Everything I Don't Remember (16 page)

[Silence. I clear my throat. Vandad sighs.]

*

On the way home from Babylon it felt like I had talked too much. I tried to ask a few questions.

“How’s work? What else is up with you? How are your friends?”

But as usual, it was hard to get anything personal out of my sister. She told me that the upcoming exhibit at work was expected to be really good, and that she was looking forward to her
vacation.

“And how’s the love life?” I asked.

“Oh, fine. The usual. Nothing new. But I really have high hopes for this new exhibit. It’s probably going to be even better than the bird exhibit. It’s too bad you missed that
one.”

*

[Silence. I make an offer. Vandad looks out the handle-less window.]

*

A week or so later I met Samuel at a Chinese restaurant by Skanstull. Samuel wanted to “celebrate something” and when I saw him he explained that this
“something” was that we had been together for fifteen weeks. Together? I thought. It sounded so final. And fifteen weeks? I felt dizzy—the time had gone by so quickly.

The restaurant was new and it wasn’t until we had been seated and I had the menu in my hand that I recognized the name.

“Didn’t this place use to be on Fridhemsplan?” I said.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I mean, I recognize the name. I think this place was the target of a union boycott. I’m almost sure of it.”

“Oh.”

Samuel’s finger slid up and down the menu. It didn’t seem like he’d heard what I had said.

“The vegetarian appetizers are supposed to be crazy good.”

“Hello?” I said. “I think this place paid its employees really horrible wages.”

Samuel looked up from the menu. Then he looked over at the waitress.

“Shit, that sucks. Hope they sorted it out.”

“What do you mean, ‘sorted it out’?”

“I mean, the people who work here look pretty happy. Don’t they?”

“But we can’t eat at a place that was boycotted.”

“Are you serious?”

“Are
you
serious?”

We sat on opposite sides of the dark-wood table, over in the corner a bachelor party was about to go south, the waitress realized something was up and kept her distance. Samuel sighed.

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you say we go somewhere that
doesn’t
exploit its employees with slave-wage contracts?”

We stared at each other. Samuel looked around. He stood up and pulled on his coat.

“Do you know of anywhere else nearby?”

*

[Silence. I make another offer. Vandad shakes his head.]

*

We walked down Ringvägen, we found another place that looked cozy, but it was full. The next restaurant was closed. At last we ended up at a spot near a park. We managed to
leave our bad moods behind and we talked about other things. I told him that Zainab’s request for a work permit had been granted and that she was ready to leave her husband.

“As long as she can find a place to live it will all work out,” I said.

“How was your pizza?” Samuel asked.

“Good. Yours?”

“Fine. But I’ve got to confess, I was pretty hungry for Chinese.”

We took the Metro back to my place. It was a little quieter than usual. Or maybe that’s just the way I remember it.

*

[Silence. I stand up, walk over to the window, take out my phone, check the balance in my bank account, swallow, think of the power bill, diapers, tenancy fees, loans, preschool
tuition, cell phones, food, insurance, office rent. I make a third and final offer. Vandad doesn’t say anything. I say that I don’t even know if there’s going to be any book. I
say that I’m awfully grateful for his time. I say that I truly hope we can continue. I promise to bring the money, in cash, to our final meeting. Vandad nods and points at the microphone: are
you still recording?]

*

That weekend we talked on the phone. Samuel said he couldn’t come over because he had to help Vandad with something.

“Of course,” I said. “Sounds good. We’ll talk another day.”

