Everything I Don't Remember (27 page)

*

Even though my brain knew that Samuel was dead, my body spun around, my eyes searched for him, it was like my body wanted to show my brain that it still had hope that Samuel
would one day call my name. I heard his voice, crystal-clear. I am one hundred percent sure of it. You don’t have to believe me, but I know that he called out for me. It was him. I know
it.

*

I’m sure that this isn’t the end, the tree is getting closer, soon it will plow its way through the hood of the car, the rotational forces will crush my brain, my
internal organs will be ripped apart, but for now I have all the time in the world, there are the clouds, and further off the tunnel and the gravel pit and the soccer field and the highway and I
think about the noise, I wonder what it will sound like, if it will echo, explode, crash, rumble, squeal, how far the sound will travel, will the people standing at the bus stop be the first ones
to reach me, will the kids on the soccer field notice what has happened before the ambulance arrives, how loud does a crash have to be for it to be heard all the way into the future, how fast do
you have to go to survive in someone’s memory, how close to death do you have to come to be worth being turned into history? I move my foot from the gas to the brake, I ought to brake, I have
to brake, at the same time as the tree the tires the windshield the shards of glass the smash and then the silence. They say it happens quickly but they’re lying. It lasts forever. I’m
still there. Waiting for the tree. And afterwards, as if there is an afterwards, there are no sirens. No voices. No explosion. Just the hissing sound of steam from the crumpled engine that has been
shoved all the way into the front seat. The squeal of bent windshield wipers moving back and forth, back and forth. Running steps. Voices. Chirping birds. Sirens. From far off: the chimes of an
ice-cream truck. The click of a phone taking pictures. The wind whistling through what was so recently a car and what was so recently a person. Now it is happening. Now it is happening. I smile
when it happens.

The first time I ever hear of Samuel I’m living in Berlin.

*

This is the last time we’ll see each other. Before we’re done I want you to show me the money. Put it on the table. I want to see it before I tell you the end.

*

I have just walked down to the cobblestone street. I’m bending over to unlock my bike when I hear a mewling sound behind me. I turn around to find my neighbor. Not the
schizophrenic German war veteran who puts up signs all over the stairwell about how together we can “drive the talking dildos out of the walls.” Not the unemployed Portuguese architect.
But that girl, the Swedish artist, who for some reason wants to be called Panther.

*

Here are my memories from the last day. Samuel and I hadn’t spoken in a month or so. After he moved, I went out to Kungens Kurva now and then. I didn’t do anything
in particular. I walked around the parking lot. I grabbed a coffee. Sometimes I stood in the place where it happened and thought about how much better it would have been if it had been me and not
my brother. There was a note outside the transport school that said that the museum at Skansen was hiring new train drivers. I smuggled the note into my pocket and called the manager later that
same day.

*

My neighbor is huddled outside the door, she has dark streaks of make-up on her cheeks. Several minutes pass before she manages to tell me what happened. She was standing at a
market in Kreuzberg, someone called to say that her childhood friend had died in a car crash. Then she walked all the way home. Why didn’t you take the U-Bahn? I wonder. And why does the name
Samuel sound familiar? Did I meet him? Was he the one who visited you last summer, the guy who was sitting at that outdoor restaurant with a friend as big as a bodyguard?

*

The train looked like a toy train but it went on tires instead of rails and it had a steering wheel and a stick shift, just like a bus. Three cars and one locomotive. The
tourists loved it. The manager said that it was hard to maneuver the train, especially when it was packed full of tourists, because then it weighed over three tons. But for me, a person used to
parallel parking fifteen-foot trucks at rush hour, it was a piece of cake.

“You’re a little older than the people we usually hire,” said the manager, but he said it as a compliment.

*

Three months later I move home from Berlin. I give up the novel project with the working title
The Genderless Love Story
, which I have spent four years not finishing. I
return home to Stockholm with fewer pages than I had when I moved down.

