Everything I Don't Remember (3 page)

She looked happy, happy in a way she never was otherwise [looks sad].

*

Okay. I understand. I’m sorry. I don’t really know what to say.

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Guppe says that the first thing Samuel’s grandma did when she moved in was accuse all the dark-skinned men who worked at the home of theft. She was convinced that we snuck
in at night and took her pearl necklaces, no matter how many times her children and grandchildren tried to tell her that her pearl necklaces were safe and sound in the safe deposit box at the bank.
I don’t know if she even had any pearls, but she would hide her jewelry box under her bed and two hours later she would ring the call button and say that she was the victim of another
robbery. Her family apologized, they said she had never been like this before, they told stories about how she’d worked as a teacher in a poverty-stricken area and started a club in her
congregation to raise hundreds of thousands of kronor to build schools in African countries. She sold things at flea markets and ripped up sheets so they could be used as bandages in Romanian
hospitals, and once when her contact at an orphanage in Latvia couldn’t find a driver to bring over a busload of winter clothes, she got her eldest son to do it and she went along; the two of
them drove to Latvia and dropped the boxes of clothes at the orphanage.

After a while it was almost strange to listen to her relatives list all of these facts, I heard the same stories over and over again from different family members, it was as if they wanted to
compensate for something, as if they didn’t understand that we were professionals. We were used to it. We have our routines. There’s a confused old man or woman in every room, and when
they press the call button and say that there’s a scary person in the bathroom, we hang a sheet over the mirror. When they say that an old person is spying on them through the window, we pull
the curtains. None of the old men are allowed to shave by themselves, because if they do they might show up to morning coffee without eyebrows. We can’t leave bottles of rubbing alcohol
unattended, because someone will drink them up. Samuel’s grandmother was far from the worst. Although she was one of the ones whose mood was the most changeable.

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When did it happen? Were you close? Are you still in touch with the family?

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Guppe says that once when Samuel’s grandma was in an extra bad mood, Samuel’s mother tried to give him a tip. She held out a hundred-krona bill and said she was
sorry for all the things I had to listen to. I looked her in the eye and said, in a friendly but firm voice:

“Put that away.”

Because, okay, it was one thing to be called “sand-nigger” or “towelhead,” but somehow that felt better than standing there like an idiot and being given charity for a
job well done. When I came home and told my wife about what had happened she called me an idiot for refusing the money. We had just bought a terrace house and the twins were eighteen months old and
diapers and pacifiers and wet wipes didn’t come free. When I went to bed I lay there for a long time, wondering whether I should have accepted the money. But I would do the same thing today.
Did I say wife? I meant ex-wife.

*

I understand. I’m just wondering why you’ve wasted so much time. Why didn’t you come here earlier? Why did you talk to Laide and Panther and Samuel’s old
school friends before you met me? How did you expect the staff at Samuel’s grandma’s dementia home to help you understand what happened? What does Samuel’s grandma’s
neighbor have to do with it? If I’m going to be part of this, I want to be there all the way from beginning to end, because no one knew Samuel better than I did.

*

Guppe says that he prepared the morning coffee and rang the bell. Then I looked out the window and saw that Samuel and his grandma hadn’t left yet. They were walking
toward the car. She was holding his arm. She hobbled toward the driver’s side to get behind the wheel. Samuel led her to the passenger side. Then he helped her buckle herself in and once
he’d closed the door and put the suitcase and the plastic bag in the backseat he stopped to catch his breath in a way I know I sometimes do. He, like, stood there for a second to muster his
strength for the next half of the game. I would do the same thing after a long day at work. He did it after twenty minutes with his own grandma. Then he took off the fur hat, patted his own cheeks
lightly, and got behind the wheel.

*

Which neighbor was it, by the way? That guy in number thirty-two? He goes to Thailand to fuck whores every winter. I swear it. Young whores, too, like on the verge of being legal. Whores he can pay to say they’re twelve so he can get his sad little retired-guy cock hard. He goes there every winter, he
boards up his house and puts timers on all the lights and is gone for two or three months and then he comes home with new photos of whores he’s fucked and he prints out the photos and puts
them up on the bulletin board in his office, like postcards. It’s true; we saw it through the window. Samuel used to call it his “wall of shame.” I suspect it was the neighbor who
set the fire. He hated everyone who lived there. And he didn’t seem surprised at all when the fire department showed up.

*

Guppe says that the car started and moved back and forth, back and forth. On like the fifth try, Samuel managed to drive out of the parking spot and turn the car around to head
for the bridge. Then he revved the engine and whizzed down the hill. Going way too fast. Would I remember that if I hadn’t heard about what happened the very next day? I don’t know. I
don’t think so. It was the last time I saw him [looking oddly upset, given that he hardly knew him]. If you want to talk to Samuel’s grandma, you’ll have to come back once
she’s feeling better. But unfortunately, I don’t think she’ll be much help. She’s drifting further and further into the fog.

