Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

Though to be perfectly honest I’m not sure how much of this I actually got out, because I started crying after a minute or so. Samuel held me and comforted me.

“There, there,” he said, getting up to find some more napkins.

*

Because these were special circumstances, I went straight to the bar and bought two more.

“It hurts so bad. I can hardly breathe.”

“It will feel better soon.”

“Should I call her?”

“No.”

“I shouldn’t just call her up? Just real quick?”

“Give me the phone.”

“For real?”

“Yes, hand over your phone and drink up. You can have it back when we get home.”

“I love her so goddamn much.”

“You’ve known each other for like a year.”

“Exactly. And now it’s over — I can’t believe it.”

“You just have to accept it and move on.”

I turned away as Samuel started to cry. It wasn’t that I was ashamed, but I knew how he would feel the next day. It was for his own sake. I slid on over to the gambling machines. Once he had calmed down I came back to my seat. We took a few sips. Toasted.

“Sorry. Aw, shit. I feel better now.”

He wiped his nose and tossed back his drink.

“I’ll get the next round, what do you want?”

I smiled and thought: He’s back.

*

When I looked at him sitting there with his big mouth and his kind eyes, I knew that I would regret it. But I had no other choice.

“We can’t keep going like this, can we?”

“I thought we were happy,” said Samuel.

In one instant my irritation was back. It bugged me that he sounded so naïve when he said that, and at the same time it bothered me that he didn’t look sad enough. We left the bathhouse and walked to the Metro. It bugged me that he walked too slowly. I was annoyed when he checked the time on his phone on our way through the tunnel under Ringvägen. As we stood and waited for the train and I was shuddering from all the crying, a beggar came up with a picture of his two kids and even though he must have seen I was fragile he didn’t give up, he rattled his coffee cup, he pointed at his mouth, he said “please please” and at first I was irritated that Samuel was too stingy to give him money. But then he dug out a gold ten-krona coin and gave it to the beggar and then I was irritated that he was so gullible.

When my train finally rolled in, we hugged goodbye. It was the last time I touched him. The doors closed. He was still standing on the platform. The train moved through the tunnel, out onto the bridge. I tried to focus on the view. Årstaviken. The treetops. The roads. The badminton hall. And the bathhouse where we could have been swimming that moment if I weren’t broken. As we departed Gullmarsplan I started crying again, I saw my contorted face in the reflection in the window and realized that Samuel hadn’t shed a single tear.

*

A few hours later. Last call. We were fine sitting down, but had a harder time standing up.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“My phone,” Samuel said.

“Fuck your phone. Fuck Laide, fuck Sting.” (I only said that because a Sting song happened to be playing on the bar speakers — I don’t have anything in particular against Sting.)

I returned to the table with two to four drinks. Four Samuels looked up and smiled, I sat on one of five chairs and thought, the battle to help him find his way back to being himself starts now.

“Shouldn’t I call her?”

“No, you shouldn’t call her.”

“Just to see how things are?”

“Give me your phone.”

“You already took it.”

“Oh right. I have your phone and you are not going to call her.”

Even though last call had come and gone they let us stay there and soon it was last last call and it was Samuel’s turn to buy. He walked a crooked line to the bar, he grabbed it like a lifebuoy, the bartender smiled as he placed his order. Then he came back with just one beer.

“I felt like I had enough,” said Samuel.

I sat there with my single beer. I asked if Samuel wanted a taste.

“No, I’m good.”

I tossed back half the beer, put down the glass, and went to the bathroom. When I came back, Samuel was by the door with his coat on. We walked out onto the square, the night wind was icy cold, a very fit couple was working out side by side on the Stairmasters in the gym, they were staring at their reflections and looking pleased. On the way out I noticed that the half-full beer I’d left on the table had been drunk. And I don’t know why I noticed that or what it changed, but I remember thinking that Laide was still there inside Samuel, even though they had broken up and would never be together again, she would be a part of him forever. I hoped I was wrong.

*

I was convinced he would call. I waited for the phone to ring. If only he had called I would have taken it all back. But he never called.

*

Samuel was back. He was himself, and yet not. One night I heard him talking to someone in his room. The same song had been playing on repeat for several hours, I recognized it but couldn’t place it, when the song ended I could hear a few seconds of the next song and then a few seconds’ pause and then the song started over again. Every time it happened I thought that he should either turn on the repeat function so the same song would play over and over again automatically, or else he should let the disc or the playlist play. But instead, the same song and two seconds of the next one, for one hour, two hours, three hours. At last I knocked on his door and asked how he was feeling. He didn’t respond, but I heard him mumbling.

“Come on now. You can fix this, you will fix it, come on now, come on.”

My first thought was that he was talking to someone on the phone. Or that he was playing some sort of game.

“Samuel?” I called. “Is everything okay?”

For a few seconds, there was silence. From inside his room I heard the song end and the next song begin.

“Definitely. Sorry. Everything’s fine.”

His voice sounded like it was coming from a pressure cooker, as if he had to use all of his abdominal muscles just to say those words. I stood by the door, I rested my hand on it, I thought that I ought to help him, but I didn’t know how.

*

I couldn’t work, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t see friends, I couldn’t read the paper, I couldn’t watch TV, I couldn’t listen to music, I couldn’t check my email, I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t look out the window, I couldn’t hide under my blankets, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t dream, I couldn’t do laundry, I couldn’t do dishes, I couldn’t live, I couldn’t answer the phone and I couldn’t call him, no matter how much I wanted to. At last my sister came over and when I opened the door she looked at me and said:

“Smart choice. Looks like you feel terrific.”

She shook her head and took a big step across the pile of newspapers on the hall floor.

*

Samuel took off work sick for a week or so. He sat at home in sweatpants, in the kitchen, surrounded by notebooks full of scribbles. Unshaven, he read through the notes from their year together, he mumbled to himself and when I asked what he was up to he claimed he was “on the trail of something.”

“Of what?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But it’s here somewhere.”

He picked up another notebook and read through the tiny letters.

*

I imagined that Samuel was sad for a few days. Then he moved on. By the weekend after we broke up he was back out on the town. He and Vandad were standing at the bar at East, they were shaking their skulls in time with basslines, they were nodding at mixed beats, they were flirting with yoga instructors and organizing druggy after-parties. It only took a few weeks for Samuel to meet someone new, she was like me, only prettier, smarter, richer, simpler. Samuel suggested coffee at Petite France and when she arrived he was already in his usual spot, they hugged and when he returned with the coffee he used the newspaper clippings on the walls as a pretext to start talking about memories and nostalgia. He told her about the chips getting stuck in his teeth. Then he reached for the glass and poured water on himself, slowly and deliberately, secure in the knowledge that she would never be able to forget him.