We hung up. But right after that I felt, like, some sort of itch in my body, the call had been too short, there was more I wanted to say. I called. He didn’t answer. Ten minutes later he
called back. I waited five, six, seven seconds, then answered. We had a perfectly normal conversation, we talked about how it was still cold and that he still had my hoodie from our first date and
how hard it is to find the perfect hoodie, with double fabric in the hood and pockets that aren’t too baggy and then we ended up on the most expensive articles of clothing we’d ever
bought and I don’t know what happened but two hours later my phone warned me that the battery was about to die and my ear was all spongy and warm the way it used to get when you were a
teenager lying in front of the TV and talking on your home phone and even though we hadn’t been talking about anything in particular it was like we could talk about the simplest, most trivial
things and even those things took on value. Sometimes I thought that our conversations, our hanging out together, our entire relationship was like sugar, a quick shot of energy straight to the
blood. Before we hung up, Samuel said:

“Listen, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“You know my grandma? It seems she’s going to get a spot at a home. She’s moving there in a few weeks and her house is going to be empty. My relatives want to make sure
she’s happy at the home before they move forward with selling it. And if I know my family, that’s going to take at least six months.”

“Okay,” I said because I didn’t know what he was getting at.

“So what do you say?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you have anyone who needs emergency housing, just let me know. That Zainab woman, maybe?”

I said I would think about it. We hung up. It wasn’t like there was any shortage of people who needed help, the whole city was full of desperate people, students, undocumented immigrants,
poor people, the homeless, everyone on the hunt for a safe place. The question was more like who would I contact and whether the house was safe from police-alerting neighbors or people who wanted
to peer in. I decided to contact Zainab and Nihad. But first I wanted to see the house.

*

One day Samuel came home and asked if I wanted to hang out. There was no discussion—we slid down to Spicy House. We drank beer, we ate nuts. I told him about the lack of
hours at the moving company and how I had started looking at other jobs.

“Like what?” Samuel asked.

“All sorts of things. Hotel receptionist. Insulation fitter. Scaffolder.”

“Any good news?”

“Still waiting for a response.”

Samuel told me how things were going with Laide. He said he was in love and that it was the greatest thing he’d ever experienced but he couldn’t quite explain what made Laide so
special. Was it her saggy body, hairy forearms, doughy face, or small breasts? I wondered, but I didn’t say anything.

“Plus her taste in music is totally amazing. She loves Erykah, Lauryn, and D’Angelo. Just like me.”

“And you’re still totally crazy in love? Everything is just as perfect as it was at first?”

“Mmhmm. Or. I don’t know. A few things have started to come up. But they always do, right?”

“Like what?”

“Well, we have some differences when it comes to politics. And sometimes she can be a little jealous.”

*

We met at the commuter rail station, we walked down the ramp to the construction site. They were blasting an old building to bits, men in yellow hard hats were talking on
walkie-talkies, large machines were pounding their way through asphalt, it was dusty and we had to shout to hear each other. In the midst of all this chaos, Samuel pointed at a brick building and
shouted:

“There’s the library.”

We kept walking along the street, the sounds of the construction equipment faded, we passed an Indian restaurant, a secondhand shop, a video rental store, a real-estate agency.

“That’s a super cozy place,” Samuel said, pointing at a cafe and bakery. “It’s been there since like the fifties. The chef’s name is August.”

We kept walking along the road, we passed a Chinese restaurant, a kebab stand, a deserted gas station with rusty tires and empty soda machines behind a barbed-wire fence.

“There used to be a bike shop there,” said Samuel. “But it closed a few years ago.”

The house was ten minutes from the commuter rail station, and it wasn’t until we approached the mailbox (which Samuel emptied) and started walking up the gravel path (which was full of
sticks, plastic toys, bike parts, garden tools, and rotting apples) that I realized that his grandma was still living there. I don’t know why I thought she would have moved out already but
when we rang the doorbell she was the one who answered, she backed into the hall and cried:

“At last! It’s about time, said the watchmaker to the headmaster!”

*

Samuel said that they’d gone on a walk, they had bought soft-serve but forgot to bring napkins and Samuel ran into a cafe and asked if it was okay if he took a few paper
napkins. On the way out he ran into a few friends of an ex. When he came back, Laide was furious that he’d taken so long.

“Were they pretty?”

“Who?”

“The girls you were talking to?”

“They were fine. But I mean, we only talked for like two minutes. Five, max.”