In her first email, his mom apologizes for taking so long to respond. After careful consideration, in the end, after many “buts” and “what ifs,” I have
decided not to take part. I don’t live my life in the public eye. I’m not used to being interviewed. I have never liked being documented; in fact, I feel uncomfortable even when my
daughter pulls out her phone to take videos of me with my grandchild. So I hope you respect our wish not to participate. And I use the word “our” because this decision goes for both me
and Samuel’s sister, whom I know you have contacted. We are trying to move on. We want to put this all behind us. Good luck with the book. Warm wishes.

*

Then three months went by and I didn’t see Samuel in all that time. I’d broken off contact with Hamza. Or, well, not broken off, but I had stopped going on rounds
with him. I avoided his calls. I made up excuses for why I couldn’t come. Instead I set the alarm on my phone and went to Blomberg’s office early on weekday mornings to be paired up
with someone on the team and spend the day moving dressers and Murphy beds and kitchen benches. The moving boxes first, then secure them behind double beds, and then in with the flowerpots and rugs
and TVs wrapped up in blankets.

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In her second email, his mom writes that she appreciates my tenacity. Stubbornness is a virtue. We always said that when I was growing up. Everyone but my mom, who stubbornly
maintained that she was not stubborn at all. But I will tell you once again that I do not wish to be interviewed. Don’t take it personally. It’s not because I’m “anxious
about the memories that might be dredged up.” And it has nothing to do with your qualities as an author. Even if the things you write are very different from the sort of literature I enjoy,
that’s not the reason I (once again) choose to decline. It makes no difference that I wouldn’t be filmed. Just knowing that someone is going to record my voice is enough to bother me
and make me stumble over my words. I have always been able to speak much better when no one is listening. Or when someone who knows me is listening. So I’m saying no. Again. If there are any
concrete points of fact you want to double check, perhaps I can help over email. All my best.

*

My life went on. I changed up a few habits. I adjusted to my new salary. Instead of going into town I found Spicy House. Instead of buying new clothes I took care of the ones I
already owned. One day we were sent to Nacka to move everything in one house to another one that was only fifty meters away.

“Why are you moving?” Luciano asked.

“Well, it’s not for tax reasons, anyway,” replied the man who signed the hours-worked contract and smiled as if he had just told a joke.

We emptied the home of someone who had died on Lilla Essingen. We helped a guy who had divorced his wife pack everything that was his and move it to a cramped one-room apartment on
Thorildsplan.

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In her third email, his mom writes that she has chosen to respond to my questions in list form:

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An old woman wanted to move from Östermalm to Södermalm and she lived in an apartment the size of a museum. She was the sort of customer who wanted double blankets and
bubble wrap on everything. The dusty mirrors were antiques and the shabby dresser had to be handled as if it was pure gold. At first we did as she said, but after a while it was impossible; if we
were going to finish before the day turned into a week we had to speed up the process. So we did, we packed everything in boxes but at the same time we tried to do it as fast as possible because
time was getting away from us and when we got to the new place, the elevator, which had been described as “large” in the booking, was one meter square max and it had an iron gate, and
neither the display cabinet nor the bed nor the old-fashioned sofa with carved wooden flowers on the armrests would fit.

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His mom continues:

Best wishes.

*

Three o’clock went by, and four, five, six. We fought to get everything in place and by nine o’clock we were done. The floor lamps and picture frames and a small
stool made of brown wood came with the last load. I was the one who took the stool; I put it in the hall and brought out the contract where the client was supposed to write down how many people had
been working and tally up the hours. The old lady was just about to sign her name on the contract when she caught sight of the stool and made a sound as if someone had thrust a knife into her
stomach. She lifted up the stool and then I realized that it wasn’t a stool but a child’s chair that had lost its backrest. Marre ran down to the truck to see if anything had been left
behind, but all he found were a few flat slats that might have been a backrest, and the client sat there with her little chair and the broken slats and she petted the stool as if it were a cat.
Bogdan and Luciano tried to keep from laughing and made gestures in the air to show she was crazy. I just wanted her signature, and at last I got it, she signed and we hopped into our
fifteen-footer and drove back to the office. Later that night I thought of her sitting all by herself in an apartment with that stool that had until so recently been a chair. I don’t know why
I remember her in particular.

*

In her fourth email, his mom writes that she is bewildered to hear about my goal of understanding what happened by mapping out Samuel’s last day. Do you seriously mean
that you want to know exactly what we said to each other? Okay, this is how I remember our last phone call. I called his phone, Samuel answered, it was quarter past ten, they were on their way to
the hospital.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Good.”

“Did you pick her up?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Where are you now?”

“Almost there.”

“And it’s going okay?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Is she asleep?”

“No, she’s sitting here.”

He was using an impatient voice, as if I had asked if he had brushed his teeth that morning. In the background I could hear a piano melody that I recognized but couldn’t place.

“How is she?”

“Fine.”

“And you?”

“Fiiiine.”

He sounded incredibly irritated when he said that last word, as if I had been dragging our conversation out for hours.