Everything I Don't Remember

by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

  “Vandad’s fine,” he said. “I think.”

  “What, did something happen?”

  “No, not really. He’s fine. I’m fine. Everyone’s fine.”

  “Okay.”

  As usual, Samuel was very bad at lying. All I had to do to find out the truth was not say anything [making her hand into devil’s horns and listening to her index finger].

  “No, I mean, we haven’t talked for a while.”

  Short pause.

  “And we don’t live together anymore.”

  Pause.

  “I’m subletting again. By Gullmarsplan.”

  Long pause.

  “But it’s good, it really is, I like it. I’m thinking of buying a place of my own soon.”

  I’m not sure what happened between Samuel and Vandad. Do you know? Did it have something to do with Laide? Was it something about the house? You’ll have to ask Laide if you get hold of her because I have no idea.

  *

  From the moment Panther entered the room, it was like Samuel was transformed. I thought that Samuel with Panther meant Samuel became less Samuel, because he stopped talking and started nodding and looked at Panther like she was his idol and asked questions with the efficiency of a tennis machine spitting out balls. Panther was talking ninety miles a minute. She told us about some schoolfriends who had started up a project about “diversified recruiting” and I never figured out whether she thought it was a good idea or a bad one because she told us about the project and dissed everyone who was part of it and then she said:

  “But it is a good thing that it’s being done because all the art schools—including ours—are so segregated it’s sick. It’s not exactly Berlin.”

  Then she talked about all the awesome things she’d found at an art bookstore in Söder that was having a liquidation sale.

  “It was so incredibly cheap—like, Berlin prices.”

  Then she told us about a Norwegian curator who kept calling her twenty-four-seven and wanted to do an exhibition of her stuff in Oslo.

  “It’s super cool,” she said. “Even if Oslo isn’t exactly Berlin.”

  I felt like I ought to say something, I had been quiet far too long, here was my chance.

  “It sounds a little sketchy,” I said.

  “What does?”

  “Why would a curator want to do an exhibition?”

  “Maybe because it’s his job?”

  We looked at each other. A quick smile fluttered across her face. I had misunderstood something. I didn’t quite get what. I prepared myself for the mockery and laughter and being told I was an imbecile. I could picture how Samuel would high five and pinch me on my side and call me “Mr. Curator” for the rest of the night. But it didn’t happen. Instead Samuel asked what the theme of the exhibition would be and whether it was Time Pieces or maybe Notre Dame that he was interested in showing, and Panther seemed grateful that she could finally turn the focus of the discussion back onto herself. I didn’t say much more that night. Samuel didn’t either. But I remember thinking about it afterwards, that in front of a friend he had known for more than ten years, Samuel took my side. Instead of mocking and demeaning he smoothed things over and had my back. That was a sign that our relationship— Erase that. A sign that our friendship was real.

  Then we went out and one of us owned the dance floor (Samuel) and one of us bought cocaine (Panther) and one of us sat in a corner keeping an eye on the drinks (me). On the way home, after we said goodbye to Panther and it was just me and Samuel in the taxi, I said things I’d never said to anyone. I talked about my nightmares, I described the pillow when I woke up and the sound of screaming that somehow lingered in the room after I woke up, as if the air molecules had changed and were still vibrating when I opened my eyes. I said all of this in a taxi even though the driver was in the front seat and I wasn’t even worried that Samuel would start laughing and use it against me. Instead he said:

  “I know the feeling.”

  And even though he didn’t explain it any more and even though he didn’t have a dead brother, I believed him when he said it.

  *

  Panther says that before they hung up they talked about her for a bit. Samuel asked a few questions and I answered them. I gave him a short summary of everything that had happened since last time we talked, though since so much had happened the summary took a pretty long time. But I want to make it clear that we didn’t spend our entire last conversation talking about me. We were interrupted by a nurse. A female voice said something in the background.

  “Okay,” Samuel replied. “She’s done now. I have to go.”

  We hung up. Our last conversation was over. It had lasted forty-five minutes. It was a few minutes before noon. I thought about how quickly the time had passed. Far too quickly. I’m sorry, it’s starting again, I don’t know what to do about this, how many tears can a body hold, anyway? I don’t even feel all that sad right now, you know, this is just a physical reaction [reaching for the roll of toilet paper].

