Samuel sat quietly and listened. When it was his turn he told me about his parents, his Swedish mom and his North African dad who had met at a bar in Andalusia, his mom was there as an exchange student and his dad worked as an undercover security guard at a mall, they had started talking, they exchanged addresses, a few years later his dad came to Sweden for a visit, they became a couple, they got married, Samuel’s sister was born, then came Samuel, his parents were happy at first and then less happy, Sweden changed, Samuel’s dad started to worry that he would be fired from his job (Samuel never said what sort of work he did), he got sick (Samuel never said with what, and I didn’t want to dig for details), his mom decided she wanted a divorce and Samuel took his mom’s side, there was some sort of conflict and even though Samuel didn’t specify what it was about I got the feeling it had to do with money, it was something about an insurance policy his mom had through her job that his dad got a lot of money from and then his dad broke off contact with his children and moved back and they hadn’t heard from him since, that was many years ago. As we sat there a newspaper delivery guy ran in and out of doors, he had a reflective vest on, a large blue two-wheeled cart full of rolled-up papers. We sat there on the ice-cold outdoor furniture and Samuel nodded toward an apartment on the ground floor where the living room was lit by a string of lights. Out of nowhere he said:
“You know those built-in bookcases? I could never have ones like that.”
“Why not?”
“Every time I see them, I think they’re going to collapse.”
We took the stairs up to my apartment and fell asleep to the sound of the neighbors’ kids’ footsteps, electric kettles, gurgling pipes, and the mumble of morning TV.
*
The discontent grew stronger among those of us who had worked there longest. Bogdan called the new hires “pack mules” and Luciano said that if he didn’t get more hours next month he would have trouble making rent and upkeep. Marre had worked with one of the new guys the week before, apparently he was “a Romanian from Bulgaria or maybe a Bulgarian from Romania,” and he had told Blomberg some sob story about how he was here illegally and couldn’t work and had to support three children.
“But have you seen his fingers?” said Marre. “No ring anywhere.”
“Maybe he has kids without being married,” said Bogdan. “Like you do?”
“Hardly,” said Marre. “And I don’t have three kids. Plus can’t you work legally if you come from Romania or Bulgaria? Aren’t they part of the EU? I swear they just choose to work under the table because they don’t give a shit about insurance or retirement. People like him are the reason we’re in the shit.”
Bogdan and Luciano nodded and I agreed. I felt the same way. But at the same time, I wasn’t all that worried. I thought the job was just temporary anyway. I could always find something else. The world was full of possibilities. All you had to do was make use of your strengths, call your contacts, go out into the working world, and help yourself.
*
Another time Samuel told me that he had taken standard Arabic classes for five years and all he remembered were a few random words.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Mohandis and fellah, for example.”
I laughed and asked if his teachers had focused on anything besides occupations.
“Yes, but those were the things that stuck. That and the fruits. I’ve forgotten everything else. But I can still read and write. It’s just the words themselves I need to brush up on.”
We were standing down by Söderbysjön, the sun was going down, dogs were swimming in the lake, birds were flitting about. I thought about it as we walked home, that it was typical Samuel somehow, to learn to read and write but not remember any of what he needed to be able to communicate naturally with people.
*
I think we’ll take a break there. We’re about halfway through. The juiciest stuff is coming up soon. But before we go on, I want to talk financials. How much are you planning to pay me for this? Do you want to go with a percentage of the book sales or a lump sum in advance? It’s up to you. I’m flexible.
*
Okay. I understand that you’re “super worried about getting bogged down in clichés.” But remember, I’m the one describing what happened. It’s up to you to rework it so it makes good fiction. We really did stand there in the sunset by Söderbysjön. The colors turned red and then blue. We turned into oblong shadows that wandered home through the dusky forest. We took off our clothes and lay down next to each other. We listened to each other’s heartbeats. If you want to write later on that something else happened, I guess that’s your prerogative. I’m just telling you the truth.
