Such Good Work

by Johannes Lichtman

  “Talk about what?”

  “About being a refugee. You know, share their experiences, work out their problems.”

  The woman was quiet for a second. “I don’t know if they need to talk about being a refugee. They probably already know what that’s like.”

  “Not just what it’s like.” The man rolled his eyes. “Digging a little deeper, you know? Really getting in there.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” the woman said, clearly trying. “But we just need people who can volunteer to spend some time, one-on-one, with kids who are new to Sweden.”

  The woman then called on another raised hand, and the man leaned over to me and said, “These people—it’s like they don’t even want any help. No wonder it’s a crisis.”

  “Are you offering to help?” I said.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  “Who is it that you’re offering to help?”

  The man stared at me for a second, harrumphed, then loudly backed his chair up and walked out. Here was a man who wanted to save everybody with a talk-therapy group he thought he was qualified to lead because he had done theater. (And maybe he could gather some stories in the process.) But not that long ago I had wanted to save the boys by telling them to write their memoirs in grocery-store journals. (And maybe I could gather some stories in the process.) It occurred to me how difficult it was for men to join in the day-to-day slog of helping strangers without the promise of attention and praise. The thought made me uncomfortable.

  * * *

  The afternoon’s final speaker was a middle-aged Iranian Swedish woman who wore a gauzy shawl and olive-rimmed glasses. She looked like a visiting professor and spoke grammatically flawless Swedish with a Middle Eastern accent.

  “My name is Laleh, and my husband and I are foster parents. Over the last twenty years, we have had eighteen foster children stay with us.”

  We were all leaning forward in our seats. It had been a bit of a letdown that the Association for the Unaccompanied had sent a white representative.

  “My husband will let the boys get away with anything. If Hitler came running into our living room crying, my husband would put his arm around him, and say, ‘It can’t be as bad as all that, little Adolf.’ ” She paused for polite laughter. “I give the boys hugs and I’m sweet to them. But I also hold them accountable. One of the boys, the first evening he came to my house, he walked in the living room, and without looking at me, he sat down on the couch, leaned back, and put his feet on the table. I said, in Farsi, ‘Is that how you walk into a room? What would you do if your grandmother were in this room?’ He got up right away and kissed my hand. That’s how a boy greets his grandparents in Afghanistan. And then he sat up straight and behaved himself.”

  She paused. “You have to have rights and responsibilities. When the boys come here, they immediately have rights they’ve never had before, which is good, of course. But they forget the responsibilities they’ve had their entire lives, because nobody holds them accountable. Afghan boys are very well mannered, but they forget. And do you think that’s good for them? That it makes them comfortable to have no rules?”

  I wrote down in my notebook rights and responsibilities.

  “Sometimes the boys who come over are damaged. They have seen things that children shouldn’t see. And I’ll be honest—it can be difficult. We had a boy in our house who was nine years old. One day, I walked down into the living room and saw him on the family computer watching a YouTube video of ISIS beheading a prisoner. He was laughing.”

  She paused.

  “For me, as a victim of torture, it was difficult to watch a child laughing at someone else’s execution. He didn’t turn the screen off when I came in the room because he wasn’t trying to hide it. He wasn’t trying to hide it because he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.”

  She paused again.

  “But this wasn’t about me. It was about him. You must consider these boys’ environment, what they’ve experienced, what they’re going through, and you must create some kind of normal. Your kind of normal. That’s the only hope you have.”

  Her speech had such substance; I was moved and jealous. To be able to say something like that and have the force of experience behind your words. But I could only imagine the credibility, not the weight, that came with the experience.

  “Let me end with one short story. A few weeks ago, our birth daughter was explaining to her foster brothers that she was getting married. She told them how the ceremony would go and that they would be seated at tables with cousins and children their own age. Our youngest boy, who is eight, stood up, crossed his arms, and yelled, ‘No!’ ”

  Laleh laughed. “We were shocked! He had never raised his voice before. We said, ‘What’s wrong?’ He said, ‘I’m not going to sit at a table at my sister’s wedding. I’m going to wear a tuxedo and stand by the door and greet the guests when they come in!’ Because that’s what brothers do at Afghan weddings! And he wanted to show that he was not a guest, not a charity case—he was her brother. He was going to participate. He was going to help.”

