No, I say, I’m looking for Jameelah.
She was just on Kurfürsten, says Nico.
Kurfürstenstrasse?
Yeah, down where the hookers stand. No idea what she’s doing there but she looked really stressed out. Did something happen?
Did you talk to her, I ask.
No, says Nico, I don’t think she saw me. But even if she did she hasn’t talked to me since all the shit with Amir. She’s obviously angry at me.
Probably.
Probably, says Nico looking at me. You were right by the way about just going to the police. I should have asked you again beforehand. It wasn’t right and I’m really sorry.
We can talk about it another time, I say, how long ago did you see Jameelah?
Not sure exactly but it wasn’t long ago.
Do you have any minutes, I ask.
Nico hands me his phone. I dial Jameelah’s number but nobody picks up.
Shit.
I’m sure it’s nothing, says Nico.
I have to go, I say.
I run to the U-bahn and take it to Kurfürsten. When I get out it’s thundering and there are flashes of lightning. I run half blind along Kurfürsten, the women have gathered under the awnings of the convenience stores to avoid getting wet, but not Jameelah, she’s sitting on our electrical box and letting the rain pour down on her. She’s holding a Müller milk in her hand, raindrops plop into it, thick drops that are dripping off Jameelah’s nose. I climb up next to her. For a while nobody says anything, we just sit there and let life float by, twenty-one minutes past, meaning just thirty-nine minutes of life left, I count slowly backwards from there until I reach zero, until I don’t have a minute left to let float by.
What was in the letter?
For a while Jameelah doesn’t say anything and I wonder to myself whether she’s counting backward from thirty-nine too, because that’s about how long it takes her to put the Müller milk container to her lips and gulp it down in one go.
The letter, says Jameelah, the letter said Ladies and Gentlemen, as you have known for a good long time, god’s earth is rotten and as a result you can no longer remain here in Germany. Please pack up your things and fuck off back to wherever it is you came from. With rotten regards, your rotten world. That’s about what it said.
It can’t be true, I say, how can it be so sudden.
My mother went back once after we moved here, says Jameelah, she just wanted to go to her mother’s funeral but they found out somehow.
So what, I say, who cares about that.
They care, says Jameelah pulling Mariacron, maracuja juice and milk out of her rucksack and mixing another round, you’re not allowed to ever go back once you’re here, otherwise you have to go back permanently.
That’s crazy, I say.
We have to turn in our passports tomorrow, says Jameelah.
Why?
So we don’t drop out of sight beforehand. What do they think, that I’m Anne Frank or something?
Dropping out of sight is a good idea, who is it you said managed to do that?
Anne Frank.
Anne Frank, wait, does she go to our school? The name sounds familiar.
Man the diary! The diary of Anne Frank!
Oh right, I say, we read that in Struck’s class. That was boring. And the type was so small.
It was only boring because we read the boring version, there’s another one, in the other one Anne Frank writes about her pussy and the guy she’s in love with, Peter. It’s really good.
I want to read that one. Do you own a copy?
No Lukas loaned it to me, but you can have it. I’m never going to see Lukas again.
Better wait and see, I say.
Do you not get it, Jameelah screams and jumps down from the electrical box, they’re deporting us! I have to leave, I’m not going to become German, I’m never ever going to become German!
Today I found an eyelash and for the first time in ages wished for something. When I was a kid I would pull out an eyelash whenever I wanted to wish for something. Why wait for one to fall out when there were so many just lining my eyes and all I had to do was pull the wishes out, I thought, but none of the wishes ever came true, probably because I didn’t wait for them to fall out. I have no idea how many lashes I must have pulled out for that alone, just so I could wish for Papa to come home, over and over. That’s all I ever used any lashes for whether they fell out or I pulled them out. I know that having Papa come home was a big wish, but none of the smaller wishes ever came true either, not that I expected them to, but still.
I go into the hall and pull on my Chucks.
Let me know when you guys are ready, calls Rainer from the living room.
Yep, I say opening the door to leave.
I walk across the playground and ring at Jameelah’s.
Upstairs she’s standing in the apartment door barefoot with her hair pulled back, that’s how long it’s got.
Hi, she says as I make it up the last step.
Hi, I say.
Everything echoes in the empty rooms. No idea how Noura and Jameelah managed to completely clear out the apartment while still going to school and to work. Noura wanted it that way, I want everything to stay as normal as possible until the very last day, she had said, and I don’t want anyone to find out, she said, it’s bad enough for us without having to be ashamed on top of it all.
Now the apartment is empty, all that’s left are the keys sitting on the spotlessly scrubbed kitchen counter and next to them the letter from the immigration office. It’s folded twice so that all you can see is the part in the middle. I don’t need to read it again anyway, I know it by heart, I must have read it a hundred times, I even copied it by hand and took the copy to Krap-Krüger. Jameelah doesn’t know about it, I only went because I was so desperate and Krap-Krüger’s a human rights activist. I waited until Lukas and Tobi and Nadja and all the rest had left and then I went in to the tea shop, which as usual smelled like god’s rotten earth but I tried to breathe through my mouth so I didn’t have to smell it.
Krap-Krüger was really nice at first, he put on his reading glasses and read the text of the letter but after that he looked at me and shook his head.
What can be done to fight it, I asked him.
Krap-Krüger tossed his glasses onto the couch and said, you’re just coming now?
I didn’t understand what he meant.
Why, I asked, when else was I supposed to come?
It’s too late now, Krap-Krüger had said pointing to the letter, you should have come to me much earlier, these bureaucracies, he said, they’re cold and uncaring, to them it’s not about individual people, this is just a routine transaction to them, with people like that you have to hit them with their own legal language but that takes time, my god my dear, I was here the whole summer.
Here, says Jameelah handing me a piece of scrap paper, this is Amir’s new address.
At that group home?
Yeah but it’s not so bad, I was there, most of the people are out of their chadors but the supervisors are alright. It just takes so long for the whole thing to be resolved, but then he’ll be able to move back in with his mother.
Noura comes into the kitchen.
We have to go, she says.
I call home and soon after Rainer is out front in his taxi. He puts all the luggage in the trunk and holds open the door for Noura. Jameelah and I crawl into the backseat.
Have you been to the new airport yet, asks Rainer adjusting the rearview mirror, it’s the biggest construction site in Europe.
No, says Noura with a tired smile.
I look out the window. Birds fly past in the sky, I tap Jameelah and point to them.
Cranes, she says with an expert’s eye, cranes and back there, she points out the back window, those are swallows.