Everything I Don't Remember (25 page)

*

She made him believe that he could trust her and then she betrayed him and he never got over it.

*

Why did he do it? Do we know for sure that he
did
do it? That he did it on purpose, I mean? I heard he lost control of the car. His mom said that the brakes were bad. I
think he was simply driving too fast. I can picture it, how he’s sitting there behind the wheel in his grandma’s car, revving the engine and deciding to push the envelope and see how
fast he can take a curve. He probably wanted to see what would happen if he brushed up against death. Maybe he was curious about the light at the end of the tunnel. He wanted to experience
something that no one else had seen.

*

She killed him.

*

Thank
you
. I have to confess, I was a little nervous but it was nice to get it off my chest. Do you have a plan for how you’re going to make it into a coherent
narrative? Just as long as you don’t try to write Samuel in the first person it will probably work. I don’t think it’s possible to capture the voice of another person, it would be
foolish to even try. Should I call a taxi? This neighborhood can be a little sketchy at night. My husband always takes a cab when he comes home late from the firm. But then again, that’s
because he looks the way he does, people react when they see him, they don’t believe that he lives here. I’ll call a car.

[A long silence as we wait for a taxi that never comes.]

I’m convinced it wasn’t deliberate.

[A long silence, she occasionally gets up to see if the taxi has arrived, it hasn’t.]

Samuel loved his experiences far too much to . . . I think he was just driving too fast.

[Short silence. Still no taxi. Laide pours water from a carafe.]

Because, I mean. If it had been deliberate—how do you explain the seatbelt and the skid marks? Because there were skid marks, weren’t there?

[Laide reaches for her water glass.]

*

Everyone I’ve talked to says there were skid marks.

[Laide takes a sip, looks at the water, puts the glass down with a trembling hand.]

Here it comes.

It’s a few minutes past one and I’m sitting in yet another waiting room. Grandma’s handbag is resting in my lap, the fake white leather leaves small flakes on
my jeans. I open and close the zipper, then I open it again and let my hands explore its contents. There’s her wallet with its five-hundred-krona bills, her notebook, the bag of old candy all
stuck together, the throat lozenges (Emser), the bottle of Vademecum mouthwash (its label worn), and her cell phone of course, the one she never learned to use. Grandma’s house is burned,
Laide has moved, Vandad has betrayed me, and I have five hours left to live.

*

I was at the house that morning and everything was perfectly normal. The kids were playing in the basement, the moms were mopping the floor in the kitchen, young men were
sitting on the terrace and scraping away at their Triss lottery scratch cards. It was a sunny day, the geothermal heating was working, there was no reason to use the fireplace or have lights on
inside.

*

I take out Grandma’s yellowed notebook with coffee stains on the front. It’s almost unused. Her wobbly handwriting, the crooked “r”s. On the first page
it says “What sort of Christian am I? Am I—” On the lines beneath, the same cell number, written twelve separate times. On the last line, the same cell number, but only the first
four digits.

*

I was on my way home when my phone rang. Nihad bellowed:

“Fire! FIRE!”

I made a U-turn and biked back to the house. I hurried, but I didn’t think it could be that serious. Maybe someone had left something on the stove, maybe some kid had been playing with a
lighter in the yard. I couldn’t imagine what had happened.

*

I rub my eyes. I yawn. Over the past few weeks, Grandma has started calling me at odd times. Two thirty in the morning. Three thirty, ten to five, my phone wakes me up and I see
her name on the screen. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I let it ring. When I answer I hear her delighted voice:

“Why, hello there! Are you awake?”

Usually she just wants to make sure that this is really my number. She recites all ten digits. I confirm that the number is correct. She gives a sigh of relief and can go back to sleep.

*

When I reached the house I saw that the entire parlor area was full of smoke. It looked like all the windows were covered in black curtains. I jumped off my bike and dropped it
onto the gravel just as a windowpane broke, I thought it was because of the heat, shards of glass fell onto the bushes like snow. Nihad, Maysa, and Zainab had gathered with their children and a few
suitcases down by the street. Maysa was holding a rolling pin in her hand and there was flour on her face, Nihad was sobbing.

