Jonas Khemiri - Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger

“My father notes Strömholm’s photographs as standardized and unimpressive. Still, is it perhaps this visit which will influence so much of my father’s future? Why? Read on and you will receive knowledge!!!”

(This is a so-called planting in order to feed the readers’ curiosity.)

Here we will die away the musical medley and normalize the form.

It was afternoon and we had parked our bodies in the café at the Central Station of Stockholm. Your mother was home with the twins and you shared our company, munched sweets, and played on the floor under our table. Your father ignored your sounds, drank his coffee, and partook my cigarettes.

“Hadn’t you terminated that habit?” I interpellated.

“In principle,” said your father and borrowed my lighter.

Then careful calculations with budgets and forms, floor plans, brochures from photo companies, and sketches of alternative studio names were presented from his bag. Your father seemed to have spent many months in hidden preparation.

Even long before your grandfather’s death he had telephoned numberous banks with the ambition of getting economic assistance. For several years in a row he had sought but been refused the Work Stipend, Travel Stipend, and Project Stipend from the Swedish Art Grants Committee. Frequent were the authorities who refused his inquiry about assistance in order to begin his career.

“It has been very complicated to receive trust as foreign-born in this country,” said your father, looking at his thick bundle of papers. “Likewise to localize a location that is not suddenly rented when they hear my foreign accent. But now all of that is behind us.”

No experiences seemed to have grown your father’s frustration. Instead he exposed me to the contract for your grandfather’s store, where the landlord had detailed in a particular handwritten paragraph that we were NOT allowed to start a pizzeria or a mosque or a café or any other enterprise that could attract an “undesirable clientele.”

“Kadir, my happiness to have you here is very well formed. Nothing can compete with two collaborating friends. And one can never be successful if one works for someone else. By the way, have I related you about Refaat? That magic man who—”

I interrupted him, sighing.

“Hmm … let me think. Not more than perhaps every time we have discussed the details for my visit on the telephone.”

Your father did not notice my ironic tone.

“Refaat! One of Sweden’s richest men! He started with two empty hands! Now he bears a close relationship to the Volvo master Gyllenhammar! Despite his millions, Refaat still lives in his ordinary Million Program apartment. Just like … Who do you think?”

“Uh … you?”

“Exactly! Me and Refaat! The exact same. He is the premier Arab who has succeeded in finding his success in this oblong country. And do you know what was acted a few weeks ago?”

“No.”

“Refaat was electored to Sweden’s most excellent badge of honor.”

“The Nobel Prize?”

“No.”

“The position of Swedish prime minister?”

“No.”

“The position as master of IKEA?”

“No.”

“The position of ABBA singer?”

“Are you pulling on my leg?”

And in that second, I finally recognized your young father. The father who exploded his rage at the Greek photographer. The father who never chose the drama of falseness, who burned the heat of life and would never be able to graze the thought of giving up a lifelong artistic dream to photograph for finances. His eyes burning black, eyelashes vibrating, his jaws scraping each other.

“Respond me, Kadir. Are you pulling on my leg?!”

You were woken from your games and periscoped your head up from the floor.

“No, no. Forgive my excuse. What has Refaat been electored to?”

Your father slowly transformed his rage to a smile.

“Swede of the Year!!! You must admit what an illuminated success it is! An Egyptian as Swede of the Year! A Brazilian German as queen! This country is unparalleled to me!”

I masqueraded forth my surprise and praised the luck of Refaat. Your father happily creaked his back against the equivalent of the chair.

“Well … there is luck and there is luck. It is not about luck. This country offers all potential possibilities. For those who do not choose the road of laziness, Sweden is a country of a thousand free paths, just pick a path! Together we will now pass the coming time by renovating the store.”

“How large will my economic compensation be? Besides the finances I have loaned you?”

“Hmm … it will be atmospherically large measured in Tunisian standards. Much wider than at Hôtel Majestique.”

“And how great is the salary in Swedish standards?”

“There it is … what the Swedes call lagom . Not too large, not too small. Exactly lagom . What do you think?”

“Okay. Let us vow our promises and pray for your studio’s prompt success. I would be very sad by being forced to return without the economy you have promised me.”

“Our success is no doubt already our fact. I want to remind you of one thing, however: I will NEVER bend my artistic ambition. With this studio I will have free hands to support my family in order to then simultaneously maximize my artisticness. Understood?”

“Yes. Why are you detailing me this?”

Your father did not respond me. His concentration had been broken by some Arabs who parked themselves at our neighbor table. Your father nodded them grimly. When their bodies levitated toward the counter to invest coffee your father turned to me and sighed them audibly, side-shaking his head.

“Observe them, Kadir. I call them Aristocats … Look at that one … Mustafa. A real loafer. He didn’t invest his own coffee! He just took a cup and paid for a refill. It is people like that who infect their bad reputation to the rest of us Arabs. They will never succeed in Sweden. NEVER! I, on the other hand, have perfect chances.”

“How so?”

“Thanks to my wife I have succeeded in transforming my mentality so that it has become almost entirely Swedish. Some one hundred Swedish rules are now my routine.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, it is complicated to remember them all. But let me try. I stand to the right on escalators. I brush my teeth evening and morning. I offtake my shoes before I invade apartments. I use the seat belt even when I sit in backseats of cars. I will soon begin to understand the logic that retired relatives should be isolated in so-called nursing houses.”

“And what else?”

“I express triple thanks each time I invest a newspaper. I never haggle in stores. I can discuss weather and wind for hours with the precision of a meteorologist. Each time I am about to greet my neighbors I restrain myself into silence by thinking of the proverb ‘A Swede is silent.’ ”

“And what else?”

“If I dine at a restaurant, I make sure that the woman pays her share of the bill. Those times when I imbibe alcohol, I do not stop before unconsciousness is near to me. I never expose anger if an alcoholic Swede on the metro happens to insult me.”

“What do you mean, ‘happens to insult’?”

Your father hacked his throat.

“It happens very seldom.”

“But what do they express?”

“Only in the case of exception has someone perhaps whispered names like nigger. Or damn Turk.”

Then he neared his empty coffee cup to his lips and pretended to drink.

“Praise my congratulations,” I said, and did not let the irony shine too strongly.

“But! There is also another vitality that separates me from the Aristocats,” your father continued with recovered hope. “I will never accept the ambition of living at the expense of welfare. The laziness that colors so many other immigrants will never infect me! Instead my studio will offer expanded support and long-term economic security. Let us now discuss the title!”