  *

  We had been friends for a few months when Samuel said that Panther was moving to Berlin.

  “When?” I asked, and I felt happy.

  “In a few weeks. She’s just going to take off. Leave me here.”

  We didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I didn’t quite understand why he looked so sad. He drained his glass, signaled for a refill, and asked if I wanted to go somewhere else.

  “There’s an end-of-term party at her art school tonight. I was planning to go. Want to come?”

  I wasn’t sure, I liked it better at Spicy House.

  “Come on. It’ll be fun. Think of the Experience Bank!”

  “Experience Bank?”

  “No matter how boring it is, we’ll still remember it. And that makes it all worth it, don’t you think?”

  One hour later we were standing in front of an old building that looked like a boat factory. Bouncers were checking names against the list, Samuel had RSVPed for him plus one. But the bouncers were no typical bouncers. They greeted everyone with a smile and instead of black flak jackets and headsets they were wearing terrycloth playsuits—I mean like the kind that babies wear, but adult-sized, and one of them had a giant lollipop in his front pocket.

  “What the fuck was that?” I whispered to Samuel as we were on our way in.

  “Oh, I’m sure it was part of the art.”

  But he wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t either, because at that party, absolutely anything could be art. We went from room to room and Samuel nodded at guys that looked like girls and girls that looked like little boys. Everyone’s clothes were either really colorful or entirely black. Some of them gave me sideways glances, they noticed that I didn’t fit in, my skin wasn’t pale enough, my muscles were too big, my leather jacket too black, and I smelled like cologne instead of sweat and rolling tobacco.

  *

  Panther ponders the question for a long time before she answers. Do I regret anything? Of course I regret some things. Everyone does. Anyone who says they don’t is lying. Everyone walks around with feelings of loss and sadness and shame. It’s perfectly normal. And I get that his family is trying to convince themselves that it was an accident. After all, they were the ones who were on him like bloodhounds at the end, with a thousand calls about insurance clauses and renovation money and loan qualifications and inheritance distributions. In the end he couldn’t take it anymore. He made up his mind. He was ready. He made the decision. We’re the ones who have to live with it.

  *

  Panther’s room was full of people and the art was hanging on the walls, it was mirrors painted over with different texts and headlines. Panther herself was wearing an American flag like a toga, with a knot over one shoulder, she hugged me and Samuel, she said that she had been waiting all night for us and then she disappeared to say hi to some other people.

  “What do you think?” Samuel asked as we stood in front of a piece of art, each with a plastic glass of red box wine in hand. />
  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Because I didn’t know. We went from room to room, looking at art that was sometimes art and sometimes turned out to be an ashtray that someone had left behind from an after-party. The girls looked rich, or they must have been rich, because only rich girls can go to a party with so little make-up and such unshaved armpits and such dirty canvas bags without being ashamed. The only room we stopped for a little bit extra in was at the far end of the building. Someone had made a work of art with a glowing warm furnace.

  “I like this,” I said.

  “Me too,” said Samuel.

  We stayed in the room, the warmth warmed us, the fire crackled. Suddenly Samuel put out his hand and rested it on the furnace. He held it there until I swatted it away.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  “Just wanted to check how hot it was.”

  I looked at him and wondered if there was something seriously wrong with him. Then I looked at the fire and thought that if good art was this good I could definitely learn to like art.

  *

  Panther sighs and throws up her hands. But at the same time it’s really hard to know what you could have done differently. I don’t think it’s possible to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. There’s something self-centered about the whole idea that it’s up to you to take care of everyone around you. People live their own lives and when they don’t want to do that anymore there’s not much you can do. I’m convinced that this would have happened even if I hadn’t moved to Berlin. Even if I had been a little better at keeping in touch. What about you—do you feel guilty? Do you wish you had done something different?

  *

  We were interrupted by two students from the school. Samuel nodded their way and asked who had made this awesome piece of art. The students laughed.

  “This furnace belongs to the glassmaking workshop.”