  The whole room laughed. What a relief to unclench the muscles tensed in preparation of stories of rape or beheading or horrifically creative evil.

  “When we’re giving, it’s easy to get wrapped in the giving. It’s easy to get wrapped up in us being the givers and them the receivers. But it’s important for the boys to feel like they can give as well. It’s important for them to participate. Thank you.”

  * * *

  After the speech, I shook Laleh’s hand, thanked her, said bye to Katja, and went home to work on my master’s dissertation on the phenomenology of whiteness. The paper had spread out unmanageably. It was now mostly a list of the stoppings and killings of black men by American police. I had no idea what my thesis was. It didn’t have much to do with literature. I was only attending about half my classes, and it would be a miracle if I graduated. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of Aziz and Osman and Arash and the rest of the boys coming to Sweden smart and kind and capable and eager to learn, and being ruined by Swedish indifference.

  I decided to ask Torsten if I could mentor Aziz.

  As soon as I reached the decision, I knew it was the right one, but then I started running laps in my head in search of what I could do with Aziz if Torsten said it was okay. I could take Aziz to an Afghan restaurant in Möllevången. But that might just make him sad. If I were homesick, I wouldn’t want a Swede to take me to the TGI Fridays in the city center. We could go to a Swedish restaurant. But not many restaurants served traditional Swedish cuisine—beef and fish and potato dishes. Swedes could make Swedish food at home. When they went out, they wanted Thai food, tapas, hard-shell tacos, or American barbecue. In my time in Sweden, I had only been to four or five sit-down restaurants. If I were to be honest and give Aziz an accurate picture of my Sweden, my version of normal, we would cook together.

  I got out of bed and opened the door to the balcony. Sweat had soaked through my shirt. The black night air blew in cold. I could show him how to make Swedish meatballs. Would that be fun?

  I wanted to give Aziz something nice. If only I knew what that something was.

  BEFORE THE SIXTH MEETING OF the Language Café, on an unseasonably mild November evening, I was smoking behind a planter near the student union when Ali walked up.

  He made a pretend-shocked face. “Does Mr. Anderson smoke?”

  “Unfortunately, he does.”

  “Have you got a fag?”

  “You probably don’t want to say it like that. But you are welcome to a cigarette.”

  He thanked me. “Are the Lucky Strike organics better than the regular Lucky Strikes?” He examined the paper-bag-colored pack I’d handed him.

  “If you blindfolded me, I couldn’t tell the difference. But they cost the same and I like the way the package looks.”

  “It’s funny that you say that. Because if somebody says, ‘Lucky Strike organics taste so m
uch better than regular Lucky Strikes!,’ then everyone will want to trick him into revealing that he can’t actually tell the difference. But you’ve said that you can’t tell the difference before anyone else can accuse you of not being able to tell the difference.”

  I laughed. “I try to reveal my flaws before anyone else can.”

  “Excellent strategy.” Ali pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and handed the pack back to me.

  “I’ve been thinking a little about how we should organize the lessons.” I told him about Laleh’s speech on rights and responsibilities—about setting up rules to make the boys feel safe. I repeated the anecdote she’d shared about the boy who put his feet up.

  Ali took a long drag off the cigarette. He looked out at the windmill factory. Then he said, “That’s bullshit. The kid just came to a foreign country, away from everything he knows, his father’s head probably rolling on a street in Kabul, and she’s making him kiss her hand? I know that kind of Persian—I’ve met them back home. They try to act like they know everything about Hazara, but it’s superior, racist bullshit.”

  I made a mental note to cross out my previous note.

