down the steps.
The boys start jeering him again.
Chickenshit, says Jameelah smiling when Amir makes it down to us.
Cut it out, he says.
What, she says, it’s not a crime to be chickenshit.
You don’t know anything, says Amir, you’re a girl, you don’t have balls that can burst on impact.
Burst on impact, says Jameelah laughing out loud, who told you that bullshit?
It’s not bullshit, Tarik told me.
Tarik talks shit.
Oh, fuck off, says Amir.
You fuck off, says Jameelah.
Cut it out, I say, who wants an ice lolly?
Eating sweets together always helps end a fight.
I run into Nico at the snack kiosk. He has a currywurst and fries in one hand and at least four ice cream bars in the other and under his arm is a giant bag of crisps. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses.
You got the munchies, I ask smiling, but Nico just smiles back and kisses me on the cheek.
Always, he says.
His kiss is just right, warm and a little bit moist.
They’re sold out of ice lollies so I buy slush puppies, and as we cross the lawn I keep an eye out for Jessi in case she’s standing around somewhere hooking up, but I don’t see her. Instead I see Jasna and Dragan lying down kissing. Jasna is wearing the bright yellow bikini and she has her long legs wrapped around Dragan, he’s running his hand up and down her thigh, it’s almost like in a porn film the way they’re going at it as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist but then suddenly Dragan sits up and looks over at me.
What are you looking at, he yells.
I’m not looking at anything, I say.
Look somewhere else, got it?
Shut up, says Nico, and Dragan actually shuts up.
Tobi and Nadja have spread out their towels next to ours. Jameelah sits down at the foot of Lukas’s towel and has him spread sunscreen on her back. A victorious smile spreads across her face and she makes a V with her fingers. Anna-Lena, Laura, Kathi, Tobi, and Nadja play Taboo, Anna-Lena brought it, I don’t feel like playing Taboo with Anna-Lena so I start to squeeze blackheads on Nico’s back, it’s fun.
That’s disgusting, says Anna-Lena, cut it out or I’ll have a herpes outbreak.
You get outbreaks from everything, says Lukas, you even get it when people talk about spiders.
Spiders are totally disgusting, says Anna-Lena.
What a load of shit, says Jameelah, spiders are the protectors of sleep.
Exactly, says Amir, they crawl into the corners hunting evil. It’s the only reason people are able to sleep in peace.
That sounds beautiful, says Lukas, so poetic.
Hunting evil, says Anna-Lena looking at Amir with her best just-bit-into-a-lemon face, what’s that supposed to mean? Sounds like something out of the Middle Ages, she says.
Shut your trap, says Jameelah.
Right, says Amir, watch what you say.
I’ll say what I want, says Anna-Lena to Jameelah, and by the way your tampon string is hanging out of your panties.
Impossible, Jameelah answers all slick and cool.
Joking, says Anna-Lena even though it wasn’t funny.
Stop it, says Lukas, rolling toward Jameelah and whispering something in her ear.
The one from the animal, asks Jameelah laughing.
Lukas nods.
What about an animal, asks Nico, looking at me, but I shrug my shoulders and look at Lukas and the way he wraps his arms around his knees and listens to Jameelah. He really looks like Bambi sitting on that green towel with his dark eyes, a Bambi who learned how to count using dried peach pits and a towel as green as the forest Bambi runs into when someone’s chasing him. I could never fall for someone like that, I think to myself, but such a green home I’d like to have, a home I could run to when somebody was chasing me. But I don’t have one and neither does Jameelah, we just have the trees in the playground, and we can’t even remember the names of those. Nico doesn’t have a forest home either though he sure has a lot of grass, and whenever he rolls a joint I’m the first one he passes it to. I look up at the cloudless sky, close my eyes, and fly away. The sun burns. Everything smells like french fries and sunscreen.
The boy in the purple swimsuit, yells the pool superintendent, dive in from the side of the pool again and you get a lifetime ban.
Life vests squeak against wet baby fat and a baby cries somewhere in the distance.
Where did you hurt yourself, asks someone.
On the wee wee, says a child crying more loudly.
Wasps buzz by, Jameelah laughs, Lukas laughs, Nico laughs.