It’s staying quiet.
The derelict house makes you think of a rabid dog that’s just waiting for you to make a false move. Lurking and rigid. Five lamps from the building site are flashing orange lights and illuminating the façade with a flickering light. It’s one of those ruins that you loved as a child. Graffiti on the walls, not a soul to be seen and hidden treasures everywhere. You’re not a child anymore, you don’t find ruins exciting anymore. It’s eleven at night and the city is a greedy hand hovering over you, wanting to stuff you into the darkest hole of the building site.
You rub the blood from your nose and wonder why no one’s followed you. Things don’t get sadder than this. No one’s interested in you. They wanted Darian. They’ve got Darian.
Shit.
“What am I …”
Your voice is a croak. You’re not great at talking to yourself. In horror movies the victims eventually start talking to themselves so that the viewer knows things are turning serious. Nothing serious is happening here, you’re miles away from serious.
How could I have run away?
Your tongue checks if you’ve got a loose tooth. You’re relieved, all your teeth are in place. And your nose isn’t even broken. You banged it when you crawled under that car. A wood louse through and through. You shake your head to get your brain back in gear. You have to do something, doesn’t matter what, you have to do something, otherwise you won’t be able to look at yourself in the mirror again for the rest of the year.
Think.
A few bicycles are parked beside the church, you start tugging away at one of them, kicking the pedals. The chain snaps with a crack, your hands are bruised but hey, you’ve got the fucking chain.
“Okay, okay, okay …”
You wrap one end firmly around your fist and let the chain dangle against your thigh, then you pull yourself together and cross the street.
Whatever happens, one thing is certain, no one’s going to be expecting you.
Darian sits in the ruins on an upside-down plastic barrel, staring into the distance. Elbows on his knees, hands slack. He reminds you a bit of a drawing in a book. Hercules sitting on a rock after a great battle, taking a break. Darian doesn’t look up when you approach, and for a moment you’re sure he’s crying.
“Everything all right?”
Darian raises his head. There’s a bloody scratch above his left eye, and his lower lip looks as if he’s had a collagen injection. There’s a second scratch on his upper arm, the muscles stand out angry, his T-shirt is a tight fit. It’s a mystery to you how anyone would dare to mess with Darian.
“What’s with the bike chain?” he asks, and his words sound as if he’s got a pillow in his mouth.
“Sorry,” you say and drop the chain.
And then there you stand, and there lies the chain at your feet, and there sits Darian who looks at you and says, “You ran away, right?”
You lower your head, you turn red.
“These jerks,” says Darian, and lets you off the hook. “Look at my face, you see that?”
You lean forward and look at his face. Yes, you see it.
“I’m gonna kill them for that,” he says. “And now …”
Darian holds his hand out to you. He doesn’t have to say anything, you open your belt and take off your jeans. It’s the least you can do for him. You’re lucky he doesn’t hit you. It would have been okay, he could even have whipped you with the bike chain, no problem, wood lice can cope with that kind of stuff.
Your jeans are too short, they stick to Darian’s legs like a second skin, he can’t fasten the top button, abs of titanium, thighs of steel. Since he filled the basement with dumbbells and an exercise machine, you’d been down there with the guys two times, but you’d had enough very quickly. Your body is your body, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Even if you wouldn’t have objected to an extra pound of muscle. Training is everything is Darian’s motto. No wonder he fucks the girls left and right.
“First they kick the shit out of me, then they steal my pants. You think that scares me?”
No, you don’t think anything scares Darian. Apart from his training, he goes to the gym on Adenauer Platz twice a week, takes protein supplements, and looks as if he’s in his mid-twenties when in fact he’s only seventeen.
“That doesn’t worry me, because I know exactly who did it.”
Darian thinks it was the Turks, you mumble something about how yeah, it definitely was the Turks. You both know the Turks had nothing to do with it. Not the Turks, not the Yugos, not the gang from Spandau, not even those idiots who have taken over the Westend and nobody knows if they come from Poland or Romania.
Darian goes on.
“You should have heard them. They laughed. I swear, they’re never going to laugh like that again. Just wait. I’m going to turn them inside out. I’ll get them, just you wait.”
“Perhaps you should—”
“Don’t say it,” he cuts in.
“I’m just thinking.”
“Mirko, shut your trap!”
You shut your trap. Darian’s very sensitive about his old man. He’s the only boy in the whole of Berlin who’s regularly made a target because of his old man. Like last night. Not for the Turks, not for the Yugos, but for six guys from the neighborhood. Darian’s a challenge. How far can you go before the gods get furious?
“What are you going to tell him if he asks?”
“My father won’t even notice.”
“But what’ll you say if he does?”
“That I had trouble with a few idiots, that’s all.”
You nod; one word to Darian’s dad and those guys would vanish from the city never to be seen again. That’s what they say.
Darian spits.
“I have my pride, you understand? I have my own pride. I don’t need my father to wipe my ass. So they can work me over, they can drop by every day. It’s called learning the hard way, get me? They want a mean dog, I will be a mean dog. I memorized their faces. One day I’ll be ready for them and then they’ll pay. Mirko, I tell you, they’ll pay.”
Today was your first official appearance. Darian went with you to the Columbiadamm to meet Bebe and his people. Bebe has twenty-four gambling places scattered around Berlin, which he inherited from his family. Darian’s incredibly envious of Bebe. You spent two hours listening to them trying to outdo each other’s successes. In the end Bebe said he was going to send a few girls onto the street while there was still a bit of summer left. Darian couldn’t match that one, and mumbled that he’d better be going. It was just after ten, and during that time you hadn’t learned anything new. Except if you have a dick you have to swing it around. You like learning new stuff.
When Darian and you left the subway, they were waiting. They came up to you, two in the middle, two on the left and two on the right. Darian didn’t hesitate for a second, he shouldered the two guys in the middle aside and made a run. You were right behind him. Through the streets, through the backyards to the ruin, because Darian knows his way around the ruin. How was he supposed to know that the ruin wasn’t exactly undiscovered territory for these six guys?
You wait at the traffic lights for a moment and jump a red. You’re glad it’s late. It wouldn’t be funny if anyone saw you in your stupid underpants. Trainers, white socks and blue underpants with white clocks on them. A Christmas present from your mother.
Darian asks for the fourth time why you always have to wear