Authors: Jonas Hassen Khemiri
Khemirish is Dads’ language and the family’s language; it’s a language that is only yours, that no one else owns, and that you will never show anyone (until now?).
10.
Your father actually repeated “my happiness is indescribable” triangularly in the same letter. Do you realize, then, what an indescribable happiness your birth gave him? He lived in a divine bubble the evening he returned from the hospital after your birth. He has described how, the entire first night, he parked his body at your kitchen window, stared at the desolation of the yard, toasted himself to tears, and chorused along with Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely?” (He just replaced “she” with “he.”) That for you he focused more on the disappointment you brought him is something that he presumably regrets. Here follows yet another pause in my correspondence with your father. During this time Tabarka’s tourist industry grows. I polish my career from kitchen-responsible to pool-responsible to planner of dance competitions. In parallel Swedish time, your father maximizes his attempts to sparkle his photographic career. While your mother recovers her strength after your delivery, your father passes his time at the restaurant on Rådmansgatan. He cleans the greenness of the carpets of gum, he glitters the toilet’s shine forth from vomit, he searches under the coatroom’s counter in pursuit of forgotten one-crown coins. In the afternoons he assists Raino’s developed entrecôtes and adjusts the light and contrast of fish soups and desserts. On the weekends he combs his curly coiffure, puts on his beret, and wanders his steps from gallery to gallery both in Gamla Stan and on Hornsgatan. His two prepared photographic collections lie ready in his portfolio. His fingers sink door handles, bells jingle; black-polo-shirted gallery owners with big plastic lunettes receive him, smiling nervously, browse his portfolio, hmm their approval, and accept his homemade business card. They praise his talent. They promise potential cooperation. But …just before he goes, they ask, of course, the oh-so-vital-for-Swedes question of national background. And your father’s tongue auctions with more and more tired voice that his roots are unimportant for his photographic ambition. The gallery owners excuse themselves and promise their effective telephone calling. Relieved, your father goes home to his wife and auctions: Soon my career will find its gallop!
Is it not bizarre that your father, who would later expose suspicion toward everything and everyone, actually seems to believe the gallery owners’ words? