You (7 page)

“Do I look like Dear Abby or something?”

“No, you look real,” says Neil and leans against the stall door and shuts his eyes again. “That’s all I know.”

Her name is Kira. Neil met her at a party in Hamburg, and hung out with her. Then he lost sight of her and Kira disappeared, she’d just gone. And Neil started burning, that’s exactly how he puts it.

“I started burning.”

He discovered that Kira was living with the girlfriend of a friend in Berlin, and that is why he borrowed his mother’s car. Kira doesn’t know he’s here. Neil doesn’t know what to do. And you sit between them and feel as if you’re still in the cinema, back row, the picture’s out of focus, the people are too noisy, and the movie’s a dreary mixture of relationship crisis and sex comedy.

Let’s see who laughs first
, you think when you’re back at the bar. Neil has organized two new bottles of beer and asks what you think of Kira.

“Look at her,” he pleads.

You look across. Kira’s one of those smoothies, what did you expect? Smooth hair and smooth face, and when she laughs even her teeth are smooth. She reminds you a bit of Taja, one of those girls everybody wants to have as their friend. Except that Taja isn’t really smooth, she has hidden corners and edges, and that makes her especially beautiful. But you don’t want to think about Taja now. Neil is waiting for an answer. What does he want to hear? His Kira looks great, and you wish that she’d get her period or a rash all over her face. But girls like Kira never get rashes, and they only get their periods when no one’s looking.

“And?”

You roll your eyes. What’s wrong with this guy?

“Look for yourself.”

Neil shakes his head: no, he can’t. He stares into the mirror above the bar.

“What are you scared of? She’s just another beautiful bitch, she will definitely remember you. You’re not sixteen anymore, why are you farting around?”

Neil turns the bottle in his hands, then lifts his shoulders as if to
say
I don’t know
and stands there like an idiot with his shoulders lifted. You’ve just got to ask him, “Are you in love?”

The shoulders come back down, his gaze avoids you and carves scratches in the mirror above the bar.

Bull’s-eye
.

You laugh.

All this because he’s in love?

“I’m cursed,” he says.

“What?”

“No, really. I’ve been this way for as long as I’ve been able to think. And it never stops. I search and search and I can’t find the right love. I’ve been behaving like an idiot and I can’t even … Have you never been in love?”

“It’s nonsense.”

“What’s nonsense?”

“You know, falling in love. It’s just nonsense. It’s for people who have nothing better to do with their time. That’s why I’m not going to fall in love, right? If I want pain I can pinch myself.”

“It’s not the same.”

“You don’t know how hard I can pinch.”

Neil flinches when you reach for his arm. You take a swig of his beer, even though your bottle is still half full. What a spoilsport.

“So you’ve never had a boyfriend?” he asks.

“You want a list?”

“And you were never in love, not once? I don’t believe it.”

Neil looks away from the mirror and looks you straight in the eye. Real headlights. You feel some beer trickling from the corner of your mouth, and quickly set the bottle back down again.

“I’d fall in love with you in a blink,” he says. “If Kira wasn’t there, I’d be head over heels already, that’s the way I am.”

You cough. It’s like in a slasher movie. Now all you have to do is go over there and cut Kira’s throat and you’ll have a new boyfriend, and one who’s in love with you.

“Okay, I’ll take care of her,” you say and walk over to Kira.

As you shove your way through the dancing crowd, there’s a sentence of Neil’s that you can’t get out of your head.
You look real
. It
could have been intended as an insult. What did he mean? And why did he single you out, of all people?

Because I was standing on my own, because there was no one else around, because …

All nonsense.
There’s no such thing as chance
, Schnappi said once,
everything happens the way it’s supposed to
. Why should you doubt that now? Why are you so goddamn insecure? Just wait till your girls hear what’s happened to you. They’ll be green with envy and they won’t believe a word of it.

“Hi.”

You stop in front of Kira, your hands are shoved into your back trouser pockets, your pelvis is sticking out. She smiles at you, she’s in her early twenties, just right for Neil. Kira leans forward and you lean forward too as if you were about to hug each other, then you tell her your name, your real name. She holds out her hand. Fingers cool as marble, green flecks in her irises.

Dammit, she’s pretty
.

“Do you know that guy over there? The one standing at the bar?”

Kira looks past you. Neil still has his back turned to you. You’re sure he’s watching both of you in the mirror above the bar.

“The guy who’s looking away. The one with the ponytail. He’s my friend. You met him at a party in Hamburg. He followed you here and he brought me with him. He wanted me to see who you are. You get that? He’s completely confused. He doesn’t know who he wants. You or me. Do you want him?”

“Who?”

Kira is confused, you can tell by her frown that she has no idea who you’re talking about.

“Neil.”

“Neil?”

“Yes, Neil.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Oh.”

“Is he sweet?”

“Very.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

“That he’s confused, but I don’t remember him.”

You nod as if you understand.

“He’ll be devastated,” you say and walk back to Neil.

“So?”

He asks without turning around, eyes on the mirror; you’re sure he’s been watching you all along and at the same time he’s peeled the whole label off his beer bottle, total coward. But that’s okay, even cowards have to exist. You press your lips to his ear and say, “She wants to talk to you,” before you turn away, leaving him at the bar.

And there you are, it’s too early, the night has just begun and you can go and meet your girls at the playground. You can if you want. But what do you want?