*

But still I was nervous when it was time to drive my first circuit. I was wearing the red coverall. The nametag showed everyone my name. I had driven it a few times without any
tourists so I could learn to time the guide voice. I knew how slowly I needed to drive for the English-speaking voice to say “Stockholm. Look at her. Isn’t she beautiful?” as we
crossed the Djurgården bridge. I knew how quickly I needed to drive down Strandvägen for the voice to say “To the right we see the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theater” as we
passed Dramaten. I knew I had to zoom past Kungsträdgården so we didn’t end up stuck on the bridge as the guide voice started talking about the palace and Gamla Stan. The manager
explained that this part of the route was new, an experiment, but if all went well and I did a good job they would continue to run the tours through the city and it wasn’t out of the question
that my short-term employment for this project could turn into a full-time job.

*

Then Grandma gets a blood clot. M’s dad has a heart attack. D’s aunt dies of lung cancer. A friend’s son sniffs glue and dies of cardiac arrest. B and P are
run down by a drunk driver on Birger Jarlsgatan.

And then E, who—

E, who—

I try to write it, but it doesn’t work, I can’t write it, it’s too soon.
Too soon? It’s too late, when will you understand that it is too late?

*

Up on Katarinavägen you could choose whichever speed you liked, because the voice went on and on about the view and the cobblestones and the historical buildings. On
Fjällgatan we made a stop for coffee and ice cream and photos.

*

I ought to write it, I try to write it.

And then E, who—

E, who—

But I can’t, I can’t, if I write it it’s like it really happened.
It did happen, when will you realize that it happened? It happened it happened it happened it
happened.

*

Fifteen minutes later I was driving back toward Skansen. The voice coming from the speakers was automatic, all I had to do was drive at the correct speed and ignore the
teenagers who were laughing and pointing.

*

After E’s funeral I start doing research on Samuel. I contact people who lived in his grandma’s house, I email his mom and sister, I call up the girl who rented her
apartment to him, I have coffee with his old basketball coach. I convince myself that I am a part of the real world, that words are not more important than people, that all I want is to try to
understand what happened.
But is that really true?

*

After a few days at my new job I felt confident behind the wheel. I joked around with my coworkers, I brought my lunch in a lunchbox. I was finally on the right track. Soon I
would be able to start paying back the loan from Hamza. I thought about reaching out to Samuel pretty often. But I didn’t do it. I didn’t call him and he didn’t call me.

*

I record voices and ask follow-up questions, I listen and nod as people say that it was an accident, he lost control, he ran into a tree, he fell asleep at the wheel, it
wasn’t anyone’s fault, it really wasn’t anyone’s fault. The only one at fault would be Samuel, if he had been driving too fast. And maybe his uncles, if there was something
wrong with the car.

*

It happened on a Thursday afternoon in April, two thousand twelve. I was up on Fjällgatan with the train. The group of tourists were a white-toothed American family, a few
British girls, three young people from Japan, and two middle-aged guys, Italians or maybe Croatians, suntanned with expensive shoes. Everyone had been impressed by the view, had taken their photos,
drunk their coffee, eaten their ice cream. Soon we would go back downtown. My phone vibrated. It was a foreign number. I answered.

*

People say that if it was anyone’s fault, it was the fault of the home. They ought to have taken better care of his grandma, if they had discovered her infected foot maybe
she would have passed the simulator test and then maybe Samuel would have been in a better mood when he drove off.

*

Panther’s breathless voice told me what had happened. Sometimes I think about that phone call. What would have happened if I hadn’t answered. How long it would have
been before I found out. I wouldn’t have gotten fired. I would have driven back downtown, waved goodbye to the tourists, parked the train, and gone home. But I answered the phone.

*

People say that the dementia home had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t the nursing staff’s fault, and it wasn’t the parking lot attendant’s fault,
either. It was no one’s fault. But it never would have happened if Panther hadn’t moved away. She left him and stopped calling and her betrayal reminded him of other betrayals and that
was what made him drive off the road.

