The Family Clause

by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

  But no one gets a thing because no one listens, no one sees, it’s just me, the smallest of all of us, who has eyes that work. I saw something strange this morning. I woke up in the buggy. Consciousness slowly seeped into me. I remembered the morning, dropping my sister off at playschool, the stress as we ran over there, Daddy’s breathless apologies to the staff for being late. The buggy was parked by the café on the ground floor of the retirement home, right in front of the little fountain in the square. I could see Daddy’s back. He was the only person in the entire café. He had a turquoise cup and was hunched over his phone. But roughly once every minute he glanced out at the square. Sitting there, on a park bench, I saw his father. The person we met on Friday, the one everyone called Grandpa. He was just sitting there on the bench in the autumn sun. He had a newspaper on his knee, but he wasn’t reading it. Grandpa hadn’t seen Daddy and Daddy hadn’t seen me. Then I heard shouting and children laughing. There was a playschool coming down the path. The staff had bright red jackets on, the children neon waistcoats. They were all holding onto a long piece of string. I saw my sister’s purple overalls and woolly grey hat with earflaps. She was walking next to her friend, they were laughing, bouncing, and they walked right past the bearded man without noticing him. Daddy looked at his father. Grandpa looked at his grandchild. No one said a word. My sister disappeared. My daddy stayed put. I leaned forward to remind him that regardless of what had happened between him and his father, our relationship is unique, and that’s one of the real challenges in life: to not let your family circumstances define your destiny. But all that came out was: mooo. Are you awake, little man? Daddy said with a smile. I nodded, or at least I didn’t shake my head, which is practically the same thing. We went out into the square. Grandpa spotted us. Where did you come from? he said. We were in the café, said Daddy. Didn’t you see me? said Grandpa. No, said Daddy. Yes, we did, I said. There are no cows here, said Grandpa.

  We left the square. Daddy pressed his wallet against a metal box and two glass panels opened sideways for the buggy. We rolled into a small steel room that smelled like a nappy bin. Hold your breath, Daddy said as he pressed a button. Grandpa waved to us from outside. The doors closed and the small room sank below ground at an incredibly slow speed. When we came out into the normal air, a blue snake appeared, though it had doors like a bus and lights like a kitchen. We went inside the snake, which turned out to be a train. Daddy and Grandpa didn’t speak to one another. Well, except one thing; once we had left the train and were waiting for another one, Daddy said: just so you know, there are quicker ways to get to Fridhemsplan. We could’ve taken the bus from Hornstull. Or the blue line from Centralen. We’re not in any rush, said Grandpa, sitting down on a bench to wait. We left the train, then rode on a moving staircase and took another small room upwards, and came out onto the street where the sun was shining and people were walking straight ahead like they hadn’t noticed that the road was full of bendy buses, lorries, tankers, breakdown trucks and (completely true) two police motorbikes. Wow, I shouted so that Daddy and Grandpa wouldn’t miss any of the cool stuff, but neither of them reacted. They just walked straight ahead, their eyes on everything but one another.

  We arrived at a big white building and went in through the glass doors. My father is here for an operation, Daddy said to the woman with skin as pale as oatmeal. The woman nodded and handed Daddy two plastic folders, one was about the examination, the other the operation. Follow the yellow line on the floor for your examination, she said. The blue line takes you to the operating department. How long will it take? Daddy asked. The procedure itself takes only an hour or so, said the woman. But the waiting time is longer. It’s just that I need to pick up my daughter from playschool, said Daddy, even though no one had asked about his afternoon plans. Grandpa was standing next to him, but it was Daddy who took the folders, who pushed the buggy towards the toilets only to turn around and discover that the small room that would take us to the right floor was at the other end of the building.

  Outside the waiting room there were five huge pictures that were the same but also different. A smiling girl in a pink dress with wavy edges. The same girl with blurred edges. The same girl, her face covered by wormlike black dots. The same girl, only her entire body was covered by a dark grey puddle. Daddy was leaning forward to lock the buggy. He pointed to the pictures. What does it look like for you? he asked. Grandpa turned around and looked. I can’t see much difference, he said.

  We sat there for quite a while, waiting for something to happen. When I got bored, Daddy fetched a newspaper for me to tear up. Then we met a fantastic nurse. I could tell she had a sense of humour straight away, because the minute she spotted me she hid behind her hands and peered out with a loud: peekaboo! Nothing says that someone has a sense of humour better than peekaboo. We followed her into a room that had wooden ladders on the walls and a white TV showing black insects. She took out a pistol and shot air into Grandpa’s eyes. After that, she took out a big white telephone and took a picture deep inside his eyes. Then she sat him down in front of the TV, gave him a pair of grey plastic glasses with a shield over one eye and asked whether he could read the first line. I can barely see the board, said Grandpa. Okay, said the nurse, putting a round extra eye into the glasses. Better, worse or the same? she asked. No difference, said Grandpa. She tried new extra eyes. Better, worse or the same? Slightly better, said Grandpa. By the fifth attempt, he could see the insects on the board and he reeled off their names, things like A, E, X and Z.