*
Okay. I understand what you mean. I hear what you’re saying. But I didn’t agree to meet you because I like charity cases. I’m not free. My time has a price tag. Even if I am stuck in here. I’m giving you my memories, my stories. It’s simple logic that you should give me some sort of monetary compensation.
*
For thirty years I had been looking for someone to make me feel like I was one with the world. And then there was Samuel. And I celebrated by building a bubble and keeping the world at a distance. But the world was bigger than us.
*
What the fuck do you mean “a couple thousand in cash”? Do I look like a whore? I want to know here and now what you’re prepared to give me to continue this story. There’s a lot left to tell. All the important stuff is coming up next and I’m not going to say any more until we have come to an agreement.
*
My friends were curious about Samuel, of course, and the more I withheld the details the more they wanted to know. I hesitated to allow them into our world. My sister, though, explained to my friends that I was hanging around with a guy named Samuel.
“He’s young. He’s beautiful. He has an extremely large head, very narrow shoulders, and when they first met I called him ‘the convert.’ Not as in Muslim turned Christian but as in gay turned straight.”
But my sister hadn’t met him either. I had no reason to show us off. Samuel and I were the couple, it wasn’t him and my friends or him and my sister. But now—in retrospect—I wonder if it wasn’t some sort of strategy to prolong our happiness. On some level maybe I knew we would become less us once we crashed into the outside world.
*
I don’t give a shit if “everyone else participated for free.” I’m not everyone else. I’m Vandad. And I’m not going to say another word until you come up with an offer that makes this worth my time.
*
One spring evening I had a glass of wine with my sister at Babylon. She had come straight from her job at the Museum of Natural History, she was wearing a T-shirt from a new exhibit under her denim jacket.
“Nice, huh?”
She showed me the print. It was two pandas hugging in a yin-yang type circle. One was smiling, one looked pained.
“I like this one’s face—check it out, it looks like he’s suffocating.”
I went up to the bar to order. The place was full of hipsters in skinny jeans, bearded queers, glitzy PR girls, and tattooed preschool teachers. We were sitting at a small table outside. Two druggies were walking around in the park in front of the place, digging through the grass, it looked like they had buried something and then forgotten where it was.
“Haven’t seen you for a while,” said my sister.
“You know.”
“Is he good?”
“We’re great.”
“How great?”
“Really great.”
“You’re glowing, sis.”
*
[No one says anything. Vandad looks at me. I look at Vandad.]
*
“This is the first time I’ve felt this way,” I said.
“Super,” said my sister. “But you said that about your ex-husband too.”
“Did I? But this is different.”
“You said that about Emil too.
”
“Yes, I know. But I’ve never felt this . . . whole.”
“But you said that about Sebbe too.”
“Oh, lay off—I’m sure I didn’t say that. He was a soccer hooligan, for Chrissake. There was nothing about him that can come close to what Samuel and I have.”
“Samuel?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Say that again.”
“What? Samuel?”
My sister laughed, drops of beer rained across our table.
“What?”
“No, no, it’s nothing. Sorry. It’s not his name. It’s just the way you say it. Samuel. I’ve actually never heard you say someone’s name like that before. Try saying it without smiling.”
“What are you talking about? I say it normally. Samuel. Samuel?”
My sister laughed some more, the druggies looked up from their digging.
“That’s what I’m telling you. This is different.”
“What does he do?”
“He works at the Migration Board.”
My sister had to hold onto the edge of the table so she wouldn’t fall off her chair laughing.
“Stop. It’s not like you think. He doesn’t deal with asylum cases. He only works on bureaucratic stuff.”
My sister managed to calm herself down and wiped a tear of laughter from one eye. Two prim stylist girls at the table next to us were giving us the side-eye.
“What? Haven’t you ever seen someone laugh?”
The girls quickly looked down at their glasses and tried not to roll their eyes.
“Ugh, this fucking country.”
My sister shook her head and lowered her voice.
“And what’s the deal with his roommate?”
“I don’t know. But I get a sketchy vibe from him.”
*
[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.”
Everything I Don't Remember Page 12