“Where is everyone?” I asked in English.

“Gone.”

“Afraid of police.”

“Is everyone out?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Nihad. “Everyone is out, right?”

Maysa and Zainab looked around and nodded. Another window broke, this time it was a small round one up in the attic. The smoke came shooting out like a laser beam and at first I thought it was
an optical illusion, but then I saw something moving.

*

Everything has taken longer than planned. The plan was for me to be back at work after lunch, but first they wanted to test Grandma’s vision and then her cognitive
capacity and at last they let her into the simulator room. She looked nervous as she walked in. Her cheeks were rosy when she came out.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“Absolutely wonderful.”

The doctor showed us into a separate room and explained that it was over. There was no chance that she could get her license back. She had crashed into motorcycles, driven straight through
roundabouts, she had backed into a lake, and even though the doctor had reminded her that she was in a simulator she repeatedly tried to roll down the windows.

“It was so warm,” Grandma murmured.

No one said anything.

“When can I try again?”

“There isn’t going to be a next time,” said the doctor. “You have to accept that.”

*

A taxi stopped and Samuel vaulted out of the front seat. He was wearing his work clothes, but his hair was going every which way, it looked like he had slept in the taxi.

“What happened?”

“No idea.”

“Is everyone out?”

“Think so.”

“Yes, everyone is out,” Nihad said again, although she didn’t sound as sure this time. Then we heard the voice. Someone was screaming, it sounded like it was coming from the
attic, the women gathered their children close, some of the children were crying, Zainab and Maysa counted the children again and again as if they couldn’t believe that everyone was really
there. Samuel looked at me with wild eyes.

“Are you ready?”

*

I’m ashamed that I didn’t figure it out, the thought didn’t even occur to me. Sure, there was a smell as we drove here and I could see that she was limping, of
course, but she’d been limping for a long time. I thought that the rustling noise was from her adult diaper. We had to hold her down in the chair and make her take off her shoe to see what
was wrong. It was hard to tell toenail, flesh, and pus apart. The worst was her big toenail, which had grown out and then in again in an arc, it looked like the yellowed talon of a bird. The
plastic bags she had wrapped around her foot fell to the floor with a wet sound.

“How long have you been walking around like this?” the doctor asked.

Grandma didn’t answer.

“We have to do something about this,” said the doctor.

*

We ran up the gravel path, Samuel first, me behind him. We took the stone steps up to the upper entrance, the door was open, smoke was rushing out, we could feel the heat even
from the terrace, we heard sirens in the distance.

“We can’t,” I said. “It’s too hot.”

Samuel looked at me and smiled.

“Experience Bank?”

He tore off his jacket, held it up to his face, took a deep breath, and threw himself into the smoke. His back vanished. I counted to three, then I buried my nose in my elbow and followed
him.

*

When they roll her out of the examination room her foot is wrapped in a white bandage. They used an electric saw to cut off her toenails and the nurse pushing the wheelchair
says that she’s extremely lucky that the infection hadn’t spread.

“Thanks for your help,” I say.

“Let’s go eat lunch,” says Grandma.

*

The fire roared at us to turn back, it laughed at us as we tried to go up the stairs, I kept close to the wall because I saw Samuel do so. We made it to the second floor and it
felt cooler there, we searched the office, the children’s room, and the bedroom. No one there. But the wardrobe in the bedroom was open and there, among the shards from the broken window, lay
a boy, he looked about fifteen, he had splinters of glass in his downy mustache, and his face was gray. Samuel looked at me, I shrugged. I had never seen him before. We lifted him up. He
didn’t weigh a thing. Samuel took his legs, I got his upper body. We headed for the stairs but the air was hotter now, the stairs creaked as we tried to walk down them, when I brushed against
the metal railing it felt like the hair on my forearms caught fire. We fell headlong down the last few steps, we lay in a pile on the hall floor, the whole parlor was in flames, I could see the
fire consuming the piano, the paintings, the parquet, the rug. It popped and crackled and I mustered my last bit of strength to crawl toward the sunlight, I dragged the boy’s body behind me,
his head came over the doorstep, Samuel came behind him on all fours. He was coughing himself blue, he had black streaks of soot on his face.

