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The summer, Amira thinks, should either have to come to an end after two weeks, or go on forever.
When it lasts a different amount of time (so every year, sadly) it’s just unfair to Amira personally –and, seemingly, most of her friends. If she absolutely had to pick, she’d say the summer before adulthood should stretch on and on, days bleeding one into another, never running out of things to do, and places to see, and secrets to share.
Because, really, that’s what’s been happening – biking around Berlin with whoever was up to hang out, walking the streets with the girls, breathing in the last bits of the summer heat, unable to imagine anything better than a seat and a cold drink; dragging every minute spent together longer, until they were all yawning, or hurrying away to some other responsibilities. It’s only been a couple of weeks, the rest of the summer still stretching long and wide ahead of them all, but Amira desperately doesn’t want it to end.
She doesn’t mention it but she feels it, exceptionally, at that one party somewhere at the beginning of July. Amira couldn’t explain if someone asked her how she ends up sitting at the cramped balcony with Leonie of all people, both tired and kind of fed up with the loud music in the even more cramped living room. They talk then, about why the summer feels so restless, why neither of them can allow it to pass. If it’s something Amira will think back to with regret in the years to come, she thinks, she’s not sure how she could bear it.
There’s this urge to create, to have something tangible to remember the summer by, and it turns out Amira isn’t the only one who’s been feeling it. Leonie says she’s been working on something ever since she walked out of her last Abi – a script, almost written over the span of a couple of sleepless nights and three brunches with David, trying to pin down the fleeting nature of life that comes with being young, on the cusp of the rest of your life.
It hits Amira then, a thrill running up her spine, and she scrawls down a scene there, Leonie looking over her shoulder, cheeks red with the thrill of sharing it; neither of them mind the dirty tiles of the balcony.
***
There’s another thing that gets added to Amira’s summertime rotation of how she spends her days – now, whenever they can, she holes up somewhere with Leonie and David, editing scenes, talking costumes, and, most importantly, bugging the rest of their friends to come and audition for roles, because they’re either going full out or they’re not making anything at all.
There’s some friend of a friend of a cousin twice removed that Leonie bribes into letting them use some clubhouse on Mondays and Thursdays, because nothing’s ever happening in it anyway.
Even though Amira’s never taken herself to be a theatre person before, she shivers sometimes when she reads some of the lines out loud in her room with the windows open to let in the slight nighttime breeze. There’s a role, not really main, because they have too many side plots for that, but also not not the main role, that Amira needs to breathe through whenever she mouths their lines. It’s everything she’s been afraid of voicing, handed to her, alongside the permission to let it all out without making it all known.
It’s not really handed to her, though, because they all agree to hold auditions, the decision met with an eyeroll from most of their friends – but they also promise to come, and do their best, so it’s not like Amira cares.
***
Another thing has also been worming itself into Amira’s summer routine, but it’s not something she’ll think about.
Because it’s not her fault that her brothers have been having emergencies come up last minute, or kept being late, leaving Amira to tend to Mohammed. Mohammed, who she’s known before, of course; the first time she saw him is still bright as day in Amira’s memory, as much as she’ll never agree.
Merely a week or two after Omar met Mohammed at school, he invited him to play football in the backyard – both of them stupid the way seventeen year olds are, skinning their knees and coming in later to chug all the lemonade they had. Amira remembers being sat at the table, a book open, and suddenly there was a smile being sent her way, and a greeting, and she can’t remember anything after that – all she gets is a feeling she can’t pick apart, deep in her chest, warm.
So, there’s the fact that she’s spent most time that she’s willing to admit in her kitchen these past few weeks, hiding from the stifling heat or getting ready to face it straight on, and losing her grasp on the passage time as Mohammed told her story after story after story, his voice warm but, unlike the summer weather, pleasant and gentle, and patient with Amira’s questions.
They’ve somehow stumbled upon each other every time either of Amira’s brothers wasn’t where he was supposed to be – that is, hanging out with Mohammed like they were supposed to, making the best of whatever free time they had. Amira pretends to mind, or she tells herself she really does.
She minds her brothers being bad hosts, and she minds how Mohammed must be disappointed – she knows she would be if the girls kept standing her up in their own homes; she minds never knowing when she’s next going to lose herself in talking to Mohammed and be late to hanging out with her friends herself.
However, deep down, as much as she won’t admit it, she really doesn’t mind talking to Mohammed at all.
***
‘It’s stupid, I guess. I haven’t really talked about it with anyone outside of helping write the play,’ Amira admits, unable to look at Mohammed where he’s leaning across the kitchen counter. She can feel a blush rising high on her cheeks, hotter than the sun outside.
It feels foreign to be talking about it – and not only because her and Leonie have only finished editing. Amira has been avoiding admitting to anyone how personal some of it is to her, how she sometimes feels like the words of dialogue are stripping her mind and heart bare.
Mohammed hums but he doesn’t answer, not straight away. Amira doesn’t think she can say anything more without bursting at the seams. The quiet is interrupted by the door slamming and Essam’s loud announcement of his presence.
