The Family Clause

by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

  He is already in the flat by the time she steps out of the lift. He has taken off his shoes without untying them, put the kettle on and taken out two cups. Six floors and he’s barely out of breath. In case you need a bit of a top-up? he says, nodding towards the cups. Thanks, but I’m ready, she says. How do we do this? he asks. Guess, she says. Do you want me to be there? he asks. No thanks, she says, heading towards the bathroom. One of the boxes contains two sticks, the other only one. The instructions are clear. Pee here. Wait a minute. A plus means your future is ruined. Life as you know it is over. From now on, you’ll never be alone, never be calm, and even if you do feel fine there’s a chance that the person who is half you doesn’t. A minus means that everything goes on like normal. She takes out all three sticks, pees on them and leaves them to dry on the edge of the sink. Are you done? he shouts from the other side of the bathroom door. Can you see anything? Open the door! Come on, open up! She studies herself in the bathroom mirror. She doesn’t need to look at the sticks. Deep down, she already knows. Hello? he shouts. Is it a plus or a minus? Open up, honey, let me in. You can’t do this, this affects both of us. The sticks are still lying where she left them. I swear, I’ll kick down the door if you don’t open up, I mean it, I’m coming in. She looks at the sticks. The bathroom lock turns from the outside. He puts down the knife on the sink and grabs the sticks. Holds them in front of him like a fan. Shit, he says with a smile.

  * * *

  A grandfather who is a father can sleep for thirteen hours as long as he has TV4 on in the background. If a power cut were to knock out the TV, he would immediately wake up. His mobile phone keeps chirping at regular intervals, but he doesn’t have the energy to answer. He can’t see who is ringing him anyway. The digits on the phone are too small. No matter how hard he squints, all he sees are blurry half-lines.

  When he wakes, it’s lunchtime. He measures his blood sugar, injects his insulin. Wearing his reading glasses, he tries to check his missed calls. But since the phone is from the last Ice Age, with a display the size of a tick and an address book so advanced that you need a degree in computer science just to be able to add numbers and names, he has no idea who has called. After grabbing another pair of reading glasses and putting them on top of his usual pair, he sees that the missed calls are from numbers starting +46. It’s just his children. They must regret not coming to pick him up at the airport. He puts down the phone. It continues to beep and ring. He feels slightly stronger every time. Their worry makes him feel alive.

  He watches Glamour, he watches House Hunters Denmark. The clock strikes two. The clock strikes five. He watches a lottery draw and Come Dine With Me, a programme where ordinary people cook dinner for one another. His phone has been quiet for a while now. He glances at it to check that the battery is charged. Right then, it starts to chirp and the father answers. Hello? Hi, Dad, says one of his children. He isn’t sure which, their voices are so similar. Everything okay? says the voice. I’m tired, says the father. Very tired. We were a bit worried, says the voice. There’s something wrong with my eyes, says the father. My feet hurt. I’ve been coughing and coughing, all night, I can barely sleep. That doesn’t sound good, says the voice. But you’re settled at the office? Everything went okay with the journey and the keys? I’m here, says the father. I made it here. It was an ordeal, but I survived. Okay, says the voice. I’m on paternity leave now, if you want to meet up? Mmm, says the father as he realises that it is his son and not his daughter. The one who had the incredible fortune of being able to take over the father’s flat when the father decided to move abroad. Where’s my post? the father asks. I put it on the kitchen table. Beneath the note. What note? Didn’t you see my message? The father gets up from the sofa and goes into the kitchen.

  He finds the welcome note, throws it in the bin beneath the counter and starts to go through six months’ worth of post. Mostly tax papers and bank statements. A letter from the TV licencing people, asking whether he really doesn’t have a TV. Viking Line offering cheap ferry crossings. The Swedish Postcode Lottery reminding him that it’s never too late to become a millionaire or the owner of a brand new dark grey Volvo V60. Are you still there? asks the son. Mmm, says the father. Neither speaks. Well, maybe we could meet tomorrow? says the son. That sounds good, says the father. It’s a staff day at school, so I’ll be at home with both kids, says the son. I’ll send you a message with the time and place. Ring instead, says the father. They hang up.

  The kitchen in the office is like a prison. A prison owned by a torturer who wants his prisoners to starve. There are a few cans of beans in the pantry, an open box of broken cornflakes, a tin of pineapple and a three-pack of canned mackerel. That’s all. It’s a good job the father reminded the son to stock up on a few things. Like instant coffee. Soured milk. Ordinary milk. Bread. Fruit. Otherwise, the father would have to start by heading all the way to the supermarket, which is over ten minutes away, down an icy street (when he visits in autumn) or a slushy street (when he visits in spring). The son has bought a small carton of milk, rather than a big one. The bread is coarse, its wrapper boasting about containing no added sugar. The pack of instant coffee is so small that it takes him a while even to find it in the pantry. The father sighs. Why does his son have to be so stingy? Why is he so open about the fact that he doesn’t love his father? The father doesn’t know. But he does think it’s sad that it ended up this way.

