Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

*

Nothing in particular. Believe me. If it was crucial to the story I would tell you. Some crap. Shenanigans. Hamza was meeting a guy who owed him money, and the guy and Hamza were not in complete agreement about how big the loan was. We had to take him to the bathroom and remind him of the amount. Nothing serious, I don’t think he even reported it. It was just a normal night that ended with us calling our taxi-driver contact, who took us home nice and quick with no receipt. Hamza was giggling in the backseat, he was happy with the night’s profits, he counted out bills for me and as usual he said that we ought to join forces, strike out on our own, not just slave for other people. But I had decided I was done with all that.

*

“Mikaela” smiles when I ask about her mnemonic. I mean, it sounds super nerdy when you say it, but that’s the thing about mnemonics, the nerdier they are the better they work, and back then the code was fourteen seventy-two and I always thought that the job was like a mix between entering a world war — fourteen — and being kidnapped by terrorists in an Olympic village — seventy-two. I shared my rule with Samuel twice because I was tired of opening the door for him, and here I had to do it again, I opened it and said hi and asked him, didn’t he remember the mnemonic?

“Mnemonic?” he said.

And I thought: Okay, it’s one thing not to remember the code, and another to not remember the mnemonic. But it is pretty weird if you can’t even remember that you ever heard a mnemonic. I might even have been thinking: Okay, it’s a family trait, see you here in a few years.

*

Later that same week I contacted a moving company. I knew some people who had gotten jobs there on short notice. Blomberg was sitting there with his yellow baseball cap and his headset and his binders and when I came in and introduced myself his eyes wandered from one of my shoulders to the other.

“Do you have a driver’s license?”

I nodded.

“Are you a Swedish citizen?”

I nodded.

“When can you start?”

*

The nurses’ aide on the second floor has no problem at all having his real name in the book. My name is Gurpal but everyone calls me Guppe. Do you want my last name too? Write that I’m thirty-eight years young and single, I like long walks, space movies, and R. Kelly, but not his dirtiest songs. I’ve been working here for two years, almost three, but it’s just temporary, I’m actually a musician, I have a small studio at home, built it myself, a converted closet where I record my own songs, it’s modern soul but in Swedish, lots of strings and a piano, seasoned with bhangra influences, hip-hop beats, and melodic refrains. A buddy described it as up-tempo trip-hop pressed through a filter of jazzy soul, it’s urban pop music marinated in classic bebop, with a jungle streak. Oh, it sounds wack when I describe it but I’d be happy to send you a few songs if you want to take a listen?

*

Before we get back to what happened then, I want to know a little more about you. How did you come up with this idea? Why do you want to tell Samuel’s story? Who else have you talked to?

*

Guppe says it was the end of his shift when Samuel came out of the elevator. It was nine thirty but his grandmother had been up since seven and was asking about him every ten minutes. By the time he finally arrived, she had fallen asleep.

“How is she?” Samuel asked, stifling a yawn.

“It seems to be a good day today,” I said. “Are you moving in?”

Samuel smiled and looked down at the plastic bag, which was as full as a trash bag.

“No, no, just a few things from her house. Nostalgia stuff. Thought it might be nice to have.”

“For you or for her?”

“Both. Have you heard this classic?”

Samuel dug a CD out of the bag. On the cover was a transparent toy piano full of candies.

“ Ear Candy Seven ?”

Samuel nodded.

“By Lars Roos. Also famous for the masterpieces Ear Candy One through Six. Grandma listened to him all the time when I was little.”

Samuel walked over to his grandma, who was sitting in the TV room and napping. She was wearing white shoes, a thin beige jacket, and a skirt whose color I don’t remember. Her suitcase stood next to her. I had tried to explain that she didn’t need it, that she was only going to the hospital and then she would come back. But she contradicted me; she said she had to bring it along and if there was anything I’d learned in my time here it was that you couldn’t change her mind once she had made it up. “I’m not stubborn,” she liked to say. “But I never give in.”

*

Okay. Take it easy. Put your CV away. I don’t give a crap which publisher does your books. I don’t care what else you’ve written. I’m just curious as to what about your personal history makes you the right person to tell this story. What made you want to write about Samuel ?

*

Guppe says that Samuel stood there looking at his grandma for a minute or two before he woke her up. She was snoring. She was sitting there with her mouth like this [he opens his mouth wide as if he’s trying to tan the back of his throat by the fluorescent ceiling light]. Her suitcase was beside her and when Samuel opened it, out fell tea-light holders, a cake slice, and two remote controls. Samuel patted her cheek [touches his own cheek twice, closes his eyes] and she gave a start and rubbed her eyes. She looked at her grandson. For a second or two, it was as if she didn’t remember him. Then she smiled and cried [makes his arms into airplane wings]:

“At last!”

And then:

“What a surprise!”

They went to her room. When they came back out, Samuel was wearing this mangy brown fur hat. He had the suitcase and plastic bag in one hand, and he was using his other arm to steady his grandmother.

“We’re off!” she cried with a wave. “It was nice running into you.”

She looked happy, happy in a way she never was otherwise [looks sad].

*

Okay. I understand. I’m sorry. I don’t really know what to say.

*

Guppe says that the first thing Samuel’s grandma did when she moved in was accuse all the dark-skinned men who worked at the home of theft. She was convinced that we snuck in at night and took her pearl necklaces, no matter how many times her children and grandchildren tried to tell her that her pearl necklaces were safe and sound in the safe deposit box at the bank. I don’t know if she even had any pearls, but she would hide her jewelry box under her bed and two hours later she would ring the call button and say that she was the victim of another robbery. Her family apologized, they said she had never been like this before, they told stories about how she’d worked as a teacher in a poverty-stricken area and started a club in her congregation to raise hundreds of thousands of kronor to build schools in African countries. She sold things at flea markets and ripped up sheets so they could be used as bandages in Romanian hospitals, and once when her contact at an orphanage in Latvia couldn’t find a driver to bring over a busload of winter clothes, she got her eldest son to do it and she went along; the two of them drove to Latvia and dropped the boxes of clothes at the orphanage.

After a while it was almost strange to listen to her relatives list all of these facts, I heard the same stories over and over again from different family members, it was as if they wanted to compensate for something, as if they didn’t understand that we were professionals. We were used to it. We have our routines. There’s a confused old man or woman in every room, and when they press the call button and say that there’s a scary person in the bathroom, we hang a sheet over the mirror. When they say that an old person is spying on them through the window, we pull the curtains. None of the old men are allowed to shave by themselves, because if they do they might show up to morning coffee without eyebrows. We can’t leave bottles of rubbing alcohol unattended, because someone will drink them up. Samuel’s grandmother was far from the worst. Although she was one of the ones whose mood was the most changeable.