Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

*

And it’s not like Laide was so innocent. Sure, I shoved her. But she had crushed Samuel. She got into his brain and rearranged the furniture until he started doubting himself. Some things heal faster than others.

*

It took a few weeks before I heard what had happened. And yes, of course I was sad. I thought about his family. His mom and sister. His friends and acquaintances. But you want to know something strange? I really didn’t feel guilty. That chapter of my life was over. We hadn’t spoken since we broke up. There were other people who were closer to him. And I suppose part of me was grateful that we weren’t together when it happened. I don’t know how I would have survived that.

*

She made him believe that he could trust her and then she betrayed him and he never got over it.

*

Why did he do it? Do we know for sure that he did do it? That he did it on purpose, I mean? I heard he lost control of the car. His mom said that the brakes were bad. I think he was simply driving too fast. I can picture it, how he’s sitting there behind the wheel in his grandma’s car, revving the engine and deciding to push the envelope and see how fast he can take a curve. He probably wanted to see what would happen if he brushed up against death. Maybe he was curious about the light at the end of the tunnel. He wanted to experience something that no one else had seen.

*

She killed him.

*

Thank you . I have to confess, I was a little nervous but it was nice to get it off my chest. Do you have a plan for how you’re going to make it into a coherent narrative? Just as long as you don’t try to write Samuel in the first person it will probably work. I don’t think it’s possible to capture the voice of another person, it would be foolish to even try. Should I call a taxi? This neighborhood can be a little sketchy at night. My husband always takes a cab when he comes home late from the firm. But then again, that’s because he looks the way he does, people react when they see him, they don’t believe that he lives here. I’ll call a car.

[A long silence as we wait for a taxi that never comes.]

I’m convinced it wasn’t deliberate.

[A long silence, she occasionally gets up to see if the taxi has arrived, it hasn’t.]

Samuel loved his experiences far too much to. . I think he was just driving too fast.

[Short silence. Still no taxi. Laide pours water from a carafe.]

Because, I mean. If it had been deliberate — how do you explain the seatbelt and the skid marks? Because there were skid marks, weren’t there?

[Laide reaches for her water glass.]

*

Everyone I’ve talked to says there were skid marks.

[Laide takes a sip, looks at the water, puts the glass down with a trembling hand.]

Here it comes.

It’s a few minutes past one and I’m sitting in yet another waiting room. Grandma’s handbag is resting in my lap, the fake white leather leaves small flakes on my jeans. I open and close the zipper, then I open it again and let my hands explore its contents. There’s her wallet with its five-hundred-krona bills, her notebook, the bag of old candy all stuck together, the throat lozenges (Emser), the bottle of Vademecum mouthwash (its label worn), and her cell phone of course, the one she never learned to use. Grandma’s house is burned, Laide has moved, Vandad has betrayed me, and I have five hours left to live.

*

I was at the house that morning and everything was perfectly normal. The kids were playing in the basement, the moms were mopping the floor in the kitchen, young men were sitting on the terrace and scraping away at their Triss lottery scratch cards. It was a sunny day, the geothermal heating was working, there was no reason to use the fireplace or have lights on inside.

*

I take out Grandma’s yellowed notebook with coffee stains on the front. It’s almost unused. Her wobbly handwriting, the crooked “r”s. On the first page it says “What sort of Christian am I? Am I—” On the lines beneath, the same cell number, written twelve separate times. On the last line, the same cell number, but only the first four digits.

*

I was on my way home when my phone rang. Nihad bellowed:

“Fire! FIRE!”

I made a U-turn and biked back to the house. I hurried, but I didn’t think it could be that serious. Maybe someone had left something on the stove, maybe some kid had been playing with a lighter in the yard. I couldn’t imagine what had happened.

*

I rub my eyes. I yawn. Over the past few weeks, Grandma has started calling me at odd times. Two thirty in the morning. Three thirty, ten to five, my phone wakes me up and I see her name on the screen. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I let it ring. When I answer I hear her delighted voice:

“Why, hello there! Are you awake?”

Usually she just wants to make sure that this is really my number. She recites all ten digits. I confirm that the number is correct. She gives a sigh of relief and can go back to sleep.

*

When I reached the house I saw that the entire parlor area was full of smoke. It looked like all the windows were covered in black curtains. I jumped off my bike and dropped it onto the gravel just as a windowpane broke, I thought it was because of the heat, shards of glass fell onto the bushes like snow. Nihad, Maysa, and Zainab had gathered with their children and a few suitcases down by the street. Maysa was holding a rolling pin in her hand and there was flour on her face, Nihad was sobbing.

“Where is everyone?” I asked in English.

“Gone.”

“Afraid of police.”

“Is everyone out?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Nihad. “Everyone is out, right?”

Maysa and Zainab looked around and nodded. Another window broke, this time it was a small round one up in the attic. The smoke came shooting out like a laser beam and at first I thought it was an optical illusion, but then I saw something moving.

*

Everything has taken longer than planned. The plan was for me to be back at work after lunch, but first they wanted to test Grandma’s vision and then her cognitive capacity and at last they let her into the simulator room. She looked nervous as she walked in. Her cheeks were rosy when she came out.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“Absolutely wonderful.”

The doctor showed us into a separate room and explained that it was over. There was no chance that she could get her license back. She had crashed into motorcycles, driven straight through roundabouts, she had backed into a lake, and even though the doctor had reminded her that she was in a simulator she repeatedly tried to roll down the windows.

“It was so warm,” Grandma murmured.

No one said anything.

“When can I try again?”

“There isn’t going to be a next time,” said the doctor. “You have to accept that.”

*

A taxi stopped and Samuel vaulted out of the front seat. He was wearing his work clothes, but his hair was going every which way, it looked like he had slept in the taxi.

“What happened?”

“No idea.”

“Is everyone out?”

“Think so.”

“Yes, everyone is out,” Nihad said again, although she didn’t sound as sure this time. Then we heard the voice. Someone was screaming, it sounded like it was coming from the attic, the women gathered their children close, some of the children were crying, Zainab and Maysa counted the children again and again as if they couldn’t believe that everyone was really there. Samuel looked at me with wild eyes.

“Are you ready?”

*

I’m ashamed that I didn’t figure it out, the thought didn’t even occur to me. Sure, there was a smell as we drove here and I could see that she was limping, of course, but she’d been limping for a long time. I thought that the rustling noise was from her adult diaper. We had to hold her down in the chair and make her take off her shoe to see what was wrong. It was hard to tell toenail, flesh, and pus apart. The worst was her big toenail, which had grown out and then in again in an arc, it looked like the yellowed talon of a bird. The plastic bags she had wrapped around her foot fell to the floor with a wet sound.