Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

“We primarily work with web-based credit operations,” he said.

He signed the hours-worked contract and wished me good luck. He didn’t hand me his business card. He didn’t ask if I could come in for a meeting later that week.

*

We walked past Konsum on the way home. Samuel picked up milk, ketchup, noodles, cottage cheese, chicken sausage that was like forty percent meat, macaroni, and a bag of oranges on sale. I walked behind him and filled our cart with organic apples, organic lemons, a Tetra Pak of crushed tomatoes, organic black beans, fresh thyme, gluten-free crispbread, and unsweetened soy milk. When the cashier started scanning our groceries at the register, I saw Samuel watching the prices that flickered across the screen.

“Yikes,” Samuel said when the cashier read the total.

I took out my card and paid. As usual. We crossed the square, we turned left on my street.

“Thanks for the groceries,” he said.

“No problem.”

“Damn, they were expensive.”

We kept walking. I felt like I needed to justify myself somehow, but I wasn’t sure against what.

“I think it’s important to be careful about what you consume.”

“By buying organic lemons?”

I think he was trying to sound sarcastic. It sort of worked.

“Yes. Or. It’s a way for me to say: my goal isn’t to maximize my profits. There are things I value more than the three extra kronor it costs to buy organic lemons.”

“Nine.”

“Nine what?”

“The organic lemons cost nine kronor more than the regular ones.”

“So? Isn’t that worth it?”

“Yes, but. It’s just. . you have to have a certain level of income to be able to be so globally conscious.”

“And we do have that level of income. Both of us. Don’t we?”

“Not me.”

“What do you mean? You earn a good salary, don’t you?”

“Yes, but. Quite a bit of it goes on rent,” Samuel murmured.

We stepped into my stairwell.

“What? Don’t you split the rent equally?”

“Yes, we’re supposed to. But things have been a little tight for Vandad lately. So I’ve been paying it.”

“ All of it?”

“Mmhmm. And for some of the food, too. And some other stuff.”

“So what does he pay for?”

“Oh, it will all even out in the long run. It’s nothing to get worked up about.”

“But how much are you paying per month?”

Samuel told me how much the rent was. My jaw dropped.

“You know he’s gouging you, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no chance in hell that apartment costs that much.”

“It’s a rental. The building’s pretty new.”

“He’s taking your money and using it for something else. I guarantee it. There’s your explanation for why he stopped working.”

*

Yes. Okay. I admit it. I missed Samuel. I mean, I didn’t miss him as in I thought that our friendship was done for or that someone else was taking over my place in his life. I missed him because he did something to me. And when he wasn’t there it was harder for me to be who I was when I was with him, and even though I tried, even though I sometimes went around town and sat at Spicy House and pretended he was there, it didn’t work the same way as when he was with me. Something happened between us that made me— I don’t know. Strike that. Strike all of that. What I’m trying to say is that when I missed Samuel it was harder not to think of other people who didn’t exist and when I did it was harder to sleep and when I wasn’t sleeping I had to try to find other ways to fall asleep and when that didn’t work I had a harder time doing a good job at the moving company and when I started a shift by falling asleep in the moving truck I got fewer hours and everything turned into a downward spiral that was difficult to get out of.

*

We arrived home to my kitchen. I cooked, he set the table and filled a carafe with water and squeezed lemons. Once we sat down he asked how the week ahead was looking for me. I told him I had a meeting on Wednesday with Maysa, a client who had been living undocumented with four children for three years.

“I’m going to accompany her to a legal consultation.”

“Do you get paid for that?”

“What do you think?”

We ate our food, we drank our lemon water.

“What, are you angry because I’m asking if you get paid?”

“I’m not angry. It’s just a stupid question.”

“Am I supposed to go around being careful not to ask stupid questions? How am I supposed to know — maybe she’s a rich undocumented person who can afford to pay her interpreter?”

“Stop.”

We ate in silence.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he said.

“What would that be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Maysa would like to move into the house too.”

He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, as if it didn’t take any sacrifice at all on his part to give Nihad, Zainab, and Maysa the security they needed. And I looked at him and thought: If it was so easy for him to help someone, how could he live with not doing more?

*

In late spring, Samuel suggested we go down and visit Panther in Berlin. He said he needed to “get away for a bit” and asked if I wanted to come.

“I’d love to,” I said.

“But you’ll have to find some way to pay for the trip on your own,” said Samuel. “I can’t keep supporting you.”

He spoke to me in a new, hard voice. I wondered where the old Samuel had gone. But I wasn’t upset, I thought it was natural since he had spent so much money on romantic presents and dinners for Laide. I knew her style. She was the sort of feminist who talked herself hoarse about how everything had to be one hundred percent fair but then complained to her friends if her guy didn’t have enough cash to treat her when they went out. Or let me put it this way. If the guy didn’t pay he was a church mouse, and if he did pay he was a pig who thought he owned his girlfriend. But since it’s better to be a pig than a church mouse, Samuel had no choice but to pay for all their dinners and museum visits and the romantic weekends I assumed they were pursuing while I sat at home alone in the apartment.

*

In mid-April, we stopped by the house to make sure that everyone was happy. The children were playing in the parlor, they had lined up their toy animals on the piano. They were taking turns rocking in the rocking chair, and the ping-pong table in the basement was strewn with markers, chalk, and clay. It was great to see how at home they all felt. Even if Zainab whispered that Maysa’s kids weren’t particularly well-mannered and Maysa thought Zainab’s children ate like they had worms.

“Where’s Nihad?” Samuel asked.

“She hasn’t slept here for several nights,” said Zainab, and I translated for Samuel, but I was forced to add a couple words so he would get that Zainab sounded pretty scornful and not very worried.

“This is so awesome,” Samuel said as we walked down the gravel hill. “Grandma lived here for how many years, and now I don’t even think of it as her house anymore. It’s like my memories have been replaced by new ones.”

He sounded oddly relieved.

*

What kind of idiot claimed I was “gouging” Samuel on rent? Was it Laide? Don’t believe everything you hear. She has no idea how expensive my rent was. She doesn’t know how hard I fought to be given more hours. I never wanted to live on Samuel’s money. I did everything I could to make my own. Every time Samuel came home from Laide’s and told me I really had to “start pulling my weight,” I thought: Yeah, but we had a loyalty pact and we were supposed to split everything and I’m trying to pull as much of my own weight as I can but shit, there seems to be a shortage of ways to pull out there, I’m frantically searching for more ways. As a last resort, so I would be able to afford rent and food and the trip to Berlin, I contacted Hamza.