  * * *

  The boys entered in a wave of laughter and yelling, with Torsten behind them, shouting halfhearted directions in English. I looked for Aziz but didn’t see him. A new boy caught my eye because he looked about twenty-five. He wore a faux-leather jacket and sported a five o’clock shadow. He was joking with a boy in shapeless clothes and a bowl cut, who looked prepubescent. I saw Osman and we shared a smile, and I saw Arash, who was pushing and laughing with some other boys, getting his fur hat knocked on the floor. But I couldn’t find Aziz in the crowd. I worried that he had been transferred.

  Then I heard him: “Jonas, my friend!”

  The relief washed over me. We shook hands and said our hellos.

  But then the nerves hit. I would have to go through with it.

  * * *

  The session was so busy that I couldn’t find a moment to ask Torsten about Aziz until the end, when I saw Torsten herding a group of boys horsing around in the corner.

  “Tjena. Good session today,” Torsten said in Swedish, a little out of breath.

  “Thanks! I thought it went well.” I paused. “Hey, I don’t know if you do this, but I was thinking that maybe I could be a mentor to Aziz while he’s here. I mean, not a mentor, but maybe I could have him over for dinner or something?”

  “I think he would like that.” Torsten’s eyes followed a couple boys engaged in a quickly escalating scarf-fight. “Have you asked him?”

  “No, I didn’t want to ask if it was against the rules.”

  “You can’t come to the home, you know, because of security.” I didn’t even know where the home was. The location of refugee housing was secret, in fear of the anti-migrant firebombing attacks that had broken out in Germany. Torsten and the social workers would bring the boys to us, but we could not go to them. “But he could meet you somewhere else. He can come to your place if he wants to.”

  “Great!” I was a little amazed that it had been that easy.

  I searched through the crowd of boys until I saw Aziz.

  “Jonas, my friend!” Aziz said, zipping up his jacket. We performed our long handshake.

  “Good job today,” I said.

  “Thank you. Jag talar lite svenska nu.”

  “Du talar jättebra svenska!”

  “Inte så bra. Men jag blir bättre . . . How do you say ‘every day’?”

  “Varje dag.”

  “Jag blir bättre varje dag.”

  “That’s excellent,” I said.

  He smiled.

  “But, hey, I have a question for you,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “And you don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to.”

  Aziz looked concerned. “Okay.”

  “Would you like to come to my house for dinner tomorrow?”

  He was quiet. “What do you mean?”

  I laughed nervously. I realized that Aziz might think I was making advances. “In Sweden, when you have friends, sometimes the friends go to each other’s houses for dinner. And then they make dinner together and just eat dinner and drink soda and then go home, and nothing else. It’s very simple. But it can be fun.” I paused. “I thought that since you’re my friend now, maybe you wanted to come over for dinner.”

  Aziz smiled. “Yes. I would like that. Thank you. I will come over for dinner.”

  My heart hiccuped in my throat. I typed out my address on Aziz’s phone. He didn’t have a Swedish phone number yet from which he could call me, and his Skype wouldn’t work without a Wi-Fi connection, so I also wrote out my last name so that he would know which buzzer to ring.

  “The buzzer only works one way. But ring it and I’ll come down and let you in.”

  We agreed that he would come the following evening at seven. He waved goodbye and walked off, apparently so surprised by the invitation that he forgot our handshake.

  * * *

  That night, I couldn’t sleep. What if I couldn’t think of anything to say to Aziz? What if Aziz didn’t like the meatballs? What if I went to get something from the kitchen, and when I came back, he was gone?

  What if everything went perfectly and we had a great time?

  Then what?

  MY KITCHEN COUNTER LOOKED LIKE the set of a cooking show. Red ground beef shining brightly in its plastic, bread crumbs in a little glass bowl, a cup of already measured cream, a stick of butter, no pork. The meatballs were better with a mix of beef and pork than with just beef, and I wasn’t sure who followed what dietary rules—I had once seen Muhammad eat what looked like a pork hot dog—but I wanted to be safe. I was finishing cutting the onions when the buzzer announced Aziz’s arrival. I charged out the door—shoes half-on, toes gripping tight while my heels flopped—and down the three flights of stairs to let Aziz in.

