Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

*

The plan was for the house to take care of itself. Samuel had made sure he had all the keys, and if one of his uncles or his mom wanted to go there they would have to contact him. Nihad and Zainab had been living there for a week when the dishwasher broke. Samuel and I went over there together. He showed us where the tools were kept in the basement and we went through the dishwasher, cleaning the filter and adjusting the screws. When we turned the power back on it worked again, and Nihad took Samuel’s hand and thanked him sincerely, both for fixing the dishwasher and for letting her live there. She nodded her head until her black curls bounced off her shoulders. She was holding his hand. She didn’t let go. Samuel said tfaddel with his funny Swedish accent. He looked down at the floor as if he were afraid of what might happen if their eyes met. I realized how beautiful Nihad was.

On the way back to the station, I told Samuel that Nihad had a son who lived with her ex-husband.

“Oh?” he said.

“I just wanted you to know.”

“If her son wants to move in it’s fine with me,” said Samuel.

*

In one of Samuel’s notebooks I found a sketch of something that looked like a science-fiction game. I typed Samuel’s notes into the computer and tidied them up and thought it might be an idea that could bring Samuel and me back together.

*

What do you mean, “why?” Shouldn’t you be asking “why not?” Why wouldn’t he jump at the chance to do something meaningful? He spent his days stuck in the straitjacket of bureaucracy. He followed regulations and directives, contacted embassies and booked trips to send people away who wanted to come back. At the same time, his grandma’s house was standing empty. And people needed somewhere to live. It’s not strange that Samuel wanted to help. The strange thing is that more people don’t do the same.

A few weeks later there was a problem with the upstairs toilet. We went out to the house again, Samuel seemed glad for the chance to see Nihad again, when she opened the door he hugged her and did his best to communicate in his sad, Swiss-cheese Arabic. We went upstairs. Samuel showed us how you could remove the lid of the toilet and press a little button to make the water fill up on its own. Then he spent three minutes trying to explain that there were lots of things in the house that needed fixing and that they didn’t have to feel too worried if something broke. Nihad smiled and nodded and when Samuel was finally finished she looked at me for an explanation of what all these incomprehensible guttural syllables were supposed to mean. I translated and Nihad leaned forward, pressed her large breasts against him, and kissed Samuel on the cheek.

“Your exceptionally beautiful outside truly matches your soul’s incredible inside,” she said.

Samuel looked at me questioningly.

“She says you’re nice,” I said.

Samuel blushed and scratched his ear and as we walked down the stairs he said that the house hadn’t been this clean in many years.

“Grandma would have been proud if she knew what was going on here. Tell them that they’re welcome to call anytime if there’s anything else that needs fixing.”

Nihad looked at me questioningly. I explained that she was welcome to call if they needed help with anything else.

“Tell him thanks again,” said Nihad. “Tell him my son is coming the day after tomorrow.”

On the way back to the train, Samuel said he was jealous that I was so good at Arabic. He said that his dad had always been more eager for him to learn French.

“Why was that?” I wondered.

“He didn’t want me to end up in bad company.”

*

The rest of that spring just kept going. Time passed so slowly, the way it only does when nothing’s going on, and yet, when I think back on that spring, it feels like it was over in a second. Maybe it’s always like that, and periods that seem long as you’re living them become short in your memory, and vice versa.

*

Sometimes Samuel suggested I come over to his place. But I was only there a few times. I never liked the way things felt at Vandad’s. The apartment was dark and impregnated with smoke, Vandad slouched around in sweatpants, drinking ghetto wine from a box and sitting in front of the computer playing war games. I think he was on something, because only someone who was on drugs could live like that without going crazy.

When I asked Samuel what Vandad did for work, I received contradictory answers. Sometimes he was a mover, pretty often he was “between jobs.” One time, Samuel said I didn’t have to worry because Vandad had always been able to take care of himself.

“He has a thousand ways to support himself,” said Samuel.

“Name one.”

Samuel said that when Vandad was younger he used to go around Östermalm on the lookout for dogs that were waiting on a leash outside fancy hair salons. He would loosen the leash, take the dog home, and then go back to the same neighborhood a week or so later and put up posters that said he had found a runaway dog. The owners would call, grateful as anything. When they wanted to give him a reward, he would say no at first, and then he would take the money.

“That’s sick,” I said.

“Why? No one got hurt. The Östermalmers were just reminded of how much they loved their dogs.”

I shook my head to show I didn’t want to talk about Vandad anymore. It wasn’t him I was worried about, it was Samuel. Vandad used him. He let Samuel pay for everything. And I didn’t get what he saw in Vandad. When I asked why they were friends, Samuel mumbled something about how Vandad “had his back” and that he could “relax and be himself” with him. Every time he said it, it felt like he was criticizing me.

*

One day I was called in to help a computer company move offices in Kista. The guy who hired us was the sort of customer who had an uneasy conscience because Blomberg’s prices were so low. He helped us with the dolly and lifted boxes down from the platform, even though he was some middle-management type with a pale-blue shirt that quickly showed dark rings of sweat under his arms. When we were done he invited us to have coffee in their new conference room. Everyone helped themselves to the fancy coffee and the pastries and I stood there in the bright room thinking that places like that needed employees too.

*

I waited for Samuel by the bus stop and as usual I felt that warm pressure across my chest when I saw him. He looked at me and smiled and even though we kissed, even though he embraced me, even though he whispered in my ear how much he had missed me, I still had the feeling that he was disappointed when he saw me. As if, on the bus ride from Örnsberg to Bagarmossen, he had imagined that I was younger and more beautiful than I actually was. As if, deep down, he wanted me to be someone else.

*

Before we left the conference room, I went up to the middle-management guy and told him that I was putting the finishing touches to the plot of a science-fiction strategy game.

“I see,” said the guy, and he sounded like he was really interested.

I tried to transform myself into Samuel. I started summarizing the plot of the game the way Samuel would have done. I walked around the conference room, using both hands to make gestures. I explained that the game starts in the future, and the weird thing is that everything is about the same as it is now. Sure, the climate is different and gasoline has run out and countries that had been islands are now underwater museums that you can visit in family-friendly submarines. But people are the same. They cut their nose hairs when no one is looking, they burp when no one is listening. Instead of moving companies, post offices, and airlines, every country has teleporting facilities where you can send yourself and your belongings to foreign places. One day, Genghis Khan shows up in one of those portals. It’s the young version of the Khan, a guy who has had a taste of wealth but doesn’t live in excess. He walks around wearing gerbil skins and survives week-long raids on the steppe by tapping his horse’s blood. The idea of the game is to try to help the Khan take over the world. You have to build up an army of robots and try to outmaneuver other warlords with futuristic weapons like DNA-seeking phosphorus missiles and viral drones. My coworkers had set down their cups. The middle-management guy nodded.