  The father pours boiling water into a cup, stirs in two spoonfuls of instant coffee, adds a little milk and returns to the TV. According to the sign on the front door, his son is an accounting consultant. Years have passed since he graduated with his prestigious economics degree, but his office still looks like a drug den. Real economists have offices at the top of skyscrapers, with beautiful views, sexy secretaries, coffee machines full of capsules and flavoured fizzy water in the fridge. But the son has never understood the point of doing anything properly. Instead, he has decorated his office with rickety bookshelves in various shades of white. His folders are the cheapest kind. The coffee table is covered in ring marks and has a dark spot near the centre, possibly from incense, possibly a cigarette. There is evidence of the son’s failings everywhere. In one corner, a dusty mixing console is standing on end next to a plastic-wrapped record player and a blue milk crate full of records, from the period when the son dreamed of being a musician. The wardrobes are full of climbing shoes and safety ropes that the son bought when he fancied himself a mountain climber. In the kitchen, there are tubes and nozzles and glass bottles and unused caps and a special thermometer from the time when the son wanted to start a brewery.

  But the worst thing about the office is definitely the books. They’re like vermin. Absolutely everywhere. They aren’t just on the overloaded bookshelves, they’re stacked up in the hallway, in bags on the hat shelf, on the windowsill in the kitchen and on top of the washing basket in the bathroom. Almost none of the books are about accountancy or tax legislation. No, they’re books the son bought when he believed he could be a writer. Portuguese novels, Chilean short stories, American biographies, Polish poetry. The father moves a pile of books with a sigh. He knows enough about literature to be able to distinguish real books from junk, and the office is full of books that may as well be used as kindling. These books have never topped any bestseller lists. They haven’t been made into expensive films with The Rock in the lead role. They don’t move the father, not even when he spots one by a German author that he read and loved as a young man. It doesn’t bring back any particular memories. He puts it down and reaches for the remote control.

  The father spends all evening on the sofa. Flicking between channels. One. Two. Four. From time to time, he tries the public-access channel. Occasionally Finnish TV. His Swedish phone rings. Sometimes he answers. More often than not, he doesn’t. He is tired. He’s dying. He can’t see who is calling him anyway. He can’t talk right now, because The Ellen DeGeneres Show is explaining how to be good friends with your
ex.

  His son is confused. He’s lost. He thinks it’s possible to be successful in this world without giving it your all. He has never understood that you need to invest money in order to earn money. What kind of idiotic companies would choose to hire his son? Who would voluntarily send their receipts to this uncivilised hole in the hope of being given financial assistance? Why is his son so generally worthless?

  Evening becomes night. The father watches the news on TV4. He watches the news on SVT. He watches an animal programme about frogs in the rainforest. He hears the neighbour above clear his throat at regular intervals. If you aren’t watching the same channel as the neighbour, his TV is so loud that it seeps through the ceiling. Whenever anyone rings the bell next door, it sounds like he should answer. The neighbours on the third floor are druggies. The father has seen that with his own two eyes. They wander around in the stairwell, shaking from abstinence as they try to go cold turkey. The neighbour next door is a prostitute. The father has worked that out from her Asian appearance, her working hours and the constant knocking on her door.

  The father hates this place. He misses the old flat. The one his son took over and then sold to the highest bidder, without sharing the profits. The father doesn’t want to stay in a shabby rental building with no lift, with one neighbour who is a whore and another who is a junkie and a third neighbour who clears his throat so loudly that the ceiling shakes. He deserves better than this. He didn’t toil all his life to end up here, on a sofa that is trying to con the world into thinking it’s still white by hiding beneath a white throw, but which fails to con anyone since even the throw is no longer white, and it also slips off the minute anyone falls asleep on it.

  * * *

  A son who is a father finally manages to get hold of his father. On his eleventh attempt, the father answers. He is at the office. Everything went fine. The son breathes a sigh of relief. He smiles at his needless worrying. With relieved fingers, he writes a message to reassure the rest of the family: The eagle has landed. Sweet, the sister replies. Glad everything went well, the mother writes.

