You

“Do you think we haven’t known that?” Schnappi asks behind you.

“But that doesn’t explain anything,” says Nessi. “Or do you think it does?”

You know it doesn’t explain anything, you curse time and its little games and close your eyes tight as if you were in a dream, and when you open them again you’re lying alone on the sofa in your father’s living room and your mouth is dry as dust and your cheeks are wet with tears. Where are you all? you think longingly and grip the edge of the table and pull it across the carpet until it’s right in front of you. Your hand seeks, your hand finds. You press your phone tightly to your chest and breathe out with relief.

Now everything’s going to be fine.

You push your face back into the sofa cushion until you can’t breathe anymore and that’s a good way to vanish into merciful darkness.

NESSI (#ulink_da720499-20e6-52ca-9cbe-ef5aeca40d42)

Above you hangs the night, below you lies the darkness, and you’re floating between the two and hear your girls calling to you. You imagine it’ll be like this forever. Just floating and not worrying about anything and forgetting that there’s a child growing in you. I could let go and sink, you think and realize it’s nonsense. You’ve never had a high opinion of people who killed themselves because they couldn’t take on life. In books, in movies, in life. But who knows what you’ll think in ten years; who knows what you’ll think when you’re lying in a bed somewhere sick and full of pain or when your heart is broken and the world seems as dark as the lake below you and the night above you. Who knows.

You turn in the water and only now do you feel the full weight of your wet clothes dragging you down. In no particular hurry, you move your arms and swim back to shore.

The boys think it’s sexy, they say you should do it more often. You grin, you have humor, your teeth are chattering. The world is full of idiots, and you’re one of them. Your clothes lie drying on the grass, Ruth has given you her jacket. You’re sitting by the fire, your knees against your chest, your eyes closed. Schnappi said her heart nearly stopped when she saw you in the water, but as her heart stops every time a good-looking guy walks by, that doesn’t mean much. What’s much more noticeable is that Schnappi’s avoiding your eye. You don’t need to ask. Your girls know you’re pregnant. Schnappi’s never been good at keeping secrets.

“Are you cold?” asks Stink.

You shake your head and feel as if you’re six years old again and sitting by the fire with your parents after a long hike, so terribly tired and so terribly excited at being allowed to stay up so late with the grown-ups. Stink puts an arm around you. The boys talk on and on. You are all patient, as girls are only patient when they want to get rid of boys. You are looking into the flames, you are barely talking. One after the other the boys say goodbye. Eric mumbles: Maybe we’ll meet up later in the bar. And then you’re alone at last.

“What did you do that for?” asks Ruth, as if you’d just got out of the water.

“I don’t know, it just felt right.”

“And if we’d been standing in the station, would you have jumped onto the rails?”

“Come on. I wasn’t planning on killing myself.”

They all nod, they hoped you were going to say this.

“Let’s all keep our mouths shut,” says Stink, before Ruth can tear into you again. “If Nessi doesn’t want to talk about it, then how about we don’t talk about it?”

Everyone looks at you, it’s your turn, the ball’s in your court, you say, “Girls, I’m pregnant, and I don’t want to talk about it now.”

They nod again, it’s accepted, and you’re so relieved that you want to talk about it right now, but at the same time you’re exhausted by the day and just want to sleep. Schnappi reads your thoughts and says that’s enough for today. She offers to drive you home.

Ruth hugs you and tells you to keep the jacket. Stink strokes your back and kisses you firmly on the mouth. It’s never been so hard to say goodbye to your friends. You get into your wet jeans. Schnappi takes you by the hand and you walk to her bike. When you’ve cycled two blocks she brakes, turns around to you, and swears she hasn’t told a soul.

“They guessed, Nessi, they really guessed.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

“Thanks.”

Schnappi cycles on, you rest your head against her back and shut your eyes.

It’s just after midnight when you creep into the apartment. Your parents are asleep, any sound would give you away, so you take off your running shoes and walk down the corridor to the bathroom in your wet socks. You close the door gently behind you and lean against it. It takes some minutes before you dare to turn on the light. Your face is pale, your clothes still wet and heavy. You could never have pulled this one off in the winter.

I went into the Lietzensee, you think and flip yourself the bird in the mirror.

In the shower the water’s so hot that you flinch for a moment, but you don’t change the temperature, you put up with the heat and wait until it’s passed through all the layers of cold to your innermost core and makes you glow.

