Jonas Khemiri - Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger

Then she FINALLY turns up her eyes. The one who until just now has dealt with your father as transparence. Her … the Swede who kidnapped your father’s eyes.

Let time freeze and waves cease. Let the long shadows be immobilized and the crackle of the fire stiffen. Their gazes meet. Let everything rest in total silence and then …

Then?

Then BANG she presents her hand. Your father stands lost like a missing mitten when she takes the initiative and her hand is soft like white sand but strong like harrisa and her eyes don’t yield and she says her last name and she doesn’t smile at all and he reflects that she must be the first of all of them who doesn’t mirror my courting smile. And he holds her hand and he smells her lavender odor and it SWOOSHES itself into his brain and the ground begins to vibrate under him, his brain is hazed, the clouds gather, the night sky is crackled with lightning and suddenly a hundred meteors fall from the sky and suddenly the horizon’s fish boats shoot artificial distress lights and sunken choirs of angels sing SYMPHONIC SONGS and organs play at BOOMING VOLUME and STRAY DOGS HOWL and THE AIR LOSES OXYGEN and VOLCANOES ERUPT and UMBRELLA DRINKS CRASH FROM BARS and ACHRAF’S PENCIL BREAKS AGAINST A NEGATIVE and SOMEWHERE IN AN UNDERGROUND RESEARCH ROOM THERE IS A RICHTER SCALE MEASURER THAT RISES AND RISES AND RISES UNTIL THE MERCURY EXPLODES ITS CHAMBER AND SPRAYS ITSELF OUT LIKE OIL AND BLACKENS THE RESEARCHERS’ WHITE COATS, THE HISTORICAL FAX MACHINES, AND THE ANTIQUE GREEN-TEXTED COMPUTER MONITORS!!!

(N.B.: None of this happens in reality! This is metaphorical symbolism for your father’s strong emotions during the rendezvous with your mother.)

How is their discussion begun? Who remembers? Who cares? Perhaps your father unluckily tries to compliment her similarity to Queen Silvia? Perhaps he says something comical about Sweden’s cold climate? Something about polar bears, penguins, Björn Borg, or ABBA?

I have no knowledge. All I know is that it takes some fifteen minutes before she releases her skepticism. Slowly her responding words grow to more than one at a time. Slowly your future mother begins to smile her first smiles. Slowly your father recovers his courting routine. He pronounces his humoristic stories. He presents his finger-cracking trick. He blows his burn injury covertly.

The whole time my brain is entertaining with the thought: This is special, this is the first time that Abbas seems to be lightninged with the incomparable infection that we call true love!

I was correct. Late at night your father crashed into the paillote with the brownness of his eyes burning with desire.

“Her name is Bergman! Her name is Pernilla BERGMAN!”

Again and again his tongue mantraed this bizarre name: “Bergman … Pernilla Bergman! She is a stewardess from Sweden! Bergman! Like Ingrid! Have your ears ever heard a more delicious name?”

As though he had been waiting his entire life for this very Swedish stewardess with this strange name. As though the memory of all the other European women who had betrayed his heart upon returning home had been forgotten forever.

I praised my congratulations and added:

“Is she related to Ingrid?”

“No, of course not. I asked the same thing. Bergman is a very frequent name in Sweden. Would you like to hear about the symbolism of the name? Do you know what Bergman means in Swedish?”

“You are welcome to explain.”

“The man from the mountain!”

“Really?”

“Compare it with my name … Khemiri!!! It is almost the same! The man from Kroumirie!”

Confronted with your father’s naïve euphoria, I was filled with something that, bizarrely enough, can be likened to jalousie. Instead of congratulating him or correcting his invented symbolism, I said:

“So you were hungry for a little vanilla tonight?”

Your father quieted sharply and focused me with pointed eye-blackness.

“Excuse me?” he cried. “What did you pronounce? Did you besmirch my newfound relationship with Pernilla with an expression like ‘vanilla’? Repeat if you dare!”

“Sorry, sorry! Excuse my excuse!”

Your father lowered his right arm, paused it by his waist, and then erected it to an amicable handshake.

“Forgive me, Kadir. I don’t know … it’s just that … this is something special … I have never experienced something like this before.”

Before we fell asleep your father whispered:

“Kadir … by the way … do you know which country manufactures the notorious Hasselblad cameras?”

“Let me guess …”

“Precisely … Sweden. It was she who informed me of this when I told of my photographic dream.”

Several minutes of silence followed.

“Psst … Kadir … are you sleeping?”

“Not yet.”

“Did you see her sandals?”

“No …”

“They were enormously excellent. Of a light blue color.”

“Mm …”

Silence. Wave whoosh. Cricket song. On the way to sleep. Until:

“Hey … do you know what she said?”

“That she was tired and needed her sleep before the coming workday?”

“Ha ha, very funny. No … she said that in Swedish one expresses the surprising power of passion with a photographic phrase.”

Silence.

“Don’t you want to know which?”

“What?”

“Don’t you want to know which phrase illustrates the flash of love in Swedish?”

“Of course.”

“One says, ‘It just clicked.’ She told me. In Swedish it sounded something like this: De saya bahra klik . Isn’t it beautiful? What a sign from fate, right?”

He continued like this all night. While my wakefulness alternated between dozing and sleep, I heard your father rave sporadic words about Pernilla’s comic encounter with some actor on the approach to Tunisia. There were words about her planned nursing education and homages to her political solidarity. He talked about her satirical humor, downy earlobes, the odor of her sun skin, the odor of her lavender soap. Her throat softly patterned by translucent blue veins, her light blue sandals, her jumpy Swedish French pronouncing, her compromise-free fury when he had happened to attract the eye of another woman …

And … of course … his eternally parroted …

“Honestly speaking. Have you ever seen a woman’s smile that can compare to hers? Honestly? Pernilla will be my Ingrid and I will be her Capa.”

I did not response. I had a little trouble understanding how your father could be so fascinated by this twiggy, elongated woman with unglamorous makeup, nonexistent bosom, and obvious snub nose.

That night, then, was their premier rendezvous and the events of the following days I do not know for certain. I worked with overcast spirits at the hotel while the newfound pair of lovers passed all waking hours in company. Sometimes I saw them in some hotel bar, your mother’s agitated voice discussing some political injustice while your father sat as though magnetized by the shine of her eyes. Sometimes I saw their amorous silhouettes wander beach edges at a distance, your father as straight-backed as a major in an attempt as desperate as it was pointless to measure up to your mother’s one hundred and eighty centimeters. At the beach parties they bore each other’s constant nearness; their hands were never separated. And one night I happened to hear how your father named his parents as Faizal and Cherifa, living in Jendouba. I commented on nothing.

Night after night for three weeks your father invaded the paillote with the same imbecilic dawn cry:

“Her name is Bergman! Pernilla Bergman!”

How far they went sexually is unknown to my knowledge. But before their farewell they exchanged addresses and promised the promises of a future relationship.