  Do you have glasses that you wear every day? the nurse asked. I’ve got reading glasses, said Grandpa. But I left them at home. Do you know what strength the lenses are? the nurse asked. I bought them at a petrol station, said Grandpa. He sometimes wears two pairs together to make them stronger, said Daddy. Okay, said the nurse, turning back to Grandpa. Okay, she said again. So you’ve never been to an optician?

  After the examination, we followed the green line on the floor to the restaurant. Grandpa treated Daddy to lunch. I ate a jar of vegetarian lasagne. Daddy asked for it to be warmed up in the microwave and I wolfed it down all by myself, along with a few bits of cucumber, sweetcorn and some bread from Daddy’s plate.

  Thanks for lunch, Daddy said to Grandpa. Grandpa didn’t reply. Do you know what I’m doing tomorrow? said Daddy. I’m going to try out stand-up. Stand-up? said Grandpa. Stand-up comedy, said Daddy. In front of a live audience. You want to be a clown? said Grandpa. A comedian, not a clown, said Daddy. I’ve always wanted to try it, but I never had the guts. Are you going to have a red nose? asked Grandpa. Lay off, said Daddy. Wear lots of white makeup, said Grandpa. And really big shoes. Otherwise they won’t laugh. You aren’t funny, said Daddy. Neither are you, said Grandpa. I thought you’d be proud, said Daddy. Proud? said Grandpa. Of what? Of me doing my own thing, said Daddy. They sat in silence. Mum says you dreamed of being a writer when you were young, said Daddy. She’s exaggerating, said Grandpa. Writing is easy. ABCD. Anyone can write. I’ve forgotten my insulin. Grandpa took out a blue pen with a long nib and jabbed it into his stomach. They kept eating. Do you want me to come? said Grandpa. Tomorrow. Do you want to come? said Daddy. I’ll come if you want me to come, said Grandpa. I only want you to come if you really want to come, said Daddy. I sat there in my high chair, feeling like the most mature person at the table. Eventually, they agreed that Grandpa would come. Providing his eyes were okay after the operation.

  When we finished eating, Daddy disappeared down to the floor with a wad of paper napkins. Finally a bit of peekaboo, I thought. But he didn’t come back up. Just leave it, said Grandpa. You don’t work here. We can’t leave it like this, said Daddy. Eventually he reappeared, but he didn’t say peekaboo then either. I hadn’t cried once since I woke up in the café, not that I got any applause for it. Not that anyone picked me up from the buggy and told me what a fantastic baby I am. No, instead they just paid attention to me having entirely unintentionally dropped a bit of food a
nd a few pieces of bread onto the floor. I rubbed my eyes to signal that I was tired. Daddy lifted me into the buggy and we followed the blue line to the operation waiting room.

  You can try out some of your jokes on me if you want? said Grandpa. Thanks but no thanks, said Daddy. My sense of humour is very different from yours. That’s true, said Grandpa. Mine is funny. Yours is exclusively about squashed tomatoes and stingy Jews, said Daddy. You have to be able to joke about everything, said Grandpa.

  We said goodbye. When I woke, we were alone. Daddy was staring out of the train window. He looked so sad. I did a poo. It was warm, but it quickly turned cold. An ordinary baby would have screamed, maybe even caused a scene. But I didn’t. I’m smarter than that. I knew we would soon be picking up my big sister from playschool, and then we would be going home, and I didn’t want Daddy to get annoyed for no reason. So I kept quiet. Daddy was talking to someone on the phone. I assumed it was Mummy because he was using that voice that makes him sound little, even though he’s big. He said that everything had gone well and that Dad had promised to take a taxi home once it was over. We were at the playschool when Daddy discovered my leaking nappy. Jesus, little man, how long have you been sitting in this? he said, patting my cheek. I shrugged and smiled. I let my smile communicate that it was okay. That he didn’t need to worry about me. I’ll get my revenge tonight.

