What are you thinking messing around with my things, I shout while shaking her.
Pepi isn’t allowed to go home, Jessi screams, Mama said so.
Why not, I ask.
They said we had to stay here, I hear Pepi say, he’s in the doorway standing with one foot on top of the other and his toes curled up.
Who said?
Nico.
And Mama, says Jessi.
They went to the police, Nico said, right away, and then, says Pepi, and then they said we have to stay here and not open the door for anyone.
The police?
Yeah, the police.
Get dressed right away, I say.
I go to the stereo and turn off the music and then take the DVD out of the DVD player and take Amir’s box under my arm into my room. I grab the ashtray that’s sitting outside on the windowsill and crumble apart old cigarette butts and collect the dregs until I have enough leftover tobacco to roll a new one. I inhale deeply on the dregarette and the old tobacco burns down fast, I take another drag straight away, smoking like Dragan, inhaling so hard that it can’t keep up, and then with my fingers trembling I open Amir’s box. There’s a pile of DVDs inside with naked people on the covers, mostly women, the one on top shows a woman blowing a guy. I take the DVDs out of the box and lay them cover-down on the floor in front of me like I’m playing memory, like this will somehow help me figure out why Amir gave all of this to me. One after the next I turn the covers right-side-up. I still can’t figure it out.
I put the DVDs back in the box. On the last one there’s actually a cute guy on the cover. He’s reaching with one hand into his underwear and grinning, he has the same blue eyes as Tarik and the same dark curly hair, but I’ve never seen Tarik so happily grinning like that, Tarik only smiled sadly and unlike the guy on the DVD Tarik’s hair never looked cute because whenever it started to look cute Tarik cut it immediately. Tarik never wanted to be cute even though he could have, but then again that’s exactly what I liked about him. I take another deep drag on the cigarette as if it will help fend off the sadness and then I see that there’s blood on the filter. I go to the bathroom, shove toilet paper into the back of my mouth and look in the mirror.
Noura said one time that brave people are the ones who do things they are afraid of, that is, when someone does something they’re not really afraid of anyway, like diving off the ten-metre platform, then no matter how brave it looks it has nothing to do with bravery.
I put the DVDs and the box into a rubbish bag. Jessi and Pepi are sitting on the sofa watching TV, they’re in normal clothes. I go to the goodie cabinet and grab a packet of cookies and put it on the coffee table in front of them.
Listen up, I say, you stay here just like Mama and Nico said, eat cookies and watch TV, I’ll be right back, don’t open the door for anybody, not even someone you know, understand.
Yes, says Jessi and nods.
I sprint down the street like an idiot, I run as fast as I can, like the red-haired girl in that one movie, I saw it on TV, she ran through the entire city and was just as out of breath as I am now, and just like me she had a plastic bag in her hand though hers had 100,000 euros in it instead of pornos. I run panting across intersections, cars beep their horns, up on top of the minaret of a mosque a muezzin howls, a flock of black birds that Jameelah would say were rooks not ravens takes off fluttering totally directionless around the minaret, swarming, they look like a giant Palestinian scarf floating in the wind.
On the pavement in front of the police station I brace my hands on my knees and pant for breath. The children’s hospital, the lead doctor, the green park, Nico’s kisses, it all seems impossibly far away, like I was never there, I must have dreamed the whole thing. This, this is real life, side stitches, pornos, and the taste of blood. I pull the wad of blood-soaked toilet paper out of my mouth, toss it into the plastic bag with the rest of the crap, and go inside.
The station smells like file cabinets and coffee and like rooms where you’re not allowed to smoke anymore. I run down the hall but I don’t have to go far because I can already see them all sitting there, Nico and Mama, Noura and Jameelah, and two police officers with serious looks on their faces. Nico looks away when I show up. What a coward.
Mama comes up to me.
What have you got yourself into again this time, she says as if this kind of thing happens to me all the time, as if I might as well live up there in the play fort at the playground and constantly watch as girls are stabbed to death by their brothers next to Amir’s linden tree.
Is this the other witness, asks one of the policemen.
Yes, I say, but the thing with the jewellery, I can explain that, I wanted to take it, not her, I say pointing at Jameelah, she had nothing to do with it. At first we threw it all away but then we went back but the bin men had already taken it.
It’s alright, he says, your friend already told us everything.
So, I say, are we going to get in trouble?
No, he says laughing but then he frowns.
You’re bleeding, he says.
Yeah, it’s my wisdom teeth, I say, the stitches popped out.
And that on top of it all, says Mama.
The policeman hands me a tissue as a young female officer comes down the hall.
We got him, she says, he was apprehended at home.
And, asks the policeman, any drama?
Not really, he barricaded himself in and we suspected he was planning to harm himself, but the team got in and was able to subdue him. No corporal damage.
Corporal damage. I let the phrase float past me. I know what it means, everyone around here does because they always say it on the train when somebody jumps in front of an S-bahn and you have to wait until they’ve scraped the corporal damage off the tracks before the train can continue. Sometimes it’s better to die than to live with whatever has happened, which is probably what Tarik was thinking. I’m sure that it’s true.
Mama pulls me to her.
How do you get yourself into these things, she says stroking my hair.
I shrug my shoulders.
No idea, I say, no idea what I’m supposed to say, I didn’t get myself into anything, I didn’t do anything at all. Mama doesn’t get it, she’s forgotten everything off on her island though I’m really only realizing it now. I try to look past Mama to Jameelah but she looks away, off in the other direction, though Nico does look at me and I give him the dirtiest look of all time, at least I hope that’s the way it comes across.
Sorry, says Noura, what has happened with little Selma and her mother?
They’ve been taken to an undisclosed location, says the policewoman, because of the press.
And the boy?
He’ll be released from custody as soon as everything is verified, says the policeman.
And then what? Where will he live?
I don’t know, to begin with he’ll probably be put in a home of some sort.
Can’t he live with us for a while, asks Noura.
Yes, theoretically, says the policewoman, you’ll just have to clear it with the department of youth services.
They’ll certainly allow it, says the male officer putting a hand on Noura’s shoulder, and don’t you worry about the immigration department. There is absolutely no downside to coming forward as a witness like this for you or for your daughter. It would be crazy if it was permitted to have a negative effect.
Mama stands up.
Can we go now? I have two little kids at home.
Sorry, says the policewoman, we still have to take your daughter’s statement, but the rest can go.
Nico gets up. He comes over to me and starts to open his mouth.
Leave me alone, I say and turn to Jameelah.