  “Jonas, my friend!” He wore a rain jacket and jeans and rain boots.

  “Aziz!” I answered, out of breath.

  We performed our elaborate handshake. Then I didn’t know what to say. It was like every other time I’d seen a student outside of school, only more acute.

  “Shall we?” I opened the door to the tiny elevator for Aziz. I pushed the button for the fourth floor and pointed to the sign showing the stick figure having his neck broken by the trash can. “Don’t bring garbage cans in here or you’ll break your neck.”

  “I will not.”

  “Sorry, I was joking.”

  “Oh.”

  We were quiet. At the fourth floor, we exited the elevator and entered my apartment.

  “This is where I live.” I took off my shoes.

  Aziz took his shoes off and placed them on the rack. I took Aziz’s raincoat and hung it on the hook.

  “This is the living room.” I motioned to the small room with the fake-hardwood floors and the apartment owner’s once-white IKEA couch, a little gray from lack of washing. “This is my room.” I showed Aziz the narrow room with its narrow Swedish bed. But I didn’t cross through the doorway into the bedroom. “And this is the kitchen, where we’ll make dinner.”

  “Very nice.”

  I wanted to know what Aziz was thinking, but I couldn’t gauge his reaction—couldn’t tell if he thought this was good or uncomfortable or boring.

  “Do you want something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Are you sure? I have all this soda.” I opened the refrigerator to show a liter bottle of Coke, a liter of Fanta, a liter of Sprite, and a liter of the Swedish spiced Christmas soda, julmust.

  Aziz laughed. “You really like soda, Jonas!”

  “I do!” I said, though I did not like soda. “You have to drink some or I’ll drink it all and my teeth will rot.”

  “Then I will have Fanta, thank you.”

  “Excellent choice.” I cracked some ice from a tray and poured Fanta for Aziz in a giant plastic cup the apartment owner had left be
hind; I sometimes used it as a water pitcher. I poured myself a much smaller glass. “As they say in Swedish, skål.”

  “Skål!” Aziz said.

  * * *

  “This is a very Swedish dish that we’re making.” I unwrapped the beef. “This is beef—from a cow. In Swedish, it’s called nötkött.” I pointed to the word on the label.

  Aziz nodded and repeated the word.

  “Did you already learn that word?”

  “No.”

  I went through all the ingredients, sounding out their Swedish names for Aziz.

  “We put the cream and the bread crumbs in a little bowl. And then you let the cream and bread crumbs settle while you mix up beef, egg, onions, and spices.”

  “Why do you let the cream and the bread crumbs settle?”

  I looked at the cream and bread crumbs muddying up their little bowl. “I have no idea.”

  Aziz laughed. “You are very good at this, Jonas.”

  Things were going well! Somehow, despite different languages and ethnicities and life experiences and ages, Aziz and I were on the same wavelength. He cracked the egg on the meat. He dumped the pepper and the chopped-up onions into the big metal mixing bowl.

  “Torsten said that I may be transferred soon.”

  “That’s fantastic!” A voice in my head screamed that Aziz couldn’t leave yet, but I stamped it out.

  “If I get transferred, then I can start school.”

  “You must be excited!”

  “Yes, very.”

  “You’ll do great in Swedish school.”

  He smiled.

  I dumped the cream-and-bread-crumb mix into the bowl.

  “Now’s the fun part. You have to get in there with your hands and mix it all up.” I dipped my hands into the sticky pile of meat, kneading it in with the other ingredients. “See? Just mix it all up. Now you try.”

  Aziz looked at me, then at the meat.

  “It’s okay!” I said. “It’s actually kind of fun.”

  Aziz still looked skeptical, but he plunged his hands in and began kneading. “Like this?”

  “Perfect.”