Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

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When did it happen? Were you close? Are you still in touch with the family?

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Guppe says that once when Samuel’s grandma was in an extra bad mood, Samuel’s mother tried to give him a tip. She held out a hundred-krona bill and said she was sorry for all the things I had to listen to. I looked her in the eye and said, in a friendly but firm voice:

“Put that away.”

Because, okay, it was one thing to be called “sand-nigger” or “towelhead,” but somehow that felt better than standing there like an idiot and being given charity for a job well done. When I came home and told my wife about what had happened she called me an idiot for refusing the money. We had just bought a terrace house and the twins were eighteen months old and diapers and pacifiers and wet wipes didn’t come free. When I went to bed I lay there for a long time, wondering whether I should have accepted the money. But I would do the same thing today. Did I say wife? I meant ex-wife.

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I understand. I’m just wondering why you’ve wasted so much time. Why didn’t you come here earlier? Why did you talk to Laide and Panther and Samuel’s old school friends before you met me? How did you expect the staff at Samuel’s grandma’s dementia home to help you understand what happened? What does Samuel’s grandma’s neighbor have to do with it? If I’m going to be part of this, I want to be there all the way from beginning to end, because no one knew Samuel better than I did.

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Guppe says that he prepared the morning coffee and rang the bell. Then I looked out the window and saw that Samuel and his grandma hadn’t left yet. They were walking toward the car. She was holding his arm. She hobbled toward the driver’s side to get behind the wheel. Samuel led her to the passenger side. Then he helped her buckle herself in and once he’d closed the door and put the suitcase and the plastic bag in the backseat he stopped to catch his breath in a way I know I sometimes do. He, like, stood there for a second to muster his strength for the next half of the game. I would do the same thing after a long day at work. He did it after twenty minutes with his own grandma. Then he took off the fur hat, patted his own cheeks lightly, and got behind the wheel.

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Which neighbor was it, by the way? That guy in number thirty-two? He goes to Thailand to fuck whores every winter. I swear it. Young whores, too, like on the verge of being legal. Whores he can pay to say they’re twelve so he can get his sad little retired-guy cock hard. He goes there every winter, he boards up his house and puts timers on all the lights and is gone for two or three months and then he comes home with new photos of whores he’s fucked and he prints out the photos and puts them up on the bulletin board in his office, like postcards. It’s true; we saw it through the window. Samuel used to call it his “wall of shame.” I suspect it was the neighbor who set the fire. He hated everyone who lived there. And he didn’t seem surprised at all when the fire department showed up.

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Guppe says that the car started and moved back and forth, back and forth. On like the fifth try, Samuel managed to drive out of the parking spot and turn the car around to head for the bridge. Then he revved the engine and whizzed down the hill. Going way too fast. Would I remember that if I hadn’t heard about what happened the very next day? I don’t know. I don’t think so. It was the last time I saw him [looking oddly upset, given that he hardly knew him]. If you want to talk to Samuel’s grandma, you’ll have to come back once she’s feeling better. But unfortunately, I don’t think she’ll be much help. She’s drifting further and further into the fog.

In her first email, his mom apologizes for taking so long to respond. After careful consideration, in the end, after many “buts” and “what ifs,” I have decided not to take part. I don’t live my life in the public eye. I’m not used to being interviewed. I have never liked being documented; in fact, I feel uncomfortable even when my daughter pulls out her phone to take videos of me with my grandchild. So I hope you respect our wish not to participate. And I use the word “our” because this decision goes for both me and Samuel’s sister, whom I know you have contacted. We are trying to move on. We want to put this all behind us. Good luck with the book. Warm wishes.

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Then three months went by and I didn’t see Samuel in all that time. I’d broken off contact with Hamza. Or, well, not broken off, but I had stopped going on rounds with him. I avoided his calls. I made up excuses for why I couldn’t come. Instead I set the alarm on my phone and went to Blomberg’s office early on weekday mornings to be paired up with someone on the team and spend the day moving dressers and Murphy beds and kitchen benches. The moving boxes first, then secure them behind double beds, and then in with the flowerpots and rugs and TVs wrapped up in blankets.

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In her second email, his mom writes that she appreciates my tenacity. Stubbornness is a virtue. We always said that when I was growing up. Everyone but my mom, who stubbornly maintained that she was not stubborn at all. But I will tell you once again that I do not wish to be interviewed. Don’t take it personally. It’s not because I’m “anxious about the memories that might be dredged up.” And it has nothing to do with your qualities as an author. Even if the things you write are very different from the sort of literature I enjoy, that’s not the reason I (once again) choose to decline. It makes no difference that I wouldn’t be filmed. Just knowing that someone is going to record my voice is enough to bother me and make me stumble over my words. I have always been able to speak much better when no one is listening. Or when someone who knows me is listening. So I’m saying no. Again. If there are any concrete points of fact you want to double check, perhaps I can help over email. All my best.

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My life went on. I changed up a few habits. I adjusted to my new salary. Instead of going into town I found Spicy House. Instead of buying new clothes I took care of the ones I already owned. One day we were sent to Nacka to move everything in one house to another one that was only fifty meters away.

“Why are you moving?” Luciano asked.

“Well, it’s not for tax reasons, anyway,” replied the man who signed the hours-worked contract and smiled as if he had just told a joke.

We emptied the home of someone who had died on Lilla Essingen. We helped a guy who had divorced his wife pack everything that was his and move it to a cramped one-room apartment on Thorildsplan.

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In her third email, his mom writes that she has chosen to respond to my questions in list form:

1. Twenty-six. He was about to turn twenty-seven.

2. Pretty often. About once or twice a day. Usually I was the one who called, but sometimes he did.

3. No, I wouldn’t say I knew Vandad. But I knew of him. We met a few times. It was clear that life hadn’t been entirely kind to him.

4. Yes, of course he had other friends too. But they were probably more like acquaintances. Samuel had a tendency to have intense friendships and spend most of his time with one or two people at a time. And that made him vulnerable.

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An old woman wanted to move from Östermalm to Södermalm and she lived in an apartment the size of a museum. She was the sort of customer who wanted double blankets and bubble wrap on everything. The dusty mirrors were antiques and the shabby dresser had to be handled as if it was pure gold. At first we did as she said, but after a while it was impossible; if we were going to finish before the day turned into a week we had to speed up the process. So we did, we packed everything in boxes but at the same time we tried to do it as fast as possible because time was getting away from us and when we got to the new place, the elevator, which had been described as “large” in the booking, was one meter square max and it had an iron gate, and neither the display cabinet nor the bed nor the old-fashioned sofa with carved wooden flowers on the armrests would fit.