*
They walked for an hour. Two hours. Three.
“What did you talk about?” I asked.
“Everything and nothing,” said Samuel.
It got late. Their bodies were on the verge of frostbite. Samuel asked questions to avoid awkward silence and Laide answered because she loved the sound of her own voice.
*
For the first hour we mostly talked about work. He told me how he had ended up at the Migration Board, first a degree in political science and then the job on the side that had turned into a full-time position.
“But it’s just temporary,” he said. “It’s really just temporary. I’m not cut out to work for the government.”
“So how long have you worked there?”
“Far too long.”
I told him about the differences between my job in Brussels and what I was doing in Stockholm. How much easier and, paradoxically, less draining it was to help women than to translate endless contributions about fishing tariffs. He told me that he had chosen political science to change the world, and several of his classmates had gotten jobs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the UN. While he lived in a sublet and worked at the Migration Board’s Embassy Division.
“But even if it doesn’t pay very well in money, it pays a lot in other ways,” he said.
“Like what?”
“That remains to be seen.”
*
As the blood in their veins approached freezing point, Samuel suggested they head home.
“And at some point during the evening you borrowed her sweatshirt?”
“Exactly. I was about to freeze to death. Then I forgot about it.”
“No sex?”
“Definitely no sex.”
“Sounds like a wasted night.”
He didn’t say anything.
“For real, it sounds like a huge catastrophe of a date,” I said, without sounding happy about it.
“Maybe not a catastrophe, but . . . Now that I think about it . . . I don’t know. We sort of have different senses of humor. But at the same time, I liked talking to her.”
*
We walked in expanding circles but in some magical way, we always came back to Norra Bantorget. The first time, we confirmed that both of us were equally bad at constellations. I pointed at the sky and showed him the stars that made up the Big Wi-Fi Symbol. He pointed out the Little Nike Logo.
“And there’s the Curtain Cord!”
“And check out the Big Radiator!”
We laughed and sneaked looks at each other.
As we came back around to Norra Bantorget for the second time, Samuel talked about his grandma. He said she was a strong woman who had always made it on her own, but now, lately, she had started to become addled. She forgot to take her pills, survived on raspberry gummy boats and thumbprint cookies, and had been involved in three car accidents in as many months.
“But she still drives?” I asked.
“Mmhmm. But they’re going to revoke her license soon. She’s a menace behind the wheel. Last time I visited her it took several minutes for her to remember who I was. It was such a sick feeling. Standing there in front of someone you’ve known your whole life and they treat you like a stranger.”
The third time we approached Norra Bantorget we were talking relationships. I told him about my ex-husband and our marriage and the divorce. For some reason I felt safe telling him those things. Maybe because Samuel asked the right questions. Maybe because it felt so easy to be with him. Undemanding and simple. Neither of us was thinking about anything other than what we were talking about, and I had a hard time figuring out how it could feel so natural. It was like our brains had played music in a former life, they had practiced scales and tuned their neurons in the same key and now that they were finally meeting again they could just jam away, no sheet music necessary.
*
Then a few days went by, the usual daily routine. Samuel showed no signs of having been struck by true love. He didn’t walk around with his phone in his hand, freaking out about some text he had written. He didn’t sit there with his notebook, writing down things he wanted to tell her. He was his usual self. But now and then, details he hadn’t mentioned about the first date slipped out. Like that she had given him a peck-slash-kiss (!). And that he had mentioned his dad (!!!). Both of those things must be considered unusual, because I had known him for a year and a half and could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had mentioned his dad.
*
Toward the end of the night I said I had never felt like someone who could be with just one person all my life. Samuel turned to me, cleared his throat, and said:
“But, Laide.”
Pause for effect. He batted his eyelashes. In a deep voice:
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person.”
For a second I thought he was being serious. Then we started laughing and we laughed until Samuel suggested we head home.