‘I don’t think it’s stupid at all, Amira,’ Mohammed says, and then he’s being dragged away by Essam, already halfway through telling some unbelievably complicated story of how he came to be late again. What Amira loves about him is that, knowing Essam, it actually is true.
***
It’s a week before auditions that she sees David talking to Mohammed.
Amira doesn’t think too much about it, or at least she makes herself not to – it lingers at the back of her mind, until she sees them again, talking more than two acquaintances who only briefly saw each other at parties would.
She still tries not to care, but then Mohammed texts her about the script, gushing over this scene and that, over this character and that bit of dialogue. There’s a pattern Amira sees though, and it’s Mohammed always coming back to that role – the one whose lines Amira’s been running every night in the bathroom, in front of the mirror and ready to brush her teeth, in preparations for Monday’s auditions.
The bitterness first starts eating away at her throat when Mohammed and her stumble upon each other in Amira’s kitchen again. Somehow, they start talking about the play, but Amira wishes they didn’t, not with the way Mohammed’s eyes seem a little glassed over when they do.
It’s an ugly feeling, and she knows it – tries to push it down, tries to talk through her throat closing a little when Mohammed asks her, not mentioning his talk with David, whatever the two of them talked about.
It’s an ugly feeling, but Amira has been working so hard for this, and Mohammed seemed so supportive – and for what?
On Sunday evening, when she hears Mohammed’s voice from the kitchen greeting her mother, Amira stays inside her room and closes the door.
***
She nails the audition, she knows she does. As Amira walks out of the room she exhales, feeling a little floaty with the emotions she’s just been in a whirlwind of. She needs to breath through it for a second and, as Hanna and Sam come up to her, both of them done already and smiling so wide.
Amira still doesn’t feel quite secure on the ground, but Sam’s arm around her shoulders feels sure and secure.
The floatiness doesn’t last long though – it couldn’t when she sees Mohammed walk in, and say his hellos, and Amira is so struck by the fact that he’s actually going to come in and audition after she’s told him how close she holds that role that she barely manages to respond to Mohammed’s wide-smiled greeting before he’s walking into the room she left not that long ago.
***
Amira loves singing, of course she does. She basically sings all the time – in the shower, while getting ready for school, cleaning up; she hums the songs stuck in her head on her way home from the gym. And she knows she isn’t bad at it.
Everyone likes singing, right? What Amira doesn’t like is being made to sing by her hopeless friends, and that’s exactly what’s happening now. The flat share is full, everyone dragged there by Leonie to celebrate the end of auditions (which Amira doesn’t really get if she’s being honest – she’d understand celebrating the beginning of rehearsals, tough, and just wishes it could happen already and put an end to all the uncertainty) and for once Amira really hopes at least one of the neighbours could turn up to complain about the noise but, ironically, of course none of them do.
Kiki has been trying to drag her into the middle of the living room-turned-makeshift karaoke stage for the past half an hour and seriously, Amira is running out of excuses not to give in and just sing; she’s got herself something to drink and even brewed a pot of tea, she’s gone to the bathroom twice, had a breath of fresh air on the balcony in Matteo’s room and checked up on almost everyone she knows at the party. She has over an hour left until she goes to pray and, honestly, she’s getting desperate.
Right as Amira’s about to turn to her absolute last resort, which is pretending to be filling up snack bowls, Hanna draws out the last notes of ‘Dancing Queen’ and Kiki, seizing the opportunity of Amira being distracted by their friend, catches her hand again and whines in Amira’s ear.
‘Everyone’s sung already! Even you brothers, Amira! And their friend,’ Kiki drifts off, making her pleading eyes, and that’s another of Amira’s concerns with the party – singing at it to be precise. Somehow, not only Mohammed came, probably informed of the party by Leonie and David at the end of his audition (which, of course, Amira didn’t stay around long enough to ask him about), but also Omar and Essam.
The biggest issue is Mohammed, who sang some schläger Amira didn’t want to remember fifteen minutes into the party; Mohammed, who still hangs out in Amira’s kitchen and she can hear his clear lough through the closed door; Mohammed, who proceeded to audition for Amira’s role, probably looking smug as he took the stage and wooed Leonie and David with his monologue.
Amira isn’t embarrassed to sing in front of Mohammed, either; for that to happen, she’d have to have feelings for him, which she doesn’t. No feelings at all, she tells herself; no feelings for Mohammed, who must have only talked to her and asked questions to find out whatever he needed.
All the good songs have already been sung, though, and her brothers would tease her for all of eternity, and Kiki’s big pleading eyes really are working, damn it. And so Amira lets herself be dragged in front of the sofa, making sure to send her most unimpressed look Kiki’s way – and another one towards Matteo where he lets out a loud whoop when he sees Amira come up. She wonders what he would look like standing here.
There’s a microphone thrust into her hand, and Amira absentmindedly points out one of the songs Hans has pulled up on his laptop that sounds vaguely familiar, and all that is the very reason why, when she takes a step back, she stumbles.
