Jonas Khemiri - Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger

Soon we change position, a nighttime commuter train passes, electric cables spark. Patrik watches the tunnel, I watch the dock, all clear: Go! I listen for boot stomps and heil shouts, I listen for that jumpy sequence of tones that comes from police walkie-talkies and that always makes me think of R2-D2 in Star Wars . But I don’t hear anything more than the lapping of the water and distant bass lines from the party. Melinda’s letters shine more clearly than mine, SCREW KSS! and Imran writes, FUCK WAR’S MOTHER! and then the not really equally badass BERT = DIRT!

Then suddenly you hear steps. Were they steps? I try to squint myself through the compact darkness. Is it a lost dog owner or a drunk or maybe ten or twelve skinheads who’ve been lying in ambush? Then suddenly I’m blinded by a flash. What the hell was that? yells Melinda and Imran drops the brush and Patrik yells: It’s the train! But everyone realizes that the tracks are lying silently deserted and Melinda starts to get paranoid, looks toward the dock: Is there someone there or what? And I crouch down, am about to say no when there’s another flash, one flash, two, three: There’s someone taking pictures! and we tear down into the tunnel and we pull our scarves over our faces way too late as an army of hard-soled skinheads pant at our necks and shout racist slogans behind our backs.

We have just come out of the tunnel when the car motor growls itself up behind us. We slow down our steps and try to walk calmly, no one hurries until the world suddenly turns blue and someone’s called the cops and in one second we cut into the alleys of Gamla Stan and it’s forced breaths and shifted motor, walkie-talkie sounds and loudspeaker voices, blinking blue lights and Melinda who shouts: Drop the cans! even though they’re still sitting over at the helicopter platform. We rush through alleys, past a café, cobblestones, into a backyard, catch our breath, watching from the shelter of a rainspout. Waiting them out. Are you with me? Right when we think we’ve made it, in the middle of that laugh that’s always at its biggest when you’ve been close to being caught but succeeded in tricking the pigs at the last second, they’re there again and now there are two cars and we run as a quartet, Imran just a few steps after, hunted by sirens and accelerating sounds, steps echoing between the narrow houses, clattering up until we’re caught in a dead end and it’s a cinematic ending, the loudspeaker voice in the shadows that shouts STOP! and we stop, out of breath we stand there caught with blinding blue light in our faces.

• • •

Write me … How did you dare, three thin teenagers (and one gigantically fat), to positionate yourselves at the helicopter platform? Did you not realize the risk? Your father chose to use his flash with intention. To teach you a lesson. And he enjoyed the view of your bodies which suddenly became trembling hares that rushed back into the tunnel of Gamla Stan.

But you must believe me about one thing. It was not your father who called the police. That he corresponded his photographs to the police is another matter. He did it in a haze of revenge. He did it in a betrayed temperament. He did it for YOUR future care. He was very careful not to include the photos where you were documented with brushes. Only Patrik, Melinda, and Imran were exposed. And these are three people who are not worth your escort anyway. These are three who should know better than to encourage my son’s confused imagination! If they try to cultivate seeds of outsiderness in my son’s head, this is the price one must pay! (These were your father’s words.)

And this is the lastfall we have left together, because Patrik, Imran, and Melinda’s sentences come down in the spring, and they’re harsher than expected. Maybe because we tried to run. Maybe because they discovered our tracks all the way from the helicopter platform to the palace to the statue to the studio. Maybe because we refused to confess to the very end (despite the paint flecks on shoes, hands, and jacket arms). Maybe because of the series of photos that someone gave to the police — the photos that documented everything from the train platform to the helicopter platform in blurry photos as though from a crying lens. Presumably it was the photo series, because photographs don’t lie, as a judge says and smacks his mouth and fixes his eyes on Melinda, who’s sitting thin-shouldered on an adult chair and she looks at her sniffling mom and her bodyguarding sisters and her Afro is combed down neatly and her green gold chain is hanging hidden under her Singapore shirt and her hand has an almost-washed-off BFL tattoo and her voice almost disappears in the courtroom when she takes the blame for all my letters without blinking and says: Of course I’m the one who wrote that all racists can fuck their mothers of course I’m the one who wrote FUCK THE FIVE-O and of course I’m the one who wrote that weird stuff on the far side that one with the kind of strange writing that I can’t even explain what it means.

Dads stand strong.

I barely remember the final scene. I think it’s blurry Moms who unscrew the padlock on Dads’ mémoire , Dads who have returned to Sweden, Dads who are back to being a gate guard, notice has been given on the studio, and Dads are sleeping on the sofa while waiting for the divorce to go through. What else do I remember? Moms’ gasping sounds? Moms’ short moans?

Moms are standing there with the envelope, and it’s overstuffed with negatives and out falls proof of things Dads have stubbornly denied. Do you believe it yourself? That I was unfaithful? Or that I would follow my own son and then try to get his friends arrested? Never!

But the negatives are lying there, and some of them depict faceless bodies and others depict an opposite world of nighttime colors where my blue panther back is painting a train platform. Melinda and Imran are painting Sergels Torg, Patrik writes BLATTE POWER on some steps, and all four silhouettes are standing in a row and coloring the wall of the Swedish palace.

Moms display their perpetual uprightness. Moms don’t let in the tiniest compromise. Little brothers are sent down to the cellar to get Dads’ suitcases, Moms get the orange kitchen scissors and start packing.

When Dads come home from SL that night, the bags are ready in the halls, filled with ties, socks, underwear, shirts, pants, and T-shirts — all carefully punctured with at least one or two scissor holes.

And I remember how Dads just stand there in the hall in his SL jacket with the evening paper in his right hand and his beret at an angle. Dads looks at Moms and looks at sons and at first he seems to think it’s all a joke because he laughs nervously. You can’t be this angry about a little white lie and some mistakes? Who hasn’t done things they regret? Dads untie shoes and Moms roar with a mirror-cracking voice and little brothers start to cry and Dads try to explain, try to find excuses, try to say I did it for the good of our son and those women were a long time ago and meant nothing. But Moms’ tears are as heavy as surprise rain on picnics on sand dunes and her cheeks as tight as when she saw Bert Karlsson give the victory sign and Dads try to say sorry in a bunch of different languages and layer French declarations of love on Arabic nicknames on Swedish forgive me’s but Moms won’t let herself be calmed in any language and when Dads try to touch Moms’ cheek she steps to the side and shoves him toward the door and her cheeks are so red that her forehead shines white and Dads suddenly change voices and say: I refuse. You don’t refuse at all. Dads look at me and I at him, our eyes meet, we stare at each other’s pupils but I don’t give up, not this time, because nothing ever comes between Moms and sons.