Everything I Don't Remember by Jonas Hassen Khemiri Read Free Book Online Page A

brother, if that was why Mom decided to quit her job
and move back. But no. Instead he said:
    “You’re lucky you have such an awesome memory.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it means you still have him. He’s not dead. He lives on. Thanks to you.”
    We sat there in silence. When the bill came, we never split it. One of us covered it all. Sometimes it was him. Pretty often it was me.
    *
    Panther says that Samuel insisted on calling his grandma’s dementia “confusion.” He told her about all the things his family had done so she wouldn’t
have to move out of her home. They printed out pieces of paper with clear instructions for how to turn the burglar alarm on and off. They put colorful sticky notes on the remote so she could
remember how to change the channel. They bought a landline phone with buttons the size of sugar cubes because she always forgot to hang up the cordless phones and it made everyone worry when the
busy signal beeped for over two hours, and someone had to hop in a taxi and go out to the house only to find her sound asleep in front of the TV. One time Samuel told me that he had called her home
phone and when she answered the TV was so loud that she said “wait a second.” Then the TV went off and his grandma tried to continue her conversation with Samuel via the remote. I
laughed when he told me that, and Samuel laughed too, but then he added:
    “It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic.”
    I never understood why he was so upset by his grandma’s illness. For me, aging was a natural part of life, you get old, you forget, you need other people to help you. But Samuel seemed to
have a hard time accepting it.
    *
    One evening Panther stopped by. Or. First came Panther. And then her hair. And last, her perfume-slash-cigarette smell.
    “Christ, what a lively bunch,” she said when she saw us sitting there in silence.
    She was wearing a pair of army pants and a jacket with a purple peacock pattern that made her look like a drowned pom-pom (it was raining out—her jacket was dripping dark thready patterns
on the floor). This time we said hi to each other. I thought, Panther? Why Panther? If there was any animal this person did not resemble, it was a panther. Drowned Turkish hamster, maybe. Kurdish
marmot, definitely. Oversized Syrian meerkat, possibly. Stoned Persian peacock, yes, but only because of the jacket. Instead of asking why she was called Panther I asked what she wanted to drink
and went to the bar to order.
    *
    Panther said that Samuel sat there in the waiting room at the hospital and told her that he had taken a bunch of nostalgic things from his grandma’s house. Photo albums
and CDs, perfumes and Christmas cards and old clothes his grandfather had worn. All to try to bring back his grandma’s memories.
    “Is it working?” I asked.
    “Don’t know. It comes in waves. Sometimes she’s perfectly lucid. She sat there in the car humming along with the music and asked how Vandad was. Then three minutes later she
thought I had kidnapped her. It’s so fucking bizarre.”
    He said it in a gravelly voice. Then he cleared his throat.
    “When she doesn’t recognize me I usually put on my grandpa’s old fur cap. That makes her cooperative. But you have to keep your distance because sometimes she wants to lean in
for a kiss.”
    As we spoke he stood up and walked around in the hallways, twice I heard him ask about a coffee machine, and then a nurse said he could find one “over there” and then he walked over
and poured a cup. When I asked how Vandad was he was quiet for a few seconds before he responded.
    “Vandad’s fine,” he said. “I think.”
    “What, did something happen?”
    “No, not really. He’s fine. I’m fine. Everyone’s fine.”
    “Okay.”
    As usual, Samuel was very bad at lying. All I had to do to find out the truth was not say anything [making her hand into devil’s horns and listening to her index finger].
    “No, I mean, we haven’t