We walked toward the Metro. In the light from Drottninggatan I could see that his lips were purplish-blue, even though I had loaned him my hoodie. I talked about my ex-husband, I said that if there was anything I had learned it was never to stay in a relationship that takes more energy than it gives and that people who are not energy thieves are very rare. We stopped in the red glow from the Skandia movie theater.
“Who do you think you are?” Samuel said suddenly. “A fucking nuclear reactor? Live a little, woman.”
He looked surprised, as if the words had come from a place he didn’t have total control over.
“Sorry. That talk about energy. It reminded me of my dad. That’s the sort of thing he would say to justify the fact that he took off.”
We resumed walking toward the Metro. I turned to the side and gave him a peck on the cheek. As my lips touched him, he reacted as if I were trying to brand him. He flew sideways and looked terrified.
“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared.”
*
Despite the first date, they kept in contact. They texted each other. Once when I came home, Samuel was talking to her on the phone and I remember I knew it was her because when I walked into the kitchen he was sitting with his feet pulled up under him like a purring cat and his voice was brighter than usual and he glared at me like I was disturbing him even though I was just humming a little tune. When I asked if he wanted coffee he pointed at his headphones as if I should know that you can’t talk on the phone and want coffee at the same time. I put on the electric kettle and kept humming and then he stomped off to his room. I sat there with my coffee and wondered what was going on.
*
We went our separate ways in the cold light by the turnstiles. He was going to take the red line, and it was the green for me. We hugged. The hug lasted for quite some time. So long that I wondered if this would be the last time we saw each other. I looked at everything going on around us; two junkies were standing by Åhléns’ display window and swaying to inaudible music. A dealer was petting his dog (a collie, strangely enough). A gang of teenagers were trying to nail each other with a shiny silver bag of gum. Two middle-aged ladies were walking into the Pressbyrån with quick steps and hoarse voices. A guy in a hunting vest was talking to two uniformed guards. Samuel kept hugging.
“Okay,” I said at last. “I have to go catch my train.”
He apologized and let go. We took different escalators down to different tracks and I thought there was a chance that his Norsborg-bound train and my Skarpnäck-bound train might come into the station at the same time. And if that happened, we might end up traveling beside each other on the parallel tracks to Slussen. I told myself that if our trains came in at the same time and we happened to have chosen seats in approximately the same spot in the train and saw each other as the trains crossed the bridge—then it was meant to be. It would be fate’s way of saying that we belonged together. When my train left Gamla Stan and sailed toward Slussen, the parallel track was empty, dark and deserte
d. Fuck fate, I thought.
As the train approached Gullmarsplan, I got a text. Samuel thanked me and said that he would return my hoodie “next time.” As if it were perfectly obvious that there would be a next time. I didn’t respond until I got off the Metro. I wrote: “That sounds good. Later..” No “xo,” no “good night.” Short and sweet. Two periods to show that I was writing it so quickly and carelessly that I didn’t notice that there were two periods. I walked toward the turnstiles, the little yellow warning sign about deadly voltage was down by the tracks.
*
Later that night, all was forgotten, he came out of his room and walked around the kitchen with the sweeping gestures of a mental patient.
“She’s so fine, so fine, so incredibly fine.”
“Okay. Do you want coffee now?”
“We have such fucking amazing conversations. It feels like she gets me.”
“Okay. Coffee?”
“But we have so much more fun when we chat on the phone than when we meet.”
“I’ll pour you some coffee. How many times have you seen each other?”
“Once.”
“That’s all?”
“Both of us have a lot to do at work, with Christmas coming up.”
(Brackets: This was in the middle of November.)
Why didn’t Samuel want to see Laide? Or was she the one who didn’t want to see him? Was she cheating with someone else? Did he have a feeling it would end badly? Was he afraid that she would hurt him? Was he in love with someone else? If I knew the answer, I’d tell you.
Samuel said that Laide had moved home from Brussels, and now she was going around with a lump in her stomach because she had to be here, not that she didn’t like it here, but because it felt like the world was still turning without her, somewhere else.
