You

Nessi shakes the stick dry and looks at it.

“How long?”

“Two minutes.”

You pass her the second stick.

Afterward you both lean against the wall of the stall, each holding one of the sticks, and wait. Last year you caught your mother in the bathroom. She was sitting on the edge of the tub gnawing at a fingernail. Her skin was almost transparent, like one of those jellyfish you saw when you were at the North Sea coast. Your mother was holding the pregnancy test just as Nessi’s holding it now—vertical and pointing upwards, as if it were important to hold the stick vertical and pointing upwards. You knew your mother didn’t want any more children. She’s in her late thirties, she has her hands full looking after you. You’ve never talked about it, but it’s clear to you that she had an abortion. Since then you’ve been wondering whether it would have been a brother or a sister. You wouldn’t have minded a brother.

“Look,” Nessi says quietly.

You look, then you look at the stick in your hand, then back at Nessi’s.

“I’m not going to cry,” says Nessi, and bursts into tears.

STINK (#ulink_00c74ed7-57f6-5b47-b94a-9d2b157c14b1)

It feels as if you’re being dragged down the street on your ass. Except that it doesn’t hurt. It is a weird feeling to sit so low. Glance to the right and you could scratch people’s kneecaps. The Jaguar purrs. You don’t say much, that’s a good feeling too, just driving around and not having to say much, understanding each other without words, drifting through the city with an empty head and a cigarette between your lips. Pure luxury.

“Hungry?” asks Neil.

No, you’re not thristy either, you’re just more content than you’ve been for ages. Your heart is still fluttering, as if someone had placed one of those hummingbirds into your chest. Flutterflutter. You give Neil a sideways glance and without thinking you place your hand on his thigh. Neil doesn’t react, doesn’t look at you, doesn’t say anything, goes on driving, hands on the wheel, wind in his face. You just have to ask, “Where are we going?”

“What?”

You are shouting it.

“Dancing,” he replies.

“Good,” you say, and leave your hand on his thigh.

The bouncer doesn’t want to let you in, Neil waves a few banknotes, the bouncer still doesn’t want to let you in, Neil draws him aside. He’s exactly the same height as the bouncer, but only half as wide. He talks in a lowered voice. Very controlled. Then the bouncer looks at you again, rubs his forehead as if someone’s hit him, and waves you in. No problem now. He even smiles at you. The asshole couldn’t get close to you if he was the last guy in the world.

“What did you say to him?” you ask.

Neil makes a gun out of his thumb and forefinger, holds it to your temple and laughs.

“I threatened him.”

You push your way through the crowd, the flickering lights are dazzling, the people are jostling each other, it smells of cigarettes and artificial smoke and very faintly of limes. A gap appears at the bar, you lean against it, shout into each other’s ears, laugh loudly. There’s a mirror hanging above the bar, at least thirty feet long, and for one terribly long moment you can’t see yourself. Your palms are clammy. You see Neil, you see the people around him, light and smoke and fog, but you yourself aren’t there. Like a vampire. Invisible. Then you spot your piled-up hair, your sulky mouth, and you meet your own eye and wonder if you’re really as small and insignificant as the mirror is trying to tell you. You’ve never seen yourself like that before. You’re a sektschbeascht, Alberto used to say. But he said lots of things.

“Do you like it here?” Neil calls to you, and you say yeah even though the music isn’t your thing. Nonetheless, you bob up and down as if you listened to nothing but soul all day long. You’re inches away from singing along. Before it can come to that, Neil hands you a beer with a wedge of lime in the neck of the bottle and you clink drinks and then the beer’s gone too and you dance and touch each other and everything’s as it should be, and a bit better.

You smell Neil among all those smells—his aftershave, the sweat beneath it—and he smells good, he smells so good that you press yourself against him, and he smiles and puts his arms around you and says in your ear, “Restroom?”

You wish he would go on dancing, and yet you take his hand and follow him to the restrooms. You notice that you’re thinking too much. You’re missing the special little moments. You want to stop and say it’s going too fast.

He hasn’t even kissed me. He’s barely touched me. He’s—

Stop thinking, you tell yourself and keep your hand in front of your mouth and hope your breath doesn’t smell bad, and hope your makeup isn’t too smudged with sweat, and try to remember what sort of underwear you’re wearing.

Please, not the red ones with the little blue flowers, please not those.

Neil steps inside the men’s room and pushes past a few guys. He rattles at the doors, finds a free stall and drags you in behind him.

Trapped.

The music is just a murmur now. The ultraviolet light makes Neil’s teeth gleam, his eyeballs are like the magnesium flare you saw in chemistry. Cold and alien. Your nervous trembling is ebbing away in little waves, the hummingbird sinks exhausted to the bottom of your chest. You’ve lost your drive, you’re fearful and shy. You don’t feel the way you did when you got into the car beside Neil. You’re an outstretched hand. Naked and sensitive. It would be nice if you could turn off the voice in your head: If he kisses me now I’ll do anything he likes. It’s the only way. I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll go along with it all, because I think Neil knows what he’s doing. He’s going to—

“I’ve got a problem,” he says, interrupting your thoughts.

“Okay,” you say far too quickly and try to smile.

“No, really,” says Neil and then tells you about that girl, maybe you saw her? On the other side of the dance floor? Just below the DJs’ cabin? Did you notice her? No? Doesn’t matter, anyway it was because of her that Neil has driven from Hamburg to Berlin. Of course he wanted to see his father, too, but he’s really here because of this girl and doesn’t know what to do now. He needs help. Help from you.

“From me?”

“Yes, from you.”

“Why from me?”

He shuts his eyes as if he can’t bear the restroom any longer. When he looks at you again, you have the feeling he’s just woken up. His expression is almost embarrassing, as if he’s about to burst into tears. Stop it, you think, and regret going with him. Guys should solve their girl problems themselves. Is that why he talked to you in the first place? Do you look like Dear Abby or something?

“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?”