  I swallowed and braced myself. But there was no attack. No scornful smiles. No sense of standing there naked. Samuel didn’t deflect the blame, he didn’t say that I was the one who’d come up with such an idiotic thought. He just blew on his hand, laughed, and asked if there was an after-party. When the students moved on, Samuel and I stayed in the room, the fire crackled, it smelled faintly of something I thought might be burned hair or sulfur.

  “This is still the best thing here,” Samuel said, and I nodded.

  He had my back. He didn’t let me fall. I thought, I will always do the same for him.

  *

  Panther looks surprised and maybe a little disgusted. Are you joking? What do you mean, “relieved”? I was totally crushed. Part of me died along with Samuel. There is nothing, not the tiniest atom in my body, that felt “relieved” when I heard what had happened. No offense, but anyone who comes up with an idea like that must be pretty disturbed.

  *

  After the art party we went into town. There was a line to get into East, but Ibbe from the gym was manning the door and I mimicked Hamza, I tried putting two fingers up in the air, and Ibbe waved us in.

  “Wow,” Samuel said after we found a table in the corner. “Did I just see two blackheads get into East at one thirty in the morning on the Saturday after payday?”

  “Should we call the Guinness Book of World Records?”

  We had a toast, we drank, we ordered more, we moved toward the dance floor.

  “Baller culo.”

  “Check out her booty.”

  “Look at that sweet ass.”

  “Damn, baby’s got back!”

  “Nice humps.”

  But we said it more to ourselves than to the girls. When a song Samuel liked came on, he vanished onto the dance floor. He was dancing in that way that made people point and shake their heads. He transformed his arms into a sunset and roared along with the chorus. He crouched down and whispered secrets to the broken glass on the floor. He shook his ribcage side to side like maracas. When he came back to have a drink I could smell his hardworking deodorant.

  *

  Panther shook her head. I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer for that. Maybe he forgot to take it off? It’s not impossible. Or he could have been driving so fast that he knew the speed would be enough and that no seatbelt in the world could save him.

  *

  We had drunk more than usual. The sink in the bathroom was rocking like a rowboat. I had to max out my concentration in order to grab the door handle. When I came back I found Samuel leaning into a corner, his legs planted wide as a tripod. The music stopped and the bouncers drove people out with arms like side-boom trucks.

  “Home?” I said.

  “Soon,” said Samuel.

  It was chaos at McDonald’s. Two drunk Stureplan brats were lying on the floor and pointing at the spitballs on the ceiling as if they were comets. A teenage girl had thrown up on the window. A homeless guy with a raincoat and plastic bags on his feet was sitting at a table and reading a newspaper and looking like the most normal person there. An old lady in a gray coat was in front of us in line. She was swaying, she was taking a long time, there was some problem with her card. Samuel looked at his wrist (even though he didn’t have a watch) and said:

  “How about this weather?”

  Then the old lady turned around and gave him a surly look. We discovered that she wasn’t an old lady at all; she was a girl about our age or a little older. She had a strangely bell-shaped coat and some gray streaks in her hair. She muttered something and walked toward the street. I saw that she was wearing a gold brooch shaped like an owl on her coat. The girl was Laide. And as I walked up and ordered for myself and Samuel, we can establish that this was the first time Laide and Samuel saw each other. There were no strings playing from the loudspeakers. No choirs of angels. No random car went by on the street with its windows down, blasting D’Angelo’s “Lady.” The sky outside did not fill with nighttime fireworks. Samuel and Laide were at the same McDonald’s. He saw her. She saw him. It was late at night or early morning, and life just went on. As if nothing had happened. This was their first meeting. Even if I seem to be the only one who remembers it.

  *

  Panther says that after the phone call she got a text from Samuel. He wrote that the streets of Sweden were safe because his grandma hadn’t passed the test and now they were going to eat lunch and go back to the home. Then he wrote: Thanks for calling. It meant everything to hear your voice. Fuck everyone else. I don’t know exactly what he meant by “everyone else.” I had a hectic afternoon, I had a working lunch and then a studio visit and to be completely honest I forgot about his text. I never responded. I didn’t really know how to answer so I just didn’t and then it was too late.

  *

  We stood on Kungsgatan. Empty cabs zoomed by us, one, two, four, six, ten of them. We just laughed.

