6
“You look horrible,” Cem said.
In those last weeks I hardly left my apartment. I watched TV and occasionally flipped through books, magazines, or the phone book. My cellphone remained off and I didn’t check the mail anymore. I had not gone to work and had forgotten to request an extension of my scholarship. My mother paid for our—now my—rent. I knew things would have to change soon.
“I slipped,” I answered guiltily.
“Can’t you pay more attention?”
“My mother said the same thing.”
“Gee, Masha. You look like an abused wife. Seriously, pay attention. Otherwise I won’t go outside with you anymore.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Do you want me to get deported?” Cem went into the kitchen and poked his head into the fridge. He dug through the drawers, examining the vegetables, throwing away some and checking the expiration dates on the yogurts.
“You went shopping. Very good.”
“That was my mother.”
“Good woman.”
“And I’m not a good woman?”
“No.”
“No?”
Cem paced the living room, looking around. He tried to estimate how much of Elisha’s stuff was still there.
“No.” He shook his head decidedly. “You know, when a Turkish guy and a girl meet for the first time, and the girl—of course, Turkish as well—offers him cake or something else, the guy takes a taste. And then he decides whether she’s a good woman or not. If not he can at least cast her out before it’s too late.” Cem looked me directly in the eye. “Masha, not even the slightest chuckle?”
“Cem?”
“What is it?”
“Will you tell me how your brother died?”
“No.” He looked determined as he sat down next to me and pulled Zigzags and a small round can from his jacket pocket.
“Afghan Black, with very best wishes from Konstantin.” Cem let me smell the hash.
“Did he get it in the park?” I asked.
“From his cousin.”
“I was in the park the other day with—” I interrupted myself. Cem’s face hardened. I took a deep breath and continued. “I guess it’s been a while. Anyway, there were only thirteen-year-olds trying to sell me rosemary. I thought the kids belonged to the same group of guys I bought from in the past and told them in Turkish that they should do their homework instead of trying to f*ck with hardworking people. One of them said that he only spoke German and the other called me white trash.”
Cem laughed at me.
“So Konstantin’s cousin doesn’t sell there anymore?”
“No, he works from home now. He just enrolled in economics.”
I took several deep tokes and passed the joint to Cem.
“Masha, I spent three hours in the booth today, interpreting French parliamentary speeches. If I don’t start studying at night, too, I’ll never pass that exam.”
Cem was my co-interpreter. We took turns, thirty minutes at a time, and together interpreted conferences in soundproof booths. We were well attuned to each other, immediately noticing if the other struggled with a word or an expression, sometimes helping or taking over early. Even our voices complimented each other nicely.
“Do you know the French term for synced election cycles?” Cem asked.
I reached out for the joint again and again. My limbs grew heavy. Cem always got silly on drugs: “Continuous campaigning, federal budget, referendum, diéte fédérale allemande, mandats directs et mandats de listes.” He giggled.
From then on I went back to spending my mornings in the interpretation booth, where I listened to absurd speeches on renewable energy, income tax, and fish farming over my headphones and repeated the words into the microphone in German, Russian, or French. Even though I was concentrating, half an hour later I had forgotten what the speaker had talked about. I spoke without forming a single thought. My brain was a machine. The afternoons I spent in the library, sitting at a long table between dozens of other students and studying vocabulary. In the evenings I read scientific papers and articles. In the morning before classes I read newspapers and magazines in English, German, French, and Russian. I tried to fill the void with vocabulary.