  At three o’clock, he picks up the four-year-old from playschool; it takes between fifteen and forty-five minutes to get ready and walk home. We can’t step on any cracks! the four-year-old shouts, and both the father and the daughter hop across the square. We can only step on gravel! the four-year-old shouts, and both the father and the daughter have to leap over the gravel-free sections of the square. We can’t step on any leaves! the four-year-old shouts. Come on, the father says. Very occasionally, the four-year-old has a meltdown, and when that happens it can take up to an hour and a half to get home. She stops on the bridge over the metro tracks. She clings on to the railings. You’re ugly! she shouts. I don’t like you! You can’t come to my birthday party! The father is patient. He smiles at the people passing by. He thinks about the clip his girlfriend showed him, which advised parents to stay cool, calm and collected whenever their children have meltdowns. He imagines his anger washing over him like waves, powerless to upset him. He imagines that he is surrounded by a force field that the four-year-old can’t penetrate. The father hands the one-year-old in the buggy a piece of fruit. He takes out his phone and tries to look like there is absolutely nothing he would rather spend twenty minutes doing than standing right here while the four-year-old screams abuse and neighbours, playschool parents, pensioners and dog owners pass by as they go about their business. Tears stream down the four-year-old’s cheeks. The one-year-old looks like he is trying to work out what is going on. The father waits. He waits a little longer. Then, for the fifth time, he attempts to coax her away. He tempts her with TV, he tempts her with fruit, but it’s difficult to do it naturally when all of the windows have faces, when every car that passes by is full of acquaintances, old workmates, ex-girlfriends, careers advisers and social workers, following his every move, wanting to see how he handles this conflict, making notes in their tiny notepads and exchanging glances when the father eventually grabs the four-year-old by her overalls and carries her beneath one arm like a wriggling log. The four-year-old alternates between laughing and crying, then switches to just crying. A heart-rending, howling cry that echoes between the tall buildings and causes cars to slow down. As they pass two neighbours, the four-year-old shouts: Ow, Daddy, you’re hurting me, it hurts! The father tries to look unperturbed, he smiles at the neighbours, he imitates one of those fathers he has occasionally seen on the metro, fathers who exchange knowing glances with other fathers when their children start screaming, fathers who shrug almost dejectedly, resolve the conflict and move on. They don’t do what he does, they don’t feel an urge to flee the metro to escape all the glances or to hurt the child just because it has a need, just because it’s young, just because it is so clearly demonstrating that it needs him.

  Dinner is ready at five, and at half past the mother comes home with excuses about delays on the red line. Unusual, he says. If you leave work a bit earlier next time, you could be home in time for dinner. Okay, she says. Could you take out your frustration on someone else, please? I’m not the least bit angry, he says. It just feels so bloody ungrateful that I do all the dropping off and picking up and shopping and cooking and then you come waltzing in half an hour late and just – Honey, she interrupts him. Sit down. Eat. Breathe. We’ll talk once the kids are asleep. What yummy thing have you made today? Leftovers, the father says.

  The one-year-old is in his high chair. He refuses to let anyone else feed him and always wants two spoons, one to put in his mouth and another to bang on the table, throw on the floor, up at the ceiling. He starts with two boiled organic carrots, then a bowl of sweetcorn, then spaghetti with bolognese sauce, then a piece of fruit or two, ideally mandarins, which have to be cut up into tiny chunks because mandarin segments can cause choking, the mother says. As can pieces of sausage. When the one-year-old is full, he throws everything onto the floor: remnants of fruit, spaghetti, meat sauce, it all lands on the parquet, along with water from his leaky sippy cup. The four-year-old feeds herself, too. She’s a big girl. Except for when she’s tired after playschool, and she has been very tired after playschool lately. She wants to be fed. She wants to talk about Sixten, who said she wasn’t brave because she didn’t dare climb up onto a roof. She wants to talk about Annie, who is five, and Bo, who only has two letters in his name. Two letters! the four-year-old shouts, shaking her head in wonder. Absolutely, says the father. But eat at the same time. I am eating, says the four-year-old, resting her head on the table. The mother and father try to reconnect with one another. They try to have a conversation. She says something about a colleague who has inherited a dog which . . . The one-year-old reaches out and manages to knock over the jug of water, the father gets up to fetch a cloth, the four-year-old falls headlong from her chair, the mother picks up the four-year-old, the father bends down to mop up water and bolognese sauce from the floor, the one-year-old wipes his hands on the father’s hair, the mother tries to finish her story about her colleague’s inherited dog, the four-year-old roars cock-a-doodle-doo it’s quarter to two, the mother tells her to eat instead of playing cockerel, the four-year-old says that the mother can’t come to her party. Anyway. As I was saying, says the mother, making one last attempt to finish the story about her colleague, Sebastian, who inherited a dog that, but the four-year-old is singing ‘Santa Claus Boogie’ and the one-year-old is screaming because his top is covered in bolognese sauce. Dinner takes forty-five minutes, and by the time they are finished the kitchen looks like a war zone and the mother and the father have barely said a word to one another. If they’re in a good place, they can laugh at the chaos. They can shake their heads and shout: we’re sixty-five, we’re in New York, we’ve just been to a late-night show at the Brooklyn Museum and now we’re slowly walking home through Prospect Park. Yes! I’m there! We’re seventy and going on one of those organised trips to Andalucía, we’ve got a Swedish guide who’s married to a Spaniard, we’re going on a tourist bu
s and we’ll be driven around like sheep, but after a few days we’ll escape the group, buy some weed and hang out in our hotel room. Exactly! We’re eighty and climbing a mountain in the north of Norway, the mountain is actually more of a hill than anything and we can get up to the top with our walking frames, but we’re there together, drinking beer in a mountain cottage, we’re old but far from dead, there’s life after this and when we get there we’ll miss this phase. Right? The one-year-old reaches for the counter and grabs a bottle of soy sauce. Don’t you dare, says the mother. Appappappappapp, warns the father. The one-year-old weighs the bottle of soy sauce in his hand. He looks at the four-year-old. He looks at his parents. He smiles and drops the bottle to the floor.