*

Panther told me that someone had called her from the scene of the accident, they had found Samuel’s phone and dialed the most recently called number.

“It must have just happened, it was close to a gas station in Solberga. Apparently they’re waiting for the fire department.”

*

People say that’s a load of crap, he and Panther kept in touch, she called him on the last day, the last text he sent was to her. The only one who has any blame in this is
Laide, because she said she loved him but she was never brave enough to let him in for real. She was terrified of the feelings he awoke in her and when he got too close she made him start doubting
himself, he started to see himself through her critical gaze, and that was what made it impossible for him to keep living.

*

The line went dead, I thought: The fire department? Why do they need the fire department? Is the car on fire? Do they have to cut him out? My hands turned the key, my foot
slammed on the accelerator.

“Woohoo!” shouted the American dad as the train leaped into action.

*

People say that’s not true. Laide had nothing to do with it. Their relationship lasted for a year and when it ended Samuel moved on, it took a month or two but then he
started seeing other people and that was really what made him feel desperate, that he realized that it was possible to move on, that none of what had seemed so major was major enough for him to
truly remember it, and that was why he aimed for the tree.

*

The train whizzed down toward Katarinavägen, the tires squealed as I skidded onto Hornsgatan, the cars rattled, the wind howled, I just wanted to get there, I had nothing
to lose, or what I had to lose was nothing compared to what I risked losing.

*

People say it all hinged on the house. It was those undocumented people’s fault, there were too many of them, it was the smokers’ fault, they threw their cigarette butts on the
terrace, it was the neighbor’s fault, he set the fire, it was his family’s fault, they wouldn’t talk about anything but money.

*

The tourists were holding on tight, the children were crying, the pre-recorded guide voice kept speaking as if we were headed back to Skansen. As we passed the pool hall in
Zinkensdamm the guide voice said, “To the left we can catch a glimpse of the famous restaurant where the Swedish Academy have their weekly meetings” and as we crossed Ringvägen and
were honked at by a bus and passed the Chinese pub that did the Asian buffet the voice said, “After the Swedish Castle you will see the Swedish Government building, or as the Swedes call it:
the Riksdag.” As we zoomed out of town across the Liljeholm bridge the voice said, “We are now returning to Östermalm—one of Stockholm’s most affluent areas.”

*

People say that’s a load of crap. It was only one person’s fault, and that person is Vandad.

*

We passed cars on the left, people pointed and laughed, one of the tourists shouted:

“Hello please where are we going please?”

But I thought, to hell with them, I didn’t have time, I just had to get there, it wasn’t too much farther. As we came out of the roundabout in Västberga and passed the
industrial area and the gas station I heard the guide voice saying, “Honestly—have you ever seen a more beautiful view? This is why Stockholm is called the Venice of the
North.”

*

People say Vandad would do anything for cash. He was emotionally disturbed. He would have sold his own mom for a thousand kronor.

*

As we got closer, I heard sirens and an ambulance sped by in the other direction. There were only fire trucks still at the scene. I was too late. They had had to cut off the
roof to get him out, his grandma’s Opel looked like a convertible. I stopped at a distance. The recorded voice was silent, the tourists didn’t know what to do, someone left the train to
approach the wrecked car, someone took out a phone and took pictures, someone spoke comfortingly to their children. I wanted to go over there but I couldn’t. From a distance I could see that
the car looked pretty okay, except for the skinny tree growing out of the hood. Sure, there was smoke coming from the engine and the windshield wipers were bent out of all shape, but I didn’t
want to believe that it was so serious.

*

People say Vandad let Samuel pay for everything. When they moved in together he collected an insane amount of rent just so he wouldn’t have to work. When he took over
responsibility for Samuel’s grandma’s house he started extorting money from the people who lived there, he raised the rent every week, he confiscated their passports, he threatened to
call the police on those who couldn’t pay.