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?”
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