Jonas Khemiri - Montecore - The Silence of the Tiger

Finally Dads tie his shoes, pick up the suitcases, and walk toward the balcony walkway. Little brothers are crying even louder and Velcroing themselves to Dads’ legs and Dads are biting lower lip and Moms are crouching with her hands like pitchforks in her hair. I wave Dads’ farewell with words that I will never forget and that I want to but can’t include in the book.

Oh? You may certainly exclude things, but your father may not? Here shall be injected exactly what you said because this is a vital phrase for your long silence. You yelled your father’s adieu with the words:

• • •

When your father returned from Sweden I barely recognized his exterior. His hair was silvered and in certain places his hairstyle resembled a cue ball. His eye bags were swollen and he was limping from a foot sprain he happened to get in the airport bar of the layover in Frankfurt.

“Well, how did your reunion with your family happen?” I wondered with concern.

“Oh, it happened well. My wife was sorry and wanted to have me back as a spouse. And my son and I are the best of friends.”

“So … what are you doing here again?”

Your father compressed his lips.

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”

“Yes.”

“But another time?”

“Another time.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know.”

Your father settled himself permanently in Tabarka. He took over Achraf’s old atelier, modernized it, and offered tourists the chance to be photographed with their heads stuck into Arabic milieu scenery. There was the desert scene where one became a dromedary driver, the harem scene where one became a fat sultan, the Kaaba scene where one became a Muslim on a pilgrimage.

Abbas bore a constant longing for his family, for the delicious tap water of Sweden, for bridges’ views in sun layings, for the summery odor of lilacs. But to live isolated in that country where he gave his all was to him impossible. He had transformed his name, he had curved his tongue to perfection the Swedish language. He had even named his son Jonas instead of Younes! What more could be expected? For all that, Sweden was the country where he was still seen as a constant outsider.

I must admit that during the following years he still considered your betrayal the most devastating. Late at night when we shared our company over a whiskey he would say this about you:

“What right does that snake have to say that I have betrayed my roots? What does that confused damn idiot know about roots? What does he know about fighting? He spends his constant time in the phase of confusion. Because what else could one call a person who is born in Sweden of a Swedish mother and still spends his time in the company of idiotic immigrants, eagerly proclaiming the fight against racists as his goal? What else can one call a person who, with intention, has an accent in the language he himself was raised with? My son is a sad figure who lacks culture. He is not Swedish, he is not Tunisian, he is NOTHING. He is a constant cavity who varies himself by his context like a full-fledged chameleon.”

(Excuse me, Jonas, but I must write you your father’s true words.) I responsed:

“But … aren’t you too?”

“Yes! But for me it is a proud prestige. I am a free cosmopolitan! But for my son this is a shame.”

During the following years I did my diplomat. I tried to convince your entirely too proud father not to stifle his relation with his sons. Call them! Correspond them your begun but never terminated letter! Your father only refused my propositions. His pride blockaded him. And so you know: I was the one who indicated to your father that he should send those postcards to your little brothers in the fall of 1997. It was my fault. Sorry! I thought it might be good if your father let out a bit of furious steam and therefore we formulated the text of the cards in an alcoholic intoxication. Your father already regretted this the next day. But as usual his prestige blockaded him from telephoning you with an apology.

And you remember that daybecause soon it’s double little brothers’ birthdays and you’ve started high school and you come home from school at lunch and it’s you and your school friend Homan who are going to watch last night’s Yo! MTV Raps and your home is his so you kick off your shoes in the hall and Homan rewinds the video while you look through the mail. The absolute worst is your second-long joy when you see the postcards and the motifs from Tabarka and the Tunisian stamps, the joy of seeing Dads’ classically beautiful handwriting with the specially bent numerals in the zip code. And although you have the feeling you’re going to regret it, you read the text on the two postcards that have been sent to your two little brothers and although you know it’s going to leave traces that will never be rubbed out you read the phrases, which are exactly identical on both postcards:

Everyone in the entire world has betrayed me. Except you two .

And you remember that Dads even specify “you two,” and you don’t crumple the postcards into balls and you don’t swear out loud but Homan notices and he understands without questions because his dad is a betrayer too because his dad has started hitting his wife in fear of her new colleagues and in frustration about never getting to go on job interviews and now he’s working as a popcorn seller at the Röda Kvarn theater and Homan understands exactly why sometimes you can get tear eyes and back shivers just from seeing other dads with their sons in the subway or why you always get goose-bump skin when Treach in Naughty by Nature raps: I was one who never had and always mad, never knew my dad muthafuck the fag. Homan gets the rage that you can feel for a country that’s stolen your dad.

The years passed, the tourism expanded, your father lived very isolated with his business and his Sweden memories. In 1998 we made the relation of an American tourist by the name of Alex Baldwin (that was actually his name, almost like the famous Hollywood actor). Together we partook the majority of drinks in hotel bars before Alex said that he had many relations in the erotic branch in the U.S.A. He said that pornography was always looking for new markets and the only thing not represented was the Arab world.

“Do you want to assist me in the creation of local Arab erotic photos? It would collect you serious finances.”

Alex paused to see how your father received his idea.

“Or perhaps you have religious protests against—”

“No worries,” I interrupted. “No traditional backpacks weight our backs. Right, Abbas? But you must be able to find Arab women in the U.S.A. who are ready to eroticize themselves before the camera? Why not just use props and actors and photograph women in veils in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills? Why take the roundabout way in doing it here?”

Alex smiled my naïveté.

“Of course we can use actors, of course we can maximize our attempts to falsify an Arab atmosphere in a studio in L.A. And even now there are many such photo series. But our customers are not the crowd of routine. Our customers are the creamy crops, very particular with a great hunger for authenticity. Our customer will detect a false fez or an American studio immediately. But this, things like this can’t be simulated!”

Alex aimed his index finger at the cracked plastic globe of the button that controlled the hotel bar’s ceiling light.

“Do you understand? Besides, erotica is a branch that sways in rhythm with politics. Soon after the Gulf War we noticed how the demand for Arab pornography grew among our customers. The future looks very positive.”

“Just one thing,” said your father. “It is very important to me that our photos do not violate anyone. I only want to photograph erotically and not pornographically. I still have a broad talent that must not be abused. We must carry on the torch from photographers like Weston, Kertész, and Bill Brandt!”