Jonas Khemiri - Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger

Yes? How else could I open a studio? With this place EVERYTHING is going to change, darling. I’ll be able to have my own exhibitions here, and now I can get started working seriously and soon there will be Picture of the Year awards en masse and papers that will call me and stars who stand in line to have their portraits taken.

Shouldn’t we have discussed this first? ask Moms. What is there to discuss? laugh Dads and hug you and kiss Moms and you think: Those poor kids who have normal dads, dads who don’t still have their child eyes and who can’t make magic with either words or cameras.

11. BRILLIANT!!!

12. The finale is very delicious! More like this! One reminder: Memorize that it is your father who is the principal character, and not your mother. Certainly your mother is magnificent in all ways, but her magnificence can be formed another time. Perhaps in your triangular book?

13. Well, I do not think your dad said that. We must be distinct about that; your father did EVERYTHING in order to rake your cosmopolitan future. That of course he never fed any outsiderness into your brain. Perhaps you heard incorrectly? Perhaps your father said: “She is a typical Swede. A real careerist.” (Or tourist [or circus artist]?)

Dearest greetings!

Anxiety heaps my breast after the reading of your latest e-letter’s depressed tone. How can I tempt you back to the path of joie de vivre? How can I get you to forget the insultations of the hate letter? Jonas: You are NOT a camel-fucking Muslim negroid ape who should be sent home or shot. You are a reasonably talented author who, thanks to me, has been delegated the chance for a secondary book.

Here come two self-strengthening directives; write them out and publish them on your refrigerator as a reminder vaccine:

1. I will NEVER let myself be infected with my father’s paranoia! The whole world is not “out to get me” at all.

2. I will NEVER be silenced into speechlessness or deceit. Silence is a loss. Silence is the escort of death. Silence delegates victories to idiots who happen to have tongues.

Now to your delivered text. Praise it with roses and wreaths! The section is interesting and a progression of your talent can be noticed and applauded. See the affixed document for my comments.

The reading of your text has made me secure with one thing: the insight that even authors can form a text that is … not perfect. Much work remains. This maximized my inspiration and the writing of the continuation of your father’s history was written almost on autopilot. Affixed you will find first the translation of the letter your father wrote me in December 1985, which put to sound the silence which had characterized our relation since our rendezvous in Tabarka in 1984. The secondary document forms my rendezvous with Sweden, your family, and the Swedish language. Let these events terminate the book’s triangular section. You are invited as usual to inject your potential memories. Just memorize not to remember too many details — there is a big difference between one-eyes and books. One of them is helped by expanded thickness and length; the other is not. Do you know which is which? If not it is truly time to try to find a girlfriend …

Your virtuoso friend,

Kadir

Stockholm, December 27, 1985

Greetings, Kadir!

Let me first ask your excuse for my letterish pause. Pardon me. Many things have been modified in my life since we last met.

For example, my family has wandered from a trio to a pentangle! My wife has borne me two further sons in twin form! I was informed of her pregnancy after my return from Tunisia, and considering our economic situation at the time, this was very complicated information. We directed our traditional procedure where I tried to convince her to descend to asking her mother for financial support and my wife yelled nevernevernever all night. A tingling unease began to grow me for my future responsibility as a fivefold-family provider.

The economic situation, however, has been renovated thanks to my beautiful-father’s tragic death. My dear beautiful-mother, Ruth, has generously delegated me both his store and an advancement on our future inheritance. I believe she regrets her initial antipathy toward me. Now she expresses that “everyone must get an honest chance, particularly in these times.” In this she is entirely correct, because the climate of Sweden is truly beginning to be modified. One can feel it in the atmosphere of the streets. The looks. The comments. The frequency of immigrants is rising in step with the Swedes’ suspiciousness. In this year’s election commotion, the Conservatives’ master, Ulf Adelsohn, expressed: “A Swede is a Swede and a Negro a Negro.” He has also said that of course the Swedes’ eyes sting when immigrant children take limousines from “upper-class Östermalm apartments” to sumptuous home language lessons, while Swedish children must hike. Even Sweden’s socialists are starting to fly their kites in the same foreigner-antipathetic wind. Sometimes my soul is unsecured. What am I doing here? How will my three sons grow successfully in this country? How will their brown skin and black hair find success in a context where neo-Nazis have begun to manifest openly in the streets and refugee homes are attacked with firebombs? My certainty is far from securitized, but I know one thing — my sons must NOT be attracted to being outsiders. This shall be my life’s true priority! I must be very careful not to follow my wife into soaping my eyes in the suds of politics.

But not everything at this time is coming up nettles! I bear a strong belief in the improvement of the future! Let us focus on the indications that are positive to us in the end of 1985: Halley’s Comet did not crash our earth! Reagan and Gorbachev managed to find time for a rendezvous! More and more Swedes decorate their coats with antiracist plastic hands on which the text spells, “Don’t touch my friend.” And most important of all: I have terminated my slave time at SL, offput my horridly scratching polyester vest, and will soon have my own studio!

Today I was exposed to another two positive pieces of news. Number one: My oldest son has turned seven! He has now carried out his first half year in school. He bears a very expanded intelligence and his speech is now almost normal. He has also learned to control his imagination, so he less frequently attracts the looks of passersby. Several weeks have passed since I last came across him speaking aloud to his frequent imaginary friends. Observe also his artistic quality! What ordinary seven-year-old can draw pictures of equal talent? 14

My relationship with my son is very close. I am his great idol and he often seeks my glance to verify my attention. Together we spend much time and I have already begun to prepare him for the vital weight of grades. I indicate him that his grades must NEVER be under the best one. My son always nods me seriously and promises his attempt at maximization. My wife sighs me and thinks I present my son with entirely too much compression too soon.

“He is only in his premier class! He is seven years old!”

But I respond her:

“It is NEVER too early to absorb knowledge. This is my philosophy. Particularly in Sweden, which already bears an increased suspicion against those who do not bear skin of the pink color.”

“And your own knowledge of Swedish, when will that be absorbed, exactly?”

“Is your voice traced with sarcasm, my darling? My Swedish will soon be perfectioned, you know that.”

“It has taken considerable time.”

“Time is a worldly thing.”

Certainly my wife is correct — the learning process of Swedish has to me been complex and protracted. Do you want to sense the motive? In Sweden one is received very different depending on one’s language. To present an Arabically broken Swedish attracts angry expressions, demonstrative “what?”s, and a negative atmosphere. If one instead speaks English or French one is smiled and receives an automatic nearness in relationships. Consequently, it is not bizarre that my temptation to the Swedish language has been filled with gaps, a little like the Advent calendars that are sold here as Christmas traditions. For a long time I also practiced the mistake of spending my time in the company of other exiled Arabs. My friendship with the Aristocats will now be reduced in favor of a future expanding Swedish.