“Hold on a second.”

He turned around and crawled into the heat. I reached for him, but I didn’t have the strength to hold him back.

*

We sit in the hospital cafeteria and wait for our food. We’re surrounded by exhausted patriarchs, trembling elderly people, children with the tops of their snowsuits
knotted around their waists, hospital employees absorbed in evening papers, taxi drivers talking on cell phones, and then there’s Grandma, sitting at our table and observing everyone and
everything. She leans forward and asks if we are in Sweden.

“Yes, we’re in Sweden.”

“You’d never believe it.”

I don’t say anything, I don’t want to go there, not now. Our food is ready, I go get it, Grandma is ready with her fork and smiles when I put down the tray, salmon quiche and a slice
of lemon for her, a chicken wrap for me. The receipt tells me that it is twenty-seven minutes past one on the fifth of April, two thousand twelve.

*

Samuel couldn’t have been gone for more than thirty seconds. But it felt like a lifetime. At last I saw his crawling body. He fell forward and gasped for air, a pink
porcelain bowl with gold details fell out of his jacket.

“I couldn’t find the lid,” he croaked.

*

We’re still in the cafeteria. Grandma looks at her food. She hasn’t touched it.

“Aren’t you hungry?” I ask.

She is sitting there with her fork at the ready, looking at the food like it’s a crossword puzzle. At last she reaches for the lemon slice and swallows it whole.

“I’m full now.”

“Do you want coffee?” I ask.

“Please. Half a cup. Black, said the homeowner to the painter, and regretted it. And I think we deserve something sweet after a day like this. Check and see if they have raspberry
boats.”

She takes out her wallet and hands me yet another bill. The receipt tells me that it is fourteen minutes past two when I come back with the coffee and sweets.

“Look, Grandma. Chocolate macaroons. Who was it that used to bring macaroons when he came to visit you?”

Grandma sips her coffee and ignores the question.

“What was his name again? The man you bought the house from? K something?”

Grandma turns to gaze at the people walking by in the corridor. She makes a comment about each person, just loud enough so they can hear.

“My, that’s a yellow skirt. Well, I suppose it takes all kinds. Don’t you think she’s freezing? Is that how you’re supposed to look these days? Is that sort of
metal jewelry really modern? Well, I suppose that’s one way to do it!” (This last was about a woman who was talking loudly on a cell phone that was secured in place by her veil.)

Then Grandma’s head falls forward and she dozes off.

*

The first fire truck had a hard time getting up the gravel drive. It stopped halfway up and the firemen put on their helmets and unspooled their hoses. They entered the house
without taking any notice of us. Only later, once the fire was under control and the ambulance crew had seen to the boy did two firemen approach us.

“Where are the heroes?” they said, shaking their heads. “Or should we say, the idiots?”

But they said it in an impressed way that still made us feel like heroes. Samuel’s hair was kinkier than usual. We were leaning against one of the stone pillars down by the street and
watching as the firemen put out the last pockets of fire.

“Is it done for?” he asked one of the firemen.

“That depends on your definition. But it’s safe to say it will be a while before you can celebrate Christmas here.”

The ambulance crew said that the boy up in the attic was going to make it and when they asked what his name was everyone looked at each other in confusion. No one recognized him. Neither Nihad,
Maysa, nor Zainab could remember ever seeing him in the house.

“Was it Rojda’s son?” Nihad asked.

“Who was Rojda?” asked Maysa.

“He must have come on his own,” said Zainab. “Otherwise we would have noticed him.”

Maysa and Zainab had found temporary housing. Nihad would go home to her ex-husband. I looked at Samuel. The flames had been extinguished, the yard stank, the bushes were full of black soot and
fluffy foam. Half the parlor area had been destroyed. Several of the nearby trees had burned down. I thought that Samuel would be absolutely crushed. In just a short time he had lost his girlfriend
and his grandma’s house. But there was a peculiar look on his face. It was almost like he was smiling.