Noura always says you should do something nice once in a while, something that belongs just to you and you alone. Today I’m going to do something nice, and all by myself. Mama and Jessi aren’t home, they said goodbye this morning and Mama gave me twenty euros before they took off and another twenty for the taxi.
My rolling suitcase, the one I got for the school ski trip, is packed and waiting in the hall. I look at the time, I can only eat and drink for exactly one more hour and then not until tomorrow when everything’s all done, but I’m so worked up that I haven’t been able to eat since breakfast anyway. I take my suitcase and go down to the street and wave down a taxi. I’ve never been in a taxi by myself, the best I ever did was once together with Rainer but luckily Rainer has the late shift today.
When I’m in front of the hospital I fish around in my trouser pocket for the doctor’s referral. A girl is sitting at the entrance, she’s not much older than me, maybe sixteen or so, but she looks like a real nurse, she’s wearing a white smock with a white cardigan over it. She hands me a clipboard and I have to fill out all sorts of forms. Once I’m done with that another nurse comes over to me, an older one.
You’re far too early, she says taking my suitcase and putting her arm around my shoulders. We walk down the hall together. The walls are painted from floor to ceiling but not the way Nico does it, the way sick children would, sick kids who are bored. There’s a pink rhino, a yellow crocodile, a smiling crab with huge pincers, a colourful clown and next to that a black guy saying to the clown, I don’t have anything against people of colour. It’s the worst joke I’ve heard in I don’t know how long, but as I’m walking by and read the speech bubble I find it somehow funny, it’s so harmless.
The nurse opens the door next to the clown and there are two beds in the room. The one in the back, by the window, is empty but there’s someone in the closer bed, I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, I mean I could probably tell if I looked but all I can do is stare at the legs in the bed, they distract me from anything else. The legs are charred, born to a crisp you could say in O-language, it would be a bit of an exaggeration but you’re allowed to exaggerate in O-language, in fact O-language is made for exaggerating because you use it either for a laugh or because things are way too cross and mossed up and regular language just can’t express how cross and mossed up things are, but anyway the legs are burned.
This is your bed here, says the nurse pointing to the empty bed. She pulls up the shade and opens the window, sun streams in, I have to squint. Outside is a big park with lots of trees and in between the trees are bushes with white flowers, the only thing missing is a lake, then it would be like it is in Italy.
So, says the nurse walking around the bed and fluffing the covers, we’ll see if the anaesthesiologist has time to meet with you.
I look over at the other bed again.
What happened, I ask.
The nurse sighs.
Nylons. Matches and nylons. She’s still very weak. She was in intensive care until yesterday.
She goes to the door and her nurse shoes clop on the floor like my flip-flops, just healthier. As I unpack my things and stow them in the drawer of the nightstand I feel pretty grown-up, in a different way from on Kurfürsten. I look over at the girl. Her wounds are yellow and red, the scabs are spiky and saw-toothed and in between are big black spots. Hospitals are something serious, you don’t mess around, and that’s good because everyone here knows not to mess around. I stretch out on the bed and wonder to myself whether anyone has ever died in this room or even right here in this bed. It wouldn’t be so bad, with a view of the park, the sun shining in your face, there are worse ways to die. People who say hospitals are creepy places really don’t have a clue, it’s such a throwaway thing to say. I mean sure, this isn’t a playground, but anyone who seriously thinks it would be nicer to die at a playground than here must have lost their chador.
There’s a knock at the door.
Come in, I say.
It’s Jameelah.
Salam! What is this the Four Seasons, she says letting herself drop onto the bed next to me, couldn’t wait to check in, could you?
I put my arms behind my head and smile.
It’s almost as nice as Italy, I say.
Wait until you see the food, it’s usually crap, says Jameelah and then she looks over at the other bed.
What happened to her, she whispers.
Nylons, I say, and matches.
Really?
There’s another knock at the door. Three doctors in white lab coats come into the room. You can tell which one is the boss right away. He’s the tallest, looks great, and he walks ahead of the others.
Guten Tag, he says smiling, I’m Doctor Berkenkamp, I’ll make sure that you are fast asleep before the operation tomorrow. We’ll give you a shot and then send you off to a beautiful island, what do you think?
Sounds good, I say.
He sits down on the bed next to me. His eyes are deep blue like Tarik’s.
Can I come to the island too, asks Jameelah flopping into the wicker chair next to the window.
The lead doctor laughs. He gently feels my neck with his cool fingers. He taps on my cheekbones and asks if it hurts and then he looks down my throat.
Which would you prefer, Greece or Italy, he asks tossing the tongue depressor into the bin next to my nightstand.
Italy.
Good, in that case we will send you to a beautiful island off the cost of Italy.
Fine with me, I say, but the important thing is the anaesthesia.
Don’t want to have to wake you like Sleeping Beauty, says the lead doctor pinching my cheek, his hands smell like expensive cologne and I think that it wouldn’t be so bad if he woke me like Sleeping Beauty.
The next morning a nurse wakes me. She rolls me down the hall in my bed to the lift. We go down to the basement, past fluorescent lights and through some thick glass doors that swing open and then the lead doctor is there. I recognize his blue eyes even though the rest of his face is covered.
We’re off to Capri, he says putting a needle in my arm and attaching it to a long hose but after that there’s nothing, no Capri, nothing at all.
I wake up slowly. Mama and Jessi are sitting at the table next to the window. Jessi is playing with her rubber hand clackers and Mama is looking out at the park and the first thing that comes into my head is what Mama would have answered, Italy or Greece.
Nini, calls Jessi jumping up and sitting at the end of the bed, you look like a Chinese mental patient.
So do you, I say. It hurts a lot to talk. The stitches in my jaw hurt.
How do you feel, asks Mama.
Okay.
Mama looks at the time.
We have to go, she says and kisses me goodbye on my forehead, you slept for such a long time.
It’s fine, I say and fall back to sleep.
I only wake up again when a nurse pushes a trolley in with two trays on it. On one is normal food, on the other one, the one the nurse puts down on my nightstand with a smile, is a plastic container filled with puree, it looks like diarrhoea with a straw in it. I start grumpily slurping.
Come on another bite, says the nurse to the burned girl holding a piece of bratwurst under her nose, but when she turns her head away again the nurse gives up. As she goes to the door Jameelah comes in.
She grins at my container of diarrhoea.
Tasty?
Ha ha.
I told you.