Jonas Khemiri - Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger

And you hear mugs that clatter but no one who answers. And Dads’ bubbling voices say that Refaat recently gave the Swedish state one billion crowns to start a foundation that will support young inventors. ONE BILLION! shout Dads and your table roof shakes from his fist thumps. This is a man who has succeeded! And if I could just find someone … anyone … who could give me a small, small loan, then I could follow in his footsteps. Just some temporary support to start my studio … Does one of you maybe …?

When you creep up to table level again, the ashtray is volcano-shaped and the atmosphere is different. Nabil looks at the clock and Mansour tells about the idiots in his institution at the university; Aziz arranges rolled-up bits of paper into patterns and Mustafa gets up to get a refill.

Dads slowly peel their smiles off.

And right when you writethese words, you wonder if it wasn’t Refaat who was Dads’ most important source of inspiration. Because of course there were all the photo books and photographer quotes and classic pictures in the lab. But maybe it was Refaat’s successes that meant the most for Dads that year when suspicious tenants’ associations declined to call, when banks rejected loans, and when Dads’ application to the Art Grants Committee disappeared in the mail. Because it did, right?

The next memory is from the time when Dads have started to develop some sort of allergy to the polyester in the SL uniform, and Moms have recovered from the double pregnancy and the exhausting maternity leave. You have started the first grade and during the morning break everything is normal, with playing alone and stair-fossil counting and gravel-bandy watching and keeping a lookout for that cute South American girl in the other class. And then suddenly Moms are standing there in the hall! And everything is imaginary, of course, because Moms don’t belong in school halls and Dads have explained how important it is to tell the difference between real and imaginary. Thus you ignore Moms’ waves in the hall. Up until Moms come up and grab hold of you and repeat again and again that Grandpa has died and finally you understand that Moms are real and that Grandpa really is dead. The hall gets fuzzy edges and Moms hug you and ask if you want to come along to the hospital. Of course not, because it’s almost time for students’ choice and after that we’ll probably draw pictures about it and besides, I feel a little weird. But Moms just smile with wet eyelashes and whisper: I still think it’s best that you come along. You’ll regret it otherwise.

Then you take a car to the hospital, and you don’t remember who is driving, maybe it’s a taxi. It’s the exact same hospital where little brothers were born, but in only a few years that light in the waiting room has dimmed and you use the same entrance but a different elevator and a different corridor and end up in a waiting room with more modern sofas. And it’s you and Moms who wander farther toward the hospital room and Moms’ hands are coldly scaly the way they get in the fall and Moms let you balance on the marking lines on the floor and touch everything that’s yellow because on some days childish systems like that, which you’ve actually outgrown, are super-important to follow.

Then open the door with a hissing sound and into the hospital room with tremble knees and all the Swedish relatives are gathered there. Grandma shaking in the corner with a crumpled handkerchief. Consoling aunts and bear-sized uncles who collapse like card houses and throw themselves, crying, at dead Grandpa, who’s lying stiff in the bed. And only you understand that everything is a fake, that it’s not Grandpa at all lying in the hospital bed with his stump arm and gaping grimace and yellowed nails. It’s only you who understand that Grandpa is only a shell, more like a forgotten juice packet with pale skin and nothing is as scary as you had thought because it’s plain as day that Grandpa left his cancer body a long time ago and is now hanging out in heaven, playing two-armed sun tennis with old road-worker friends, drinking fancy punch and jet-skiing and laughing at his memories of the sign shop. Still you try to tear up your eyes; you think about sad movies and the final scene in E.T . and you succeed in pressing out a little sadness. But then you see Grandpa’s empty shell and sunburned Grandpa smiling under a parasol at the beach with flip-flops and totally undamaged hands and it’s flirting bikini chicks and banana-boat-hopping angels at sea and a bunch of dead movie stars who are saying that the evening’s ice cream eating contest is going to be eternally good and then Grandpa looks at you and smiles and says: I’ll wait for you here. And you can’t share the others’ sadness and you think that maybe it’s a family thing and maybe you have to be fully Swedish to get it.

Then it’s going home to your apartment and Grandma, who for once doesn’t say anything mean about Dads’ framed photos, and Moms, who make a little coffee without saying anything about how coffee causes anxiety, and two bears of uncles on the sofa with large-pocketed work pants and tears constantly flowing, shoulders bobbing, and legs so long that their thighs are leaning up toward their knees.

And you try to join in and carry in the milk and fetch the blanket for Grandma but then Grandpa is there again in the sun chair with a Miami shirt and Hawaii shorts and a straw hat and he toasts toward you and shines his eyes and says something you can’t hear and you smile back when no one is looking and help Moms in with the coffee thermos and serve uncles’ clinking mugs and fetch the digestive biscuits even though they’re really supposed to be saved for the weekend. And then, just when everything has calmed down, you can hear Dads in the hall. And there’s Dads, coming in whistling with shopping bags and a wave of the hand, Dads, who don’t know anything, Dads, who this very day have bought a bunch of canned goods at sale price from some Aristocat.

Dads drop the bags on the hall floor, hug Moms, and don’t joke for several minutes. Dads stand strong like never before and don’t ask about the inheritance and act exactly like he should. Up until Dads want to comfort Grandma by offering her a can of food and then ask: And by the way … please I am sorry … but do we know please what will happen to la boutique ? Moms yank Dads with her into the kitchen and whisper: Please, for once, can’t you at least try to sense the mood?

Then it’s only a few days before Dads come home with triple surprises. There are the drawings of Grandpa’s sign store, the signed contract, and Dads’ detailed shopping lists. There’s the contract giving notice at SL and the going-away present the SL boss gave him in advance. Dads’ voices are bubbling fireworks when he tells about the building that will become a studio slash atelier slash gallery. The light can be made ideal with a little renovation and the distance to the commuter train station is only five hundred meters and there are three small rooms and a storeroom, excellent! Then Dads switch voices and read out loud from the song list that’s printed on the edge of the SL cassette and there’s “Gösta Gigolo” by Ingmar Nordstroms and “Fly Free” by Kikki Danielsson and “Go Where the Pepper Grows” by Leif Hultgren, and then Dads switch voices and languages again and say that the building needs a little renovation but we can do it, it’s no problem, and look here, look what they gave us at work, SL are crazies, and Dads read song titles like “The Convenience Store Cashier,” “It Still Smells Like Love,” and “Friday Evening Blues” by Alf Robertson. Aziz was furious when I showed him; he talks about quitting, too, but I don’t think he …

Quitting? ask Moms.