  VIII. WEDNESDAY

  A night that isn’t a night is never-ending. The one-year-old wakes the four-year-old who wakes the one-year-old who wakes the four-year-old. The father is patient for an hour; he fetches oat milk and sings songs, they go on a ghost walk around the flat and peer out at the neighbours’ dark windows, they tiptoe extra quietly past the door where Mummy is asleep, because Mummy needs her sleep, Mummy has to work, Mummy has a life outside of this family. They return to the children’s room, they read a bedtime story, they sing, they read another bedtime story, the four-year-old does a wee in the potty, the one-year-old does a poo in his nappy, and after ninety minutes both doze off. The father tiptoes back out. The four-year-old wakes up. Her shout wakes the one-year-old. The father returns and everything is repeated, except the father’s patience has now run out, he threatens no sweets on Saturday, he says he’ll throw all of the four-year-old’s favourite toys away, the four-year-old finally quietens down, the father sits in a chair, takes out his phone, reads the same articles he has already read, the one-year-old seems to fall asleep, the four-year-old, too, the father creeps back to bed, he lies down for three minutes before the one-year-old starts screaming and the four-year-old wakes up. By dawn, everyone but the mother is pale and red-eyed. She comes out of the shower with a full face of makeup and asks whether she should do the drop-off today. No, it’s fine, says the father. I’ll manage.

  When the mother gets home from work, both children are sleeping and the flat is bathed in a fantastic sense of calm. Everything been okay? she asks. Absolutely, he says. He doesn’t tell her that he left the one-year-old in the bath while he went to turn off a pan of potatoes in the kitchen and that the four-year-old managed to lock herself and her little brother in the bathroom. The father stood outside, he heard water running, he tried to get the four-year-old to unlock the door, but she just laughed and eventually he had to fetch a kitchen knife and open the lock from the outside. Why would he tell her such a thing? He’s a grown man. He isn’t anywhere near as broken as he feels. Besides, he has put both children to bed and when he goes to look in on them they are lying in the exact same position, on their backs, their mouths slightly open and their eyelids twitching gently. He never loves them more than he does when they are asleep.

  The mother sits down in the kitchen to pay the bills. She has cleared up after dinner and sorted the washing. Do you know what this is? she asks, pointing to a withdrawal from their joint account. Office stuff, he says. Important office stuff? she asks. I wouldn’t have bought it otherwise, he says. As important as that flashing square thing you bought when you wanted to become a music producer? That was a visual drum machine, he says. It’s really cool when you play live. She looks up at him. Do you have any gigs booked? He doesn’t reply. And this? Do you know what this is? Inspiration books, he says. What books? Biographies of famous comics, he says. Twelve hundred on biographies? she says. I’m sure it’s deductible, he mumbles. She sighs. It’s a sigh that says everything she has hinted at so many times before that he has started to think it must be true. She deserves someone else. Someone better. She wants someone like her father, who is eighty years old and still climbs trees to cut branches with a hand saw, despite the housing cooperative having modern power saws that he could borrow for free. She wants a boyfriend like her mother, who can take apart and reassemble a Volvo engine blindfolded. She wants someone who doesn’t make life so bloody hard for himself.

  He changes his clothes and gets ready to leave. Feeling good? his girlfriend asks as he pulls on his jacket in the hallway. A bit nervous, he says. But good nervous. Remember one thing, she says. You’re fantastic. There’s no one better than you. Will you remember that? He nods. Regardless of how it goes tonight? They hug. Dad might swing by to watch, he says. Okay, she says. But do you really want that? Rather one person clapping than no one at all, he says. Call me afterwards to let me know how it went, she says. Sure.

  He takes the lift to the ground floor, turns right and then right again for the stairs down to the car park. Like always, he thinks about the time the four-year-old was riding her balance bike up ahead of him. He was carrying the recycling and his daughter was playing motorbikes, speeding along the row of parked cars. A car began backing out, the father shouted something, a hoarse and wordless roar, a new kind of sound, and the daughter sped up and rode straight into the father’s stationary car, the driver emerged with his hands on his head. I didn’t see him, he said over and over again. I didn’t see him. I didn’t see him. Don’t worry, it was my fault, the father said, trying to look calm. I’m not a him, said the daughter. Lucky you weren’t reversing faster, said the father, trying to smile. There was plenty of room to spare, the father said to the girlfriend, who was comforting the daughter with a pale face. I know everyone got a fright, but honestly, I had the situation under control. I saw that the car was backing out. I shouted. She cycled out of the way. It really wasn’t so dangerous. That was what he told himself at night, too, when he woke drenched with sweat. It wasn’t that close. Nothing bad could have happened. I had everything under control. There was no danger.