“And that’s exactly the way I feel!” Samuel cried as if he had found the answer to the riddle of the universe.
“You do? I’ve never heard you talk about that before.”
“No, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? That you can long to be somewhere else sometimes.”
Then apparently they talked for a long time about how Samuel could possibly work at the Migration Board.
“Why?” I asked.
“I guess she’s thinking of my background.”
“What about your background?”
“Well, how Dad had political friends who had a rough time, and . . . you know.”
“No, I don’t know. Are you not allowed to work wherever you want, just because your dad’s friends have a certain history?”
“Well, but, I don’t even want to work there.”
“That doesn’t matter, does it?”
I didn’t really know what we were talking about, but we didn’t agree. Samuel filled the kettle and asked if I was hungry.
“Cottage-noodles?”
“Cottage-noodles. Want some?”
I nodded.
*
A few days went by after our first meeting. Then Samuel called.
“Everything’s fine on my end,” I said. “You?”
“Yes, thanks. Everything’s fine. Just wanted to see how things were. Later, then.”
He hung up and I stood there with my phone in hand, wondering what the hell he was up to. A few days later he called again and this time we talked for longer, at least ten minutes, before I had to go and take a work call. The third conversation lasted twenty minutes, the fourth an hour and a half. When we weren’t together in person, we could be much more relaxed with each other. He told me about his background, his childhood, how he had a crush on a girl in the same basketball league in upper secondary school, they hung around at all-night cafes, her religious family suspected they were a couple, she ran away from home to get away from her relatives, they slept in a bunk bed in his room for six months but he couldn’t bring himself to confess his feelings. Now she lived in Berlin and was trying to make a living as an artist, even though she seemed to spend most of her time going to art parties. Another time Samuel told me about friends who had died, the guy who drove his motorcycle drunk and crashed into a bridge railing, the guy who overdosed when he was working at a summer camp, the girl who was bitten by a snake when she was in Sri Lanka to visit the woman who had given her up for adoption.
“But that kind of thing happens,” Samuel said. “Life goes on.”
I sat there on my sofa, feeling empty by comparison. I didn’t know anyone my age who had died. My friends had political jobs and talked about the importance of social mobility, they traveled to third-world countries on aid money, they wrote papers about feminist mass media and articles about LGBTQ issues, but hardly any of them came from a background where death was present. For us, death was something that affected old people. Death was something we saw in the movies, or something we read about in articles from war zones. Death wasn’t part of real life the way it was for Samuel.
“But that’s true for me too,” he objected. “Death has never come really close. But for Vandad . . .”
I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to finish the sentence. Or at least explain what he meant. In what way had death touched Vandad? In my mind I saw several potential explanations lined up, each as dull and reasonable as the next. Vandad works as an undertaker. He has a second job at a morgue. He’s a gardener at a cemetery. But Samuel never finished that sentence.
*
We ate cottage-noodles and drank Castillo and it was like a peace pipe. Cottage-noodles was the dish Samuel made most often. The recipe went like this: pour boiling water (free) over a packet of three-minute noodles (four for ten kronor) and once it’s cooled, you put a scoop of cottage cheese (twenty-five kronor for a whole tub) on top. Then sprinkle some herb salt and pepper on it. If you want to be really fancy you can add broccoli, too.
“How often do you actually eat cottage-noodles?” I asked.
“Not that often. No more than three times a week. But I can mix up the flavors, you know. One day you go with beef noodles and red pepper-flavored cottage cheese, the next week it’s mushroom noodles with onion cottage cheese. The possibilities are endless.”
Samuel raised his glass. We had a toast. I took a portion of cottage-noodles and remembered when I used to go on rounds with Hamza. Five-course dinners to celebrate a good night. The bottles we’d order without even popping them. The drinks, appetizers, the feeling of never having to squash an impulse. Times were different now. In many ways, better. In some ways, worse.
