Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

“But it’s just temporary,” he said. “It’s really just temporary. I’m not cut out to work for the government.”

“So how long have you worked there?”

“Far too long.”

I told him about the differences between my job in Brussels and what I was doing in Stockholm. How much easier and, paradoxically, less draining it was to help women than to translate endless contributions about fishing tariffs. He told me that he had chosen political science to change the world, and several of his classmates had gotten jobs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the UN. While he lived in a sublet and worked at the Migration Board’s Embassy Division.

“But even if it doesn’t pay very well in money, it pays a lot in other ways,” he said.

“Like what?”

“That remains to be seen.”

*

As the blood in their veins approached freezing point, Samuel suggested they head home.

“And at some point during the evening you borrowed her sweatshirt?”

“Exactly. I was about to freeze to death. Then I forgot about it.”

“No sex?”

“Definitely no sex.”

“Sounds like a wasted night.”

He didn’t say anything.

“For real, it sounds like a huge catastrophe of a date,” I said, without sounding happy about it.

“Maybe not a catastrophe, but. . Now that I think about it. . I don’t know. We sort of have different senses of humor. But at the same time, I liked talking to her.”

*

We walked in expanding circles but in some magical way, we always came back to Norra Bantorget. The first time, we confirmed that both of us were equally bad at constellations. I pointed at the sky and showed him the stars that made up the Big Wi-Fi Symbol. He pointed out the Little Nike Logo.

“And there’s the Curtain Cord!”

“And check out the Big Radiator!”

We laughed and sneaked looks at each other.

As we came back around to Norra Bantorget for the second time, Samuel talked about his grandma. He said she was a strong woman who had always made it on her own, but now, lately, she had started to become addled. She forgot to take her pills, survived on raspberry gummy boats and thumbprint cookies, and had been involved in three car accidents in as many months.

“But she still drives?” I asked.

“Mmhmm. But they’re going to revoke her license soon. She’s a menace behind the wheel. Last time I visited her it took several minutes for her to remember who I was. It was such a sick feeling. Standing there in front of someone you’ve known your whole life and they treat you like a stranger.”

The third time we approached Norra Bantorget we were talking relationships. I told him about my ex-husband and our marriage and the divorce. For some reason I felt safe telling him those things. Maybe because Samuel asked the right questions. Maybe because it felt so easy to be with him. Undemanding and simple. Neither of us was thinking about anything other than what we were talking about, and I had a hard time figuring out how it could feel so natural. It was like our brains had played music in a former life, they had practiced scales and tuned their neurons in the same key and now that they were finally meeting again they could just jam away, no sheet music necessary.

*

Then a few days went by, the usual daily routine. Samuel showed no signs of having been struck by true love. He didn’t walk around with his phone in his hand, freaking out about some text he had written. He didn’t sit there with his notebook, writing down things he wanted to tell her. He was his usual self. But now and then, details he hadn’t mentioned about the first date slipped out. Like that she had given him a peck-slash-kiss (!). And that he had mentioned his dad (!!!). Both of those things must be considered unusual, because I had known him for a year and a half and could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had mentioned his dad.

*

Toward the end of the night I said I had never felt like someone who could be with just one person all my life. Samuel turned to me, cleared his throat, and said:

“But, Laide.”

Pause for effect. He batted his eyelashes. In a deep voice:

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person.”

For a second I thought he was being serious. Then we started laughing and we laughed until Samuel suggested we head home.

We walked toward the Metro. In the light from Drottninggatan I could see that his lips were purplish-blue, even though I had loaned him my hoodie. I talked about my ex-husband, I said that if there was anything I had learned it was never to stay in a relationship that takes more energy than it gives and that people who are not energy thieves are very rare. We stopped in the red glow from the Skandia movie theater.

“Who do you think you are?” Samuel said suddenly. “A fucking nuclear reactor? Live a little, woman.”

He looked surprised, as if the words had come from a place he didn’t have total control over.

“Sorry. That talk about energy. It reminded me of my dad. That’s the sort of thing he would say to justify the fact that he took off.”

We resumed walking toward the Metro. I turned to the side and gave him a peck on the cheek. As my lips touched him, he reacted as if I were trying to brand him. He flew sideways and looked terrified.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared.”

*

Despite the first date, they kept in contact. They texted each other. Once when I came home, Samuel was talking to her on the phone and I remember I knew it was her because when I walked into the kitchen he was sitting with his feet pulled up under him like a purring cat and his voice was brighter than usual and he glared at me like I was disturbing him even though I was just humming a little tune. When I asked if he wanted coffee he pointed at his headphones as if I should know that you can’t talk on the phone and want coffee at the same time. I put on the electric kettle and kept humming and then he stomped off to his room. I sat there with my coffee and wondered what was going on.

*

We went our separate ways in the cold light by the turnstiles. He was going to take the red line, and it was the green for me. We hugged. The hug lasted for quite some time. So long that I wondered if this would be the last time we saw each other. I looked at everything going on around us; two junkies were standing by Åhléns’ display window and swaying to inaudible music. A dealer was petting his dog (a collie, strangely enough). A gang of teenagers were trying to nail each other with a shiny silver bag of gum. Two middle-aged ladies were walking into the Pressbyrån with quick steps and hoarse voices. A guy in a hunting vest was talking to two uniformed guards. Samuel kept hugging.

“Okay,” I said at last. “I have to go catch my train.”

He apologized and let go. We took different escalators down to different tracks and I thought there was a chance that his Norsborg-bound train and my Skarpnäck-bound train might come into the station at the same time. And if that happened, we might end up traveling beside each other on the parallel tracks to Slussen. I told myself that if our trains came in at the same time and we happened to have chosen seats in approximately the same spot in the train and saw each other as the trains crossed the bridge — then it was meant to be. It would be fate’s way of saying that we belonged together. When my train left Gamla Stan and sailed toward Slussen, the parallel track was empty, dark and deserted. Fuck fate, I thought.

As the train approached Gullmarsplan, I got a text. Samuel thanked me and said that he would return my hoodie “next time.” As if it were perfectly obvious that there would be a next time. I didn’t respond until I got off the Metro. I wrote: “That sounds good. Later..” No “xo,” no “good night.” Short and sweet. Two periods to show that I was writing it so quickly and carelessly that I didn’t notice that there were two periods. I walked toward the turnstiles, the little yellow warning sign about deadly voltage was down by the tracks.