It feels as if a whole day has gone by. The time with Neil has stretched, as if someone had taken hold of the minutes and pulled them apart.

He could at least have kissed me
.

You imagine what that would have been like. His lips, your lips, and off you go. Nothing happens in your head, you have no imagination, as soon as things get serious the screen goes blank. There’s the taste of beer and lime in your mouth, and it reminds you of the beach and the sea, you think you can hear the rush of waves and there is the salty taste of the water on your lips, but you can’t imagine a simple kiss.

Damn
.

You look up at the sky. The stars above Berlin are always a marvel.
The city is far too bright
, Ruth once explained to you.
Because of all the lights you can’t see the sky. Reflections and stuff
. That bitch always knows everything. But you wish she was here now. Ruth, and Schnappi, and Nessi. And Taja, of course, Taja too. She would know right away where you went wrong with Neil.

The longing creeps up on you, and you bite your lower lip.
Taja, where are you?
It’s like a hole in your belly that the wind blows through, and there’s always a cold spot, whatever you do, you can’t keep that spot warm. It’s been six days, and you can hardly remember her face.

What if she’s gone forever?

“What’re you doing up there?”

You look to the right. Neil is standing beside his Jaguar.

“Looking for the stars,” you say, and slip off the car roof.

Neil rubs both hands over his face.

“Have you been crying?”

He brings his hands down. He hasn’t been crying. He’s just completely wasted.

“She doesn’t remember me. She says she was so drunk that she doesn’t even know whose house the party was at.”

You wait to hear if there’s anything else; there isn’t anything else. Of course you can’t leave it there.

“So? Are you still in love?”

He lifts his shoulders again and lets them fall, which could mean anything, then he opens the passenger door and you get in. He walks around the car. You belt yourself in, he belts himself in and starts the engine and drives off. You sense that there’s nothing more to say. So you check your face in the side mirror and you smile at yourself and contentedly fold your hands in your lap.

They’re sitting in the playground like a flock of fat crows, surrounded by pizza boxes and beer cans. Your crowd. Neil doesn’t want to meet them, he doesn’t even get out, he sits in the car and scribbles his number on the cinema ticket, smiles wearily and says, “Just in case.” He probably isn’t even aware of your kiss, but you are aware of the thin film of sweat on his cheek and imagine him driving back to Hamburg now, down the highway, on the road for hours, on his own for hours, even the trucks will overtake him. You know one thing for certain: he’ll forget Kira quickly enough, but he won’t forget you.

Nessi looks down the street and avoids your eye. She doesn’t want to go to the playground, she doesn’t want to see the others, or speak, or do anything. The question is what do you want to do now? Your best friend is pregnant and you can’t just disappear and leave her alone, that’s not an option.

“Don’t tell anyone,” says Nessi.

“I’ll take you home,” you say, avoiding her request, which isn’t all that stupid, because you don’t know if you can keep your mouth shut. You’ve always had problems with secrets. They only exist to be shared.

“Thanks.”

Even though it’s not on your way, you take Nessi to Nollendorfplatz on your bike. It’s a funny image. A dwarf who can hardly reach the pedals with her feet, and behind her a giant, clinging onto the dwarf as if the faintest breeze might separate them.

You cut across the Kurfürstendamm, come off the road at the Gedächtniskirche and onto the sidewalk, getting yelled at by the tourists. On the way you talk about your mother in the bathroom, even though you don’t really know what your mother was doing. Your mouth is a machine gun, it never runs out of ammunition. Twice the word “abortion” slips sharp and jagged from your mouth and you bite your tongue to brake the onrush of words. Nessi doesn’t react. She clings to your hips and rests her head against your back. When you stop at Winterfeldtplatz she doesn’t move and you wait a minute and then another before you say you’ve arrived. Nessi
straightens up, rubs her eyes and looks up at her block as if you’d dragged her to a gulag.

“Where are you actually going?”

You give a start. You look over your shoulder. Sorry, girl, but we’re starting to worry about you. Nessi is still sitting on the luggage rack and you’re still sitting on your bike and you feel her left breast warm against your back. Nessi asked you a good question. Where are you actually going? You’re not outside Nessi’s block, you’re not even anywhere near, you’re riding all the way through Charlottenburg in the wrong direction. More precisely you’re on Krumme Strasse; even more precisely than that, you’re on the way to Stuttgarter Platz.

At some point I’m going to be killed
, you think, and try to calm the shaking in your arms.

The first time you had a blank, two years ago, it was when you were at school and the bell rang for break. You went outside to get a hot chocolate from the kiosk, and you talked to a guy you’ve always wanted to talk to. Stink brought you back to reality by kicking your chair from behind, and at that moment you were back in class and Stink was asking if you’d give her some chewing gum. You couldn’t work out what had happened. It felt so real you could taste the hot chocolate in your mouth.

The second time was a month later at a party. You spent almost the whole evening playing strip poker, and when that got boring you went downstairs to dance a bit. Two songs later you were sweating and happy and wanted to fetch a drink when Ruth tapped you on the forehead and said she’d like to see if you were bluffing or not, because anybody who sweats bucketloads like you were doing must be bluffing. You looked helplessly at the people around you. You were still playing poker, your cards were rubbish, and there was a memory of dancing and there were drops of sweat on your forehead.