  He crosses the car park and approaches his car. There is frost on the windows. He has almost finished with the scraper when one of the neighbours comes out. They nod to one another. She opens the car door and turns the key so that the car can warm up while she scrapes the ice from the glass. He watches her. He wonders if this is what you’re supposed to do. He tries not to think that he has done something wrong. He gets rid of the last of the ice and jumps in behind the wheel. It’s time. It’s happening. He puts the car into reverse and rolls out of the parking space. Up the hill, left at the roundabout and then straight into town. Fairly often when they’re going somewhere, the father tells the daughter that it will take forty-five minutes by public transport. What does public transport mean? Taking the bus or the metro, says the father. And the overground trains? Mmm, those too. And balance bikes? No, balance bikes don’t count as public transport, says the father. But do you know how long it takes by car? Only a quarter of an hour! Wow, says the daughter, though both the father and the daughter know that she has no idea that a quarter of an hour is fifteen minutes. He just wants his daughter to be grateful that they have a car. The father had devoted six months to planning the purchase. He read never-ending threads in which various usernames argued about which hatchback was best to buy second-hand as a family car. He read about tests on new cars, tests on used cars, interviews with car salesmen, reports from inspection garages. The more he learned about the different car makes and models, the more difficult the decision became; the Pr
ius was evidently excellent quality but with slightly plasticky interiors, the Audi was a joy to drive but expensive to service, the Hyundai was fuel-efficient but impersonal, the Ford was cheap but had certain electrical problems, the Mazda was great Japanese quality but the older models rusted easily, the Volvo never rusted but was expensive and slightly boring according to everyone but his girlfriend’s parents. He lay next to the cot as their daughter learned to fall asleep on her own, reading about fuel-injection systems and front- and rear-wheel drive. He had almost made up his mind when a friend recommended gas as a fuel. He spent two weeks reading about the environmental advantages of gas, but then the same friend said that his gas tank had rusted, the car had to go in for a service, he had filed a complaint, make sure you steer damn clear of gas, said the friend. He went back to researching ordinary petrol cars. He downloaded a special app that went through all the used cars on sale in Sweden and ranked them by price, age and mileage. He thought about a Prius, a Seat, a Mazda. The Prius was the car everyone recommended, the quality was supposed to be fantastic, the feel perfectly fine, the boot space a bit small, but still, maybe this is the one we should go for, he said to his girlfriend. What’s it like to drive? she asked. What? How did it feel when you test-drove it? I haven’t test-driven it yet, he said. She stared at him as though his face was a crossword. Well, which ones have you test-driven? I haven’t tried any, he said. I’m still in the research stage. You’ve spent six months researching and you haven’t test-driven a single car? she said. He nodded. Next week, we’re going to a garage together to test-drive one, she said. They went to a used-car garage. They walked around among the various models. They sat in the back seat of a Prius, the roof was too low, he couldn’t sit straight, you couldn’t open the doors from the inside. The child locks are on, the salesman explained as he let them out. He wanted to test-drive it all the same, and the salesman brought it out. Until recently, it had been under municipal ownership, so you had to blow into a breathalyser to start the engine. He blew into the breathalyser. The car started. They crossed the Liljeholm Bridge, the car cruised ahead like a spaceship, it was like wearing an eighties suit; there was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn’t him. He test-drove a few other cars, too. There wasn’t room for his legs in the Seat, the Volvo felt too austere, the Audi too expensive. Then he tested the Mazda and immediately felt at home. Buy it, said the girlfriend. Not yet, he said. I need to think. He went home and spent four months reading up on tests, evaluations and comparisons with models from different years. By the time he was ready to buy the car, he knew everything about it. He knew that the boot held 519 litres and that the back seats could be lowered automatically, he knew that he wanted a model with AUX input and that he ideally wanted it in black, a hatchback, with winter tyres. Two weeks later, that very car turned up for sale at a place in Segeltorp. He knew the price was good, and he headed over there early the next morning. As he stood waiting for the keys to test-drive the car, another couple arrived, but he had first dibs, he took it out on the road, he shifted through the gears on the fairly weak engine, he noticed the new car smell, he thought that this, this right here is what I enjoy, this is my luxury. He haggled over the price and got the salesman to cover the cost of new brake pads if needed. Then he paid and headed home. He had bought a car. Not a new car. Not a flashy car. But a car of his own. He drove home and parked it in the guest parking space. He walked around it. It was the most beautiful car he had ever seen. For a fantastic price. With winter tyres. The right colour. With AUX input. But, that evening, he found it difficult to breathe. He twisted and turned in bed. He wondered whether he had done the right thing. He thought about all of the tests showing that the Prius was even better quality, that it was cheaper to run, that it was the optimum car for a small family. But you test-drove it, love, said his girlfriend. You didn’t like it. No, but maybe I would have got used to it, he said. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut, she said. And you liked this model much more than the Prius. Didn’t you? He nodded. Plus, there wasn’t space for two buggies in the Prius. He nodded. And it’s ugly! He nodded. Try to get some sleep now. He closed his eyes. He did that exercise involving thinking of five things, different ones every night; things that you’re grateful for. He thought up five things, then he thought of another five. But he still couldn’t sleep. A few weeks passed and the brakes started to screech, he took the car in for a service, they changed the brakes free of charge, and he drove away happier than ever. Still, for the first six months he kept feeling that strange sense of panic at the idea that he might have made a mistake, at having showed off, crossed some kind of line, because deep down he knew that he wasn’t the kind of person who owned a car, he couldn’t go through life having a parking space behind the building, taking out his car keys like an adult.