Because, out of all the people at this party, it’s Mohammed who has picked up the other microphone and is standing there, smile beaming Amira’s way. Amira really, really wishes she couldn’t sing.
Mohammed is there by her side though, and she can hear all the notes he misses, and his voice is warmer and gentler than she could imagine.
***
The party is dying down.
They’re all tired after the day they’ve had, everyone making themselves at least a little vulnerable; and then the nervousness took its tool too, even though Amira knows it’s not really that serious – it’s an amateur play, an amateur play that she wrote and edited with two of her friends over the span of two weeks.
Amira knows all that, but it’s still exhausting; but also so, so rewarding, she thinks, because she’s spent the last couple of minutes reflecting, once again taking a minute for herself on the balcony in Matteo’s room.
The street below her glows yellow with streetlamp light and Amira tries to breathe through all the thoughts in her head. It’s not that singing with Mohammed changed her mind, or made her not care about the role, or did anything to her heart, really – though, the last one might not actually be true, Amira thinks.
What it did, though, was remind her how easy being with Mohammed is, how light it makes her feel – almost floating, and it’s something she can’t quite pin down. It made her think whether she really would care if Mohammed was only out to steal her role; the answer to that was yes, but it also made Amira wonder whether Mohammed would actually do that. Sweet Mohammed, who carries around band-aids, who brings cookies for Amira’s mother every two weeks, Mohammed, who brought one of his sister along a couple of times because she needed to train for the football team try-outs; who listened to Amira like he had never heard words spoken aloud before.
And the conclusion she comes to is that, as much as she longs to play, and to bring that role to life, she can’t honestly admit she believes Mohammed would do something like that.
The slow realisation dawning on her shoulders makes Amira’s fingers clutch on the railing and she draws in a breath, then another. Her thoughts are interrupted by a tapping on the balcony door behind her, and before she can turn around and see who it is, the door is opening and suddenly Mohammed is standing next to her, so still that it feels as if he were there all the time.
‘You’re not as bad at singing as you’re making yourself out to be, you know?’ He starts, but he’s looking down at the street, where a group of their visibly drunk friends stumbles towards the nearest bus stop. Amira feels a smile tug at the corner of her mouth.
‘I never said I was bad at it, actually. Just didn’t think I could top Hanna’s slurred rendition of Dancing Queen,’ she answers and hears a chuckle from where Mohammed is standing.
The guilt she feels over being so cold these past couple of days, over running what they built tentatively with their kitchen talks (whatever that was – because, Amira thinks she’s getting to the place where she can admit that it actually was something) sinks on her heart, colder than she should be considering the warm air.
‘Well, you did. You were so good I needed to come in and ruin the song a little so that everyone wouldn’t get jealous.’
‘Maybe they got jealous anyway.’ The words are out of Amira’s mouth before she can think about it and suddenly, her cheeks are burning hot. She takes a couple of breaths while she feels Mohammed’s eyes on the side of her face.
They stay like that for another minute, but then Mohammed speaks up again?
‘How did your audition go? I have to admit, Leonie and David looked pretty speechless when I walked in there after you.’
Amira does turn her face towards him at that, smile falling a little. She’s made her mind up, though, and she’s not going to be bitter.
‘You think so?’
Mohammed nods. ‘I have to say, I hope you get it, because I auditioned imagining playing against you. I don’t think it would work with anyone else.’
Amira doesn’t really understand what he means at first; Mohammeds face doesn’t fall, and she knows she’s staring, but really, it doesn’t matter anyway.
‘What is it? I should have told you earlier, I knew it. Should have asked if you would be okay with it. I’m sorry, Amira, but I can– ’
But she’s shaking her head already, unable to contain the laugh that escapes her.
‘No, no! I was… I was actually hoping for that, but instead,’ she shakes her head once again, and Mohammed’s face looks so confused Amira could almost call it cute. ‘Yallah, it’s embarrassing. I thought you auditioned for my role and only asked about the play so much because of that.’
Amira catches herself looking at him then, her eyes lingering on the smile that starts spreading on Mohammed’s face, and she can’t help but smile herself.
‘We should have talked, huh?’ says Amira, because it does sound silly now. Even with her previous decision not to base her judgement of Mohammed on that, it does feel as if a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
‘We should have. We… we should talk, period. Maybe run some lines together?’ Mohammeds eyes are glistening a little, the brown reflecting the yellow light, and it’s warmer than the summer night air.
‘Oh, we should. Just in case we get cast, you know?’
‘Definitely. Just so that we’re prepared.’
‘Only because of that.’ Amira doesn’t really feel like pushing down the warmth in her chest anymore, though, so after a second she adds with a smile, ‘you can’t act on an empty stomach. It’s bad luck, apparently.’
‘And we can’t have that?’ Mohammed takes a step forward, and Amira needs to tilt her head back, just a little, to still see his face well. She shakes her head again, cheeks hurting from the smile.
‘We absolutely can’t.’