Jonas Khemiri - Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger

Which name did he formulate?

Exactly.

Robert Capa!

Prepare your surprise when I write you that Robert Capa has never existed! Capa is in reality the result of the myth that Friedmann created. The name referred to the director Frank Capra and soon Parisian tongues began to whisper about this mythical Capa, transparent and difficult to meet, presumably American in origin, few equal in his beauty and with impressive photographic talent. Capa’s photos began to sell, his success grew, Friedmann fed the myth with anecdotes and rumors up until he exchanged his official name and identity. Friedmann was transformed to Capa, fantasy became reality, and Capa said: It was like being born again, without hurting anyone.

The idea flashes your father unexpectedly, like a flash of lightning. Hmm, that metaphor was not sufficiently excellent. Let me try again: The idea flashes your father unexpectedly, like a very, very energetic lightbulb. (Then let a real lightbulb dazzle both the air above your father’s head and the librarians who hush your father’s mumbling.) Abbas suddenly stands up, the chair falls backward, and the library’s silence is broken by the words:

“Of course Capa’s strategy will be mine! My Arabic name must be MODIFIED!” (ied … ied … ied … echoes section four).

Back in the chair, your father begins to fantasize forth adequate artist names. Should he perhaps inventory the American photographer George MacDonald? Or the Italian photographer Ferdinando Verderi? Or should he perhaps present his work under the name Papanastasopoulou Chrysovalanti? A homosexual Greek photographer who documented genuine Arabic culture in Jendouba with borrowed fezzes? The ideas storm your father’s brain until he stands up again and auctions:

“No … my photographic alias shall be spelled … Krister Holmström Abbas Khemiri! And my specialty will be … DOG PHOTOGRAPHY!!!”

(“SHHH” is heard from steel-gazed librarians.)

The idea of transforming his name came from Capa. But where did the idea of taking photos of dogs come from? Can we blame Raino? Or perhaps your linguistic rules? In any case, it is not your father who excites the library. Instead it is Krister Holmström Abbas Khemiri, the dog photographer, who in the nocturnal darkness of the afternoon glides down the staircase and wanders his happy steps toward the metro. A strange light follows his steps, and his thoughts whisper: “A name is much more than a name …”

Just days later your father has fabricated a new studio sign and begun to paste the light poles of the dog parks with fringed advertisements: “Are you looking for a photographer to take pictures of your beloved darling dog? Call Krister Holmström Abbas Khemiri! Cheap animal photographs by an internationally famous animal photographer!!!”

Was your father’s new name a coincidence? Of course he knew of Christer Strömholm, world-celebrated photographer and receiver of the Hasselblad Prize. But with the voice of honesty I inform you: Your father did NOT have the ambition of parasiting upon Christer’s customers and reputation. Rather, he wanted to maximize the distance between himself and those prejudices that degraded Swedish Arabs. Therefore he selectioned a name that he considered attractive, professional, and well known. (In the book, you can inject a verbose insultation of the other Christer’s obnoxious lawyer, Hallerstedt, who initially pursued your father with threats of a summons.)

So … now it is up to you to continue the story. Do not rouse my disappointment. I launch the following chapters:

Your father’s success

More details of your father’s success

Your growing confusion

The happy summer of 1989

Abbas’ departure from his friends

YOUR FATHER’S SUCCESS

And you rememberwhen Dads fix the new studio sign that says “PET PHOTOGRAPHER KRISTER HOLMSTRÖM” in big letters and “Abbas Khemiri” with small cursive ones underneath. And soon Dads’ customer phone begins to ring. Dads book a black terrier on the twelfth and a Great Dane on the fourteenth and the weekend after next a dachshund society that’s having a competition in Södertälje. Dads start to fill the calendar with appointments and no longer have time for games of backgammon, discussions of language, or photography quotes.

The Dynamic Duo is split up, and it’s lucky that there is Melinda. Every afternoon that spring you meet either in the shopping center near the candy shop or down by the abandoned tracks. You play train robbers and Indiana Jones or Super Mario Bros. or drug addicts and dealers. And sometimes, when you are in the mood for sports, you do your self-invented septathlon (run around the courtyard, springy-horse rodeo, small park-bike throwing, one-hundred-meter park-bench hurdle, standing long jump from the swings, shopping cart rally through the shopping center, senior citizen relay tag).

Everything is total bliss until Melinda tells you that the Indians who sell synthetic clothes on the square have a son who is “pretty cute.” You both sneak off to spy and of course you point out that the son is about the ugliest person you’ve ever seen because he has an underbite and glasses and is the fattest in the world, with dorkily big baggy jeans. Besides, downy mustaches like that are really ugly, Melinda, don’t you think? But Melinda keeps spying and doesn’t answer. Then you switch to spying on the fatty’s sister because she is actually also VERY CUTE (and you say it out loud so Melinda will stop staring at the fat Indian). The little sister has her hair in hard-as-steel slanting bangs and is blowing shiny pink Hubba Bubba bubbles and returning your looks with total nonchalance. But it is obvious, of course, that she wants you.

One day the fat Indian comes over and gives Melinda a salty sucker and another time he asks if you want to listen to his Walkman while he’s helping his parents close up, and of course you say yes and with one hand each you hold tight to the yellow waterproof Sony player and together you push the soft play button and together you are shot up into space by NWA’s album Straight Outta Compton , the world’s best album by the world’s best group.

Since that day the fat Indian is one of you. And pretty soon you stop calling him the fat Indian and start calling him his real name, Imran. And pretty soon you get that he isn’t Indian at all, he’s Baloch, which is about like Arab or Iranian only better (according to Imran). And soon after that you actually start to like him as a real friend, because you realize that he and Melinda are by no means going to fall in love and leave you alone, because Imran succeeds in saying all the things Melinda has heard for her whole life and therefore hates more than anything else. (“At first when I saw you I thought you were a guy. Were you born here? Do you get even darker when you sunbathe? Why are you so skinny and your sisters so fat? Shit, you’re strong. For a girl, I mean.”) And Melinda just sighs and makes it into a fun thing to smash Imran to pieces in your own septathlon. You’re the judge and you do your best to be impartial and not smile on the outside when Melinda outplays Imran in event after event.

Maybe it’s because Imran wants to play something where he knows the rules beforehand that he suggests on a rainy Saturday that you play Dungeons & Dragons. Role-playing? Isn’t that for huge nerds? But Imran says that it’s pretty much like playing but more grown-up. And maybe you don’t dare? Maybe you’re chicken? Of course not. You’re voted game master and soon you’re under way.

While real customers with real pets start to ask their way through the shopping center to find the pet photographer Krister Holmström, you hang out by the deserted commuter train area. Melinda and Imran each build a character while you prepare adventures, draw maps, and plant treasures in dragon-guarded bunkers. In reality the adventure should be placed in historic time and in reality one can choose between being a knight or a magician or maybe an elf. But Melinda says that if she’s going to play she wants to be called Miss Super Zulu Sister and be a monster-strong medicine woman from black Africa who has a poisonous Afro pick in her hair and an AK-47 hidden between her breasts and a bunch of medicinal brews that grant maximum magical skill. And in that case Imran wants to be MC Mustachio, a Baloch super hip-hop prophet from Compton who has a sharpened Raiders cap, magic Air Force Ones, and battery-powered nunchucks. His mustache is also super long and can be used both to box enemies and to caress girls. You let them stretch the rules and soon you’re under way.