Jonas Khemiri - Everything I Don’t Remember

Before I could respond she had walked into Samuel’s room and started chewing him out for making her worry needlessly. I stayed in the hall; her voice, which was usually shy and gentle as a whisper, had taken on a new harshness. She said that the police had investigated what they were calling “the crime scene.”

“And apparently there were signs of a break-in,” she said. “It seems that someone, or several someones, got into Mom’s house and were living there. And according to the neighbors it’s been going on for quite some time. Do you know anything about this, Samuel? It’s very, very important that you answer me honestly.”

Silence. If Samuel said anything in reply I didn’t hear what it was. Samuel’s mom went on.

“They say it’s going to cost around a million kronor to restore the house — that is, not renovate it, just to clean it up enough to sell it. I don’t know where we’re going to get that kind of money from, I suppose we’ll have to try to take out another loan on the house. If that’s even possible. Svante might have some money saved up, but Kjell is Kjell. .”

Without knowing how Kjell was, I understood that these were her two brothers. Samuel walked into the kitchen, and his mom followed.

“What’s going to happen, my God, what are we supposed to do?”

As Samuel’s mom spoke, she walked around and around our apartment, sometimes she stopped to fold a T-shirt that was hanging on a chair or to throw away an apple core that had fallen onto the kitchen floor. She did it without thinking, like a robot who had been performing certain motions for so many years that it couldn’t stop.

“We just have to cross our fingers that the homeowners’ insurance will cover something like this, do you think it will? Does this count as a break-in or something else?”

Samuel shrugged.

“If anyone from the insurance company calls it’s very important to make it clear that you didn’t know anything about this. Because you didn’t, right, Samuel? Tell me you didn’t know anything about what was going on at Grandma’s house?”

And I watched as Samuel — who usually couldn’t lie without scratching his earlobe while he picked at his upper lip — looked his mom in the eye.

“I had no idea whatsoever.”

They looked at each other. Mother and son. For a long time. And it was like his mom understood something her son couldn’t put into words. She nodded. Samuel nodded. Then she left, and Samuel said:

“Money, money, money, that’s all anyone thinks about.”

The coin doesn’t fall far from the vault, I thought.

*

We are sitting in the car. According to the parking receipt, the time is three minutes past three.

“Drive me home,” Grandma says.

“Your house is still there, just as you left it.”

“Please drive me home. That’s all I want.”

I start the engine and drive out of the parking lot.

“Are we going home now?”

“Mmhmm. Home to the home,” I say, putting on the Lars Roos CD. As we drive onto the highway I reach for the plastic bag in the back seat and take out the pink candy bowl that is sometimes an antique and sometimes a project I made in school.

“Thanks,” she says, petting the bowl like a cat. “Where’s the lid?”

“You can have that next time.”

Grandma looks out the car window. A darkening sky, the faint silhouettes of a few birds.

“You have to understand that I don’t like it at the home. The windows are far too small. The bathroom is too close to the hall. The kitchen is an unpleasant color. The balcony makes me dizzy. But still, the worst thing of all is the bed. It’s far too soft. I can hardly sleep in it.”

“But Grandma,” I say. “You brought the bed from home. It’s the same bed you used back in your house, isn’t it?”

“It’s still too soft.”

*

I told Samuel that there was a soul club night at East. DJ Taro was playing at Reisen. Tony Zoulias was spinning at Spy. Or should we swing by the pool in Bredäng? Go up to the top of Kaknäs Tower? Do something, anything? But Samuel didn’t want to. He had a sore throat. He had to get up early. He didn’t have any money. Instead of doing things he went to see his grandma at the dementia home. It was like the loss of the house reminded him that she existed.

“Is she happy there?” I asked.

“She hates it. More than ever. But she puts so much energy into hating it that I almost think it’s good for her.”

His grandma spent her days writing long, muddled letters to the editor in which the main idea was that she should be allowed to move back home and that her driver’s license ought to be restored immediately and that school policy needed to be rewritten. Samuel sat beside her, agreeing with her monologues about how everything was wrong with immigration policy and the school system and the EU. Only when she dissed his dad did Samuel contradict her, and that in itself was strange, because the things she said about his dad (that he had betrayed them, that he ought to be there for his children, that no real man deserts his family) were things Samuel had said to me any number of times. But his grandma always added, “that’s what happens when you marry a Muslim,” and Samuel couldn’t get on board with that because his dad was the least Muslim man he had ever met.

*

Out on the highway, Grandma asks how things are going with Vandad.

“Don’t you mean Laide? Laide is fine. She says hello.”

“And how is Vandad?”

“He’s fine too.”

We approach the city, we don’t say anything for a few minutes. Then Grandma turns to me and asks how things are with Vandad. I say that he’s still fine. On the way into town, Grandma suddenly needs to pee. We stop at “Korv and Go” in Årsta, park the car, Grandma uses their bathroom, we pay five kronor and I stick the receipt in the car door. It’s twenty-seven minutes past three and I have less than an hour left to live.

“Now where are we going?” Grandma asks.

“We have to go back now,” I say.

“Home?”

“Home. To the home.”

“What a shame.”

“Mmhmm.”

“But do you know what?”

“No.”

“We can do this tomorrow too, can’t we?”

“Mmhmm.”

“And the day after?”

“Mmhmm.”

“And do you know who will drive next time? Me.”

“No.”

“Oh yes. If I can only get the chance to take that test, why, I’ll show them what’s what. Easy as pie, said the baker to the baker’s son.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why did the baker say ‘easy as pie’ to his son?”

“How should I know? That’s just something we said when we were little.”

“More and more of them keep turning up.”

“What do?”

“Those expressions.”

“The older I get, the more I remember. That’s just one of the advantages of aging.”

She smiles, there are so many folds in her eyelids that she has to squint to see. As we approach the Liljeholmen bridge I pass three cars on the left.

“Now that’s more like it,” says Grandma.

*

Then there was some liar who thought it was important to tell Samuel about the fuss in Laide’s stairwell. This person changed two tiny shoves into an aggressive robbery. This person said that it was Laide’s sister who was attacked, not Laide. Samuel came into my room and asked, his jaw tight, if I knew anything about this. I said no. Samuel asked again. I explained that rumors were lies. I said that I had gone there to talk to Laide and then she pretended not to recognize me and then she attacked me, biting and kicking, and all I did was give her two fairly puny shoves.

“It’s not my fault she tripped down the stairs.”

Samuel just looked at me. Then he went to his room and started packing his things into moving boxes.