Nikolausdorf

Next month will be the loneliest Christmas for Sarah. Not that she ever had a nice Christmas since her Jugendamt era, but in the midst of realizing she doesn’t have a family, she always had a boyfriend or significant other to celebrate with. Now, she’s lost her significant other due to distance, and she’s lost her boyfriend because she needs distance from his worldview.

“Welcome to adulthood,” says Budi when she whines to him. She just replies by throwing roasted almonds at him. They stop at the puppet show after Budi takes many picture of the Nikolaus. She didn’t use the word “significant other” when she described her thought; she just used the word “you” in the softest way possible, hoping he’d catch how scary it is to lose him. “It’s just oceans; we’ve got engines to get through it,” Budi stops her train of thought. Neither of them is watching the show; they look at each other ever so closely. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?” Sarah bursts into tears.

The holiday atmosphere makes it too cozy for both of them to be sad. The Alpine Village is surrounded by too many lights. After chocolate-covered bananas, stir-fried cauliflower for him, and Bratwurst for her, they end the night with Gluhwein and Kinderpunsch. They alternately share the warmth of his mug that Sarah gifted him. “It would be so much warmer if we just held this mug together.” Budi’s face turns red; Sarah almost thinks she accidentally gave him Gluhwein. He just waves his forefinger to make her stop teasing him. If Sarah didn’t respect him, she actually knows one too many ways to make him love her. But what is love, anyway?

His love brings them to a smaller mosque that she visited a few months ago. He was asking her to go separate ways because he needed to have a small gathering with a few of the brothers from the mosque, but Sarah’s hopelessly-in-love mind couldn’t bear to miss another hour of being with him. Not even being in a separate room would make her go away. Sarah could already imagine what her old self would think about that, but she celebrate their differences more now.

After a very loud evening prayer, the mosque turns serene, and suddenly she can hear how Budi and his friends take turns reading the Quran. His soft, timbre voice cracks throughout the recitation, like he’s revealing all his deepest thoughts in another language—not Arabic per se, but some language that one could hear only with the heart. Sarah tells herself not to break down like him, but she lets her tears fall anyway. With his broken German, Budi slowly tells everyone how easy it is to love a country that practically rejects his willingness to stay, when the people that surround him are beyond the word “nice,” like them.

Budi excuses himself to go to the women’s section to bring Sarah some of the meal they’ve had. “Won’t you get bored if you have to wait for me all the time?” Sarah shows how busy she is by displaying the many texts she’s received from drunk Lukas. The place is actually quiet enough for her to finally gather her thoughts and explain to Lukas how she longs for a relationship that is more than just an agreement between two lovely people. She longs for connection.