  “Hi, Guinness Book of World Records,” Samuel said. “It’s us again.”

  “Don’t bother sending anyone over.”

  “Stockholm is the same as ever.”

  We walked up toward Sveavägen to test our luck there. There were two beggars lying under the bridge. Samuel stopped and read their signs. Then he placed two gold tenkrona coins in one’s mug and put a fifty-krona bill in the other’s. He just did it, without checking whether anyone was looking, without seeming proud. I looked at him and thought that he was a very unusual person. Not because he gave money to beggars, but because he did it there and then, in the middle of the night, when no one was looking. Except for me.

  *

  Panther is quiet, thinking back. Just so you know, that last text sounds more dramatic now that I’m telling you about it. But I definitely should have responded. I could have written, like, Take it easy bro, I’m here for you, you’re not alone, everyone has felt the way you’re feeling at one point and you’ll make it, don’t worry, don’t let go, hold on. But of course I didn’t [pausing, looking out the window]. Okay, damn it, that’s enough, would you stop looking at me like I’m so guilty? [Standing up, wal
king to the bathroom.] What the hell is with you, what the hell do you want, I didn’t have time [slamming the bathroom door].

  *

  Twenty minutes later. Still no taxi. Or—an awful lot of taxis zoomed past us with their signs lit and picked up other customers further on. In the end we decided to go for a solo wave. I went to stand near a shop window with my phone to my ear, Samuel stood alone on the sidewalk. A taxi stopped, Samuel opened the door and said where we were going and when the taxi driver accepted, I pretended to end my call and jumped into the backseat. The driver saw me and swallowed and moved the passenger seat forward so I would have room for my legs. We drove south in silence. Samuel was low on cash and I said it was fine.

  “I’ll get it.”

  “Thanks, I’ll get the next one,” he said, as usual, and clapped his hand to his wallet-slash-heart.

  I shook my head to say it didn’t matter and I would never let money come between us. The taxi drove on. We dropped Samuel off in Hornstull and continued toward Örnsberg. When we turned off Hägerstensvägen I leaned forward and showed my cash to the driver.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I have money. I’m not going to rob you.”

  The driver gave a nervous smile, he tried to hold the wheel a bit more loosely but I noticed how relieved he was when I unfolded my body from his backseat and the car recovered its usual center of gravity.

  *

  Panther calms down and comes back. She says that later that same day, at four or five in the afternoon, a stranger called from Samuel’s phone. He said that there had been an accident, he said that it probably wasn’t that serious, he had worked in Cambodia and had seen things that were considerably worse. But I called Vandad anyway, I told him what had happened and I thought that if it was serious someone would contact me. When I didn’t hear anything I assumed that everything was fine. I went out that night, a few drinks at Möbel-Olfe and then a party in a courtyard near Görlitzer Bahnhof.

  *

  Okay. I realize we don’t have “all the time in the world.” And of course I can “fast-forward to Laide and Samuel’s next encounter.” As long as you agree that everything I’ve told you up to now plays an important role in what happens later on. The rest of the year flies by. Panther moves to Berlin to concentrate on her career in art. Samuel and I go from being acquaintances to being friends to moving in together. By day he works at the Migration Board and I stack moving boxes in fifteen-footers. On the weekends we do all those things Samuel gets it into his head we have to do so as not to miss out on life. And I tag along; I never say no. Even if there are times when his ideas make me want to shake my head and ask why. Why take an airport bus to Arlanda and back to watch planes landing and eat dinner at a buffet place that according to Samuel’s cousin is “every pilot’s best-kept secret”? Why swing by the shooting range in Årsta to check out the recoil in a Glock? Why buy a used Sega Genesis online to see if NBA Jam is still as fun as it was when we were little? I don’t know. Samuel doesn’t either. But we do it all anyway and we share everything equally and if one of us is low on cash the other one pays and when Samuel finds out that his sublet won’t be renewed the obvious choice is for him to move in with me. I help him with the move, get him free boxes from work and borrow a cargo van. He takes the living room, I keep the bedroom. Once Samuel says that he’s never had a friendship that was so “wonderfully undemanding” and I’m not a hundred percent sure what he means but I nod and agree.