You

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.

SCHNAPPI (#ulink_405e893a-b326-5aa2-8a96-ac21f58ae570)

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.

Your girls don’t know anything about it. You’re worried they’ll think you’re crazy and have you put in an asylum right away. Probably you got it from your mother. She calls herself a shaman and says she can sense when dead people are walking past her. She also firmly believes that everyone has to cross an abyss before he becomes a real person. Whatever a real person is, your mother says a lot of things when she has time on her hands, like that she has to die in Vietnam and nowhere else, she won’t be persuaded otherwise. You’ve looked the word up, and you’re sure your mother isn’t a shaman, because she’s never used her abilities for the good of the community. Witch would be better.

Two years have passed since then, and during that time you’ve had blanks at least once a month. It’s your description for those daydreams that aren’t really just daydreams. It’s not a jump cut and it’s not exactly a blackout. Whatever it is, no one writes on the internet about it. It’s your very own illness. So you weren’t surprised for a second when you rode your bike half a mile through the Berlin traffic with Nessi on the luggage rack without getting under a car.

Practice makes perfect, you think, and you’d be grateful if your arms would finally stop shaking.

And there you are now and you wish you weren’t there. You made a mistake, you were supposed to bring Nessi home. Look at her: she’s not really in the now, she’s like one of those zombies who stare stupidly around the place and then go for your throat the minute you’re looking the other way.

Nessi leaves half of her pizza and drinks a whole beer, then takes a drag on a joint and holds her breath until the smoke has disappeared into her and only hot air comes out.

Not good, not good at all.

You wish the boys would clear off, then you could talk. The boys are Indi, Eric, and Jasper. They could equally well be called Karl, Tommi, and Frank. It makes no difference. A year ago it made a big difference. Something has changed. As if your girls had switched off the interest when school ended. Ruth is the only exception. She’s flirting with the three lads, and you could bet that at least one of them has a boner. You slide across to Nessi and can’t help thinking of Taja. Alone you’re nothing, together you’re strong. First Taja disappears, then Stink. Blood sisters never leave each other in the lurch. That’s what you’d love to whisper to Nessi, but Nessi would immediately think she’s the one leaving you in the lurch, so you just shut up.

There are two beeps; Nessi fishes her phone out of her jacket. Let it not be Henrik, you think. Let it be anyone else, just not Henrik. You know a lot of idiots, but Henrik’s right up at the top of the list. No one should be made pregnant by somebody like him. You know what you’re talking about. You hooked up a few times with him and he dumped you when you wouldn’t sleep with him. Henrik is like an advertisement on TV that everybody thinks is funny and then they forget all about it because there are so many advertisements that are just as funny.

Ruth points over your shoulder.

“Look who’s coming!”

You turn around. Stink is getting out of a hot set of wheels. She sticks her hands in her back pockets and comes strolling over to you. The relief floods over you with such force that you explode with stupid laughter.

Now everything’s going to be okay again.

“Hey, where have you been?” Ruth asks.

“Where do you think I was?” Stink asks back and doesn’t even turn around as the red Jaguar drives off. “I took a trip. First Tenerife, then Malibu.”

The crowd whistles and laughs, Nessi looks up from her phone and smiles wearily. Stink says she needs some chow, right now or even sooner. She is like quicksilver, nothing can hold her. Off she goes to the pizza stand. Ruth has the same idea as you and goes running after her. Nessi is forgotten for a moment. You want to know what Stink got up to with the guy in the Jag.

“I can hardly walk,” she says, “it was that hot.”

Ruth and you screech, even though you don’t want to, the screech just slips out of you. You immediately hold your hand in front of your mouth and your eyes glitter with envy. If you rubbed them now, it would probably rain stardust.

“No way!” says Ruth.

“Yes way.”

“Tell us it’s not true!” you demand.

“But it is true.”

“So what would you like?”

The pizza guy grins at you. He’s in his mid-forties, he’s wearing a stupid T-shirt, and his hair’s so greasy he looks as if his head has spent all week in the food fryer. Stink ignores him and studies the menu, even though she always orders the same pizza.