Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

“It feels kind of perfect to be going home tomorrow,” Samuel said. “There’s a lot to do on the house.”

“The house?” said Panther.

“Yeah, sorry, maybe I didn’t mention it. Laide and I turned Grandma’s place into a safe house for women.”

I took a sip and nodded to make it look like I knew exactly what he was talking about.

“That’s awesome,” said Panther.

Then we were quiet again. After a few minutes Samuel stood up to go outside and check his signal.

“Have you noticed anything weird about him?” I said.

“What do you mean, weird?” said Panther.

“Is it just me or is he a little. . different?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t talked about his bad memory even once — maybe that’s new. But otherwise, no. Or. He is madly in love. That’ll make you weird.”

Samuel returned with his phone.

“Can one of you text me? Maybe there’s something wrong with the network.”

I sent a text from my Swedish phone. His phone beeped right away.

“DAMMIT!” he yelled.

And then, a little more softly:

“Fucking shit.”

*

He said that Berlin’s official slogan is “poor but sexy” and that it’s still possible to find cheap housing and that furthermore there is a strong anti-capitalist movement. There are squatters, and they’re left alone, and near Panther’s apartment there was a store full of free stuff.

“Isn’t that crazy? You can just go in and take whatever you want and if you wanted you could leave something in return, but you didn’t have to, either. Just think, what if that’s the way to start, to take a little place and make it into an example of an alternative, say, ‘Look, this way could work too, what if this world is within reach? Things don’t have to be the way they’ve always been.’ And that’s true not only on a societal level, but also on a more personal level, do you know what I mean?”

I tried to nod, I tried to smile.

*

It was starting to get late, it was the last night, Panther’s guy didn’t show up and something had to happen. Samuel came back from the bar with a pen and paper, he looked decisive.

“Let’s turn this around,” he said.

The plan was to have a competition. The goal: to make the night as memorable as possible. The strategy: everyone writes three challenges on a piece of paper. The pieces of paper are put in a bowl. Whoever completes the most tasks in the shortest time wins.

“Wins what?” said Panther.

“I don’t know — just wins,” said Samuel.

“What kind of challenges should they be?” I asked.

“It can be anything. But it has to be possible to complete, on a practical level.”

I wrote, more or less:

1. Go up to the DJ, request

The Macarena

, do the Macarena dance, and when he says he doesn’t have it, say “Then any song by Phil Collins will do.”

2. Go up to any table with more than three people and take a sip of each drink on the table.

3. Slide out on the dance floor and pull someone’s hair.

*

Samuel said that on the last night they had Vietnamese and then they went to a soul club and all in all, it was an awesome trip.

“But—”

He paused.

“There was something about being away from you that made me. . I don’t know. . I really had time to think while I was there. I thought about us, about you, about me, about this thing we’re trying to build up, this thing that’s on its way to being us . And you need to understand how awful I feel when you don’t answer my texts. You just go silent. Like a fucking parent. And then I’m sitting there, in a foreign country, terrified that something happened.”

*

Then we folded up the scraps of paper and placed them in the tea-light holder on the table. Panther got Samuel’s list, Samuel got mine, and I got Panther’s. And I hardly had time to read what Panther had written before Samuel was off and running. He went straight up to the table next to ours and said änshyll-digung and explained that he was so terribly “ törstich is it okay if I. .” And then he started drinking from their bottles of beer. Then he slid out to the dance floor and grabbed a blond girl by the hair. Then he went up on the stage, tapped the DJ on the shoulder, and stuck his arms out in a daring sort of Macarena dance. The DJ just looked at Samuel, his surprised eyes as round as his headphones. When Samuel received no response, he smiled and leaned over and whispered something in the DJ’s ear. Then he left the stage and came back to our table. Panther and I applauded, but then I discovered that it was just me because Panther was missing, she wasn’t in her spot, when I glanced toward the entrance there she was, standing on tiptoe and hugging a tall guy with dreads. Samuel looked at Panther.

“Vandad. I love her. I want to be with her always.”

“Which one?” I said.

*

I wanted to respond, I tried to explain what happens inside me when someone leaves and how hard it is for me to trust people and that I had gotten the feeling that his texts weren’t honest, that they were written only to reassure me, so that I wouldn’t worry, and for that very reason I started worrying, and— He cut me off.

“But Laide. Don’t you know that I love you?”

*

On the last day we woke up around lunchtime. Samuel and I were lying under the blanket in the cold bedroom. We were wearing the same clothes as the day before, we smelled like cigarette smoke and yesterday’s beer. Samuel gave a start and quickly rose from the mattress.

“Everything okay?”

I nodded. Noises from the bathroom told us that Panther was awake — first the sound of puking and then an electric toothbrush. Samuel started tossing his belongings into his suitcase.

“When does the plane leave? We’re not going to miss it, are we? Should we take a taxi or are there any buses to the airport?”

“We’re going to take a taxi and you’re going to pay for it,” I jokingly said.

“Sure. Of course. I just have to make sure I have enough euros.”

Panther came out of the bathroom, stretched, and asked if we wanted breakfast.

“Is this the way you live here?” Samuel asked.

“Pretty much. When I’m not working.”

“When do you work?” I asked.

“When I need to. Should I call a taxi?”

The last sounds we heard after we’d hugged goodbye and gathered our bags to head down to the street were a few gags and the mechanical buzz of the electric toothbrush, like a battery-driven bumblebee.

*

Samuel said it like he wasn’t even thinking about what would happen if I didn’t say it back. He said it like he’d just realized it himself. He said it like he was overjoyed at the realization. He said it and then he smiled that brilliant, yellow-toothed smile that made girl cashiers postpone their breaks and made bouncers become suspicious. He said it like he didn’t give a single fuck that the balance of power between us would be forever shaken if I didn’t respond in kind.

“I love you too,” I said.

An abyss opened up beneath us. We clung to each other and persuaded ourselves that we could fly.

*

Then we came home. I applied for more jobs. I applied to be a fish farmer, a fire-damage cleaner, a car re-conditioner. Always the same response. Or the same non-response. I borrowed Samuel’s bike instead of buying a Metro pass. I returned bottles so I could afford food. All throughout, I kept thinking that things would work themselves out. But I wasn’t sure how. Hamza started calling with updates about compounding interest.

*

Are you okay? Should we take a break? Should we stop there and continue another day? You look tired. Do you have allergies? We’re nearly there, so I’d prefer to keep going. Would you like more coffee? Should we go sit out on the balcony?