*

Samuel hugged his grandma. She was half as tall and twice as wide, and as their cheeks touched I saw her close her eyes and smile. It was as if she were filling up on his
warmth, the hug must have lasted thirty seconds. I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there in the dim light of the hallway, waiting for them to finish. As Samuel freed himself she opened
her blue eyes and broke into a wide smile.

“Why . . . ? Isn’t this Laide? It’s been so long. Do you want coffee? Yes, we’d all like a nice cup of coffee, wouldn’t we? Samuel, can you put on some coffee?
Here, let’s hang up your coat, for goodness’ sake, come in from the cold, shall we light a fire? No, I suppose we don’t need one, it’s so warm in here, no need for a fire,
but maybe you’d like one anyway? You’re probably used to warmer weather. It’s warmer than this in Brussels, isn’t it?”

I looked at Samuel but he was already headed for the kitchen to put on some coffee. I wiggled my hands out of his grandma’s grip, hung my jacket on a hanger, and took off my shoes.

*

Another night they had been standing by a lake, talking about the differences in their grasp of Arabic, and a dog owner happened to throw a fetch stick pretty close to them. The
wet dog came bounding straight for them and the owner apologized and Samuel said it was no problem and petted the wet dog and asked what breed it was and what its name was and Laide kept her
distance. On the way home through the darkening woods Laide was angry because she thought he had been flirting with the dog’s owner.

“And you want to know the craziest part?” Samuel said. “The owner was like fifty.”

“Wow. Even older than Laide.”

“Very funny. I don’t get why she always thinks I’m flirting.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Because there is a difference between being nice and being flirty, right?”

He said it like a question, but it was clear that he didn’t want an answer.

*

Samuel’s grandmother looked at me and squinted.

“When did we last see each other? It must have been several months ago, right? How is everything?”

“Fine,” I said, still unsure whether she thought I was someone else or whether she was just pretending that we had met. “How are you?”

“Oh, thanks for asking, still kicking, said the soccer player to the fireworks specialist.”

“Why?” said Samuel.

“Excuse me?”

“Why did the soccer player say that to the fireworks specialist?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“Who?”

“The soccer player. Now let’s have a little coffee, we certainly deserve some.”

She took my hand and led me into the dim house. We passed a fireplace with scorched pieces of plastic among the ashes, a small room with photographs on the walls and a rocking chair on a rug.
His grandma stopped to pick up a pink bowl with ornate gold details and a round lid.

“Do you know who made this bowl?” she asked.

“I’m guessing it was Samuel?”

“You’re one hundred percent correct.”

“I didn’t know you could do pottery,” I called to Samuel in the kitchen.

“Me neither,” he responded.

The smell of urine was stronger in the kitchen. Samuel cleaned the coffeemaker and tried to find the filters. His grandma sat down on a stool and asked who was minding the children.

“But Grandma,” said Samuel, “we don’t have any children.”

“No, that’s right, you don’t,” said his grandma, reaching for a bag of candy. “Raspberry boats?”

“No thanks, that’s okay.”

“But you do drink coffee, don’t you?”

“I drink coffee.”

“That’s good. And you have a driver’s license?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Good. A modern woman must have a driver’s license. You are nothing without a license. Did you know that they’re trying to take away my license?”

I looked at Samuel, he shrugged.

“They say I’m too old. That my eyesight is too poor. I’ve had my driver’s license for over forty years. How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“Can you believe it? I’ve had my license for longer than you’ve been alive. And now they have the gall to say that I—
I
—am no longer allowed to drive. Have
you ever heard the like?”

“Who said that?” Samuel asked.

“What?”

“Didn’t someone say that, like the ear doctor to his patient?”

“No, I said that. Just me.”

Samuel turned on the coffeemaker.

“It’s a Philips,” said his grandma. “That’s a Swedish brand.”

She took my hand and held it, she looked me deep in the eyes, she had silver rings on one hand, and a silver bracelet around the opposite wrist.

“Do you drink coffee?”

*

One time they went to a Chinese restaurant, but because the girl who showed them to their table was young and cute and Samuel had been a little too nice to her, Laide started
bellowing that the restaurant mistreated their employees and threw her glass of water at the owner.