You haven’t been as freezing as that for years.

By the time you leave the shower, the bathroom is a landscape swathed in fog.

You wipe the mirror clear and look at yourself.

Go closer.

You try to see a change. Nothing. You look down at yourself. Everything is as it should be. Breasts, belly, legs. As always. You make a fist and press it against your belly button. You’re furious. You’re so furious with yourself that you want to shove your fist through your stomach.

And then?

You don’t know what then.

But you have a clear vision of where it goes from here. You see your father shaking his head and calling you my little one. Your mother will burst into tears and get a bottle of white wine from the fridge. She won’t understand you. She’ll want to know how you imagine it will all be. On no account must you speak of abortion, bear that in mind. Abortion is taboo, because your mother had an abortion when she was nineteen and has never forgiven herself. The decision hurt both your parents. So no word about abortion, because then you might as well take a corkscrew and jab their eyes out. Your mother with her tears and quivering shoulders, your father leaning forward, hands open, as if to catch you. After the first glass of wine your father will say things will sort themselves out and there’s enough room in the apartment, which is already far too small, but you won’t point that out either. Your mother will hug you and promise to take care of everything, because she is your mother, after all, you should never forget that. She’ll also say she’s glad that you waited until after school, as if you planned to get pregnant. Then she’ll look at your father and say emotionally: I’m going to be a grandma!

Your parents won’t ask who the father is, because they’re scared of the answer.

That’s how it is, that’s how it always will be.

Fear.

And throughout all this your left hand would be clenched into a fist.

Over the next few weeks you’ll start getting fat. Not that you’re skinny now, but your mother looked like a whale when she was pregnant, so you’ll be exactly the same, she’s shown you the future. The months will pass, and the apprenticeship that Aunt Helga promised you will go to another girl. You’ll hardly see your girlfriends, because their lives are their lives and your life is your life and you can’t go in two directions at once. Every now and again Stink will call and you will start crying and Stink will cry too and after two hours your ears will be so hot from gossiping that you’ll hang up reluctantly. You’ll read everything about babies, weigh up the pros and cons of a home birth, and opt for the hospital. You’ll slowly come to terms with the situation. Your seventeenth birthday will be sad. Stink will drop in with Schnappi and stay for fourteen minutes. Ruth will phone in her greetings. And Taja? You’ll never hear a word from Taja, because still no one has any idea where she is. There will be no presents for you, just presents for the baby. Little socks. Little jackets. Toys. People will look at you askance in the supermarket and keep their distance. Everyone will know what kind of girl you are. Mother. Mom. Whale. And sometimes they will ask who the father is. And sometimes you will look at them and smile, as if that was an answer. You know you’re too young to be a mother. You’re too young to be anything at all. But life in reverse only works in the movies.

During the birth you will consist only of pain, and the pain will hollow you out and fill you with fire. Nothing bad can happen to me after this, you will think. And then the child. Red. Noisy. Yours. And everything will be fine.

And everything will be lovely.

It’s the last thing you want. You want to live without responsibilities or obligations, and without parents. You want to be someone who leads a life that is a mystery. Not the life of a girl named after a pop star. Not the life of the many girls who run around like emotional building sites and get pregnant and accept it because they’re just too idiotic to go a different way.

Not one of many, no.

But who knows whether you might not be better off like this after all. Take a look at Stink. Her mother ran off when Stink was still a baby, and after her father had decided that two children was too much work, he dumped Stink and her brother on Aunt Sissi and ran off to Argentina. Stink was nine at the time and until her twelfth birthday she thought her dad was coming back for Christmas. Stink’s brother saw through it all right away, of course. Whenever you ask Stink about it, she shakes her head and says she couldn’t care less. But you know that’s not true. It is like an invisible itch that no amount of scratching helps. A mixture of hatred and resignation. You on the other hand love your parents, but you don’t want them around, there’s no getting past that.

You give a start when the phone in your jacket pocket rings. You seriously went to sleep on the toilet, your hair is dry, and the toilet seat has left two impressions on the underside of your thighs. Your phone beeps twice, then it’s quiet. The text is so short that for a moment you think your phone has got bumped.

cm

Then you see who sent the text, and the thinking stops, your problems are your problems, this is more important. You run out of the bathroom into your room and get dressed. You put on a pair of worn-out running shoes, turn around and see your mother standing in the doorway.

“Vanessa, what’s going on?”