*
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we had just kept going on like that. Never seeing each other. Only talking on the phone. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t have been for the best. Just imagine if that was the point when we were happiest, when our expectations for the future were greatest and our daily life seemed most distant. Before we started the home, before we started sleeping together, before we turned into that strange couple who might go to bed without making up after a fight about whether or not we should buy organic coffee. Maybe it would have worked out if we’d kept to just talking to each other for several hours and it felt like our words opened up parts of my brain that I hadn’t activated for several years.
*
After dinner we watched video clips on his computer. We took turns, he showed me two minutes of Frenchmen climbing up a crane without safety cables, I showed him Japanese monkeys chilling in a hot spring with snow on their heads, he went with a killer whale attacking its trainer, I showed some Eastern bloc workout-fail videos from the early eighties. We were half-lying on the sofa bed in his room, it was full of his clothes, his shirts, his scents. On the table was an ad flyer from Elgiganten, and Mike Tyson was visible on one of the TV screens on it. Samuel pointed at him and said:
“Mike the Rock Tyson.”
Which was an odd thing to say because Tyson has been called a lot of things, but never the Rock. Then Samuel yawned and said he needed to sleep. I stood up. On his way to the bathroom he asked if I had plans for New Year’s.
/> “No, not really,” I said. “Why?”
“Apparently she has a friend who’s having a party.”
“Who?”
“Laide. We’re all invited.”
“What do you mean, ‘all’?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Panther is coming up to celebrate New Year’s with us.”
*
I wanted to see him. It didn’t feel like our words on the phone were enough. My body wanted its share. But every time I suggested we get together, something got in the way for Samuel. Often he had a lot going on at work, or else he needed to help Vandad with some unspecified matter, or else his sister needed a babysitter. The weeks went by and all we did was talk on the phone. I didn’t understand what was going on. Sometimes I suspected he was dating someone else at the same time. There was no neat category PI could place my feelings in. Were we friends, siblings, colleagues, soulmates, acquaintances, or moving toward being a couple? It was all so fuzzy. Sometimes I talked to my sister to get advice. She was as blunt as ever.
“Get in a taxi. Go there. Fuck him. See if it was worth the wait. Then we can talk.”
“He doesn’t live alone.”
“Send a taxi to pick him up. Fuck him. Make an assessment.”
“It just always feels like he’s finding excuses to avoid seeing me.”
“Then he’s gay.”
“He says he’s had girlfriends. But I don’t know when.”
“Then he’s not interested.”
“He calls like every three days and we have conversations that never end.”
“Then who the fuck knows what he’s up to. Stop answering and see what happens.”
I tried to stop answering. I heard my phone buzz. I saw his name on the screen. I put my phone aside. Ten seconds later I saw my fingers answering. I needed to hear his voice to make it through the day. Not because we talked about anything all that deep. If I were to tell you what we said you would zone out within a few seconds. But at the time those conversations brought some sort of lightness to my body. With him, I became the person I knew I was deep inside but hadn’t been in many years. I was quick, funny, smart, imaginative, and above all: curious. His enthusiasm infected me and when he told me about how he had written a list of twenty-three things he wanted to do before he turned twenty-three and then resolutely tackled them one by one (everything from trying cocaine to petting a mountain gorilla to finally reading The Neverending Story all the way through), I found myself wanting to do the same thing. Maybe not a list, exactly, and it had been a long time since I was twenty-three, but just that attitude, going out in the world and seeing it as chock-full of possibilities. He took his experiences very seriously, and I was drawn to him, I wanted to be a part of him, I wanted to know him skin to skin, cover his body with my lips, investigate what would happen if we were close. But time passed and we didn’t see each other. November turned into December. When I heard that some friends in the neighborhood were going to have a New Year’s party, I texted Samuel to see if he wanted to stop by. I was sure he would say no. But his response, just a few minutes later: “Sounds fun. Can I bring two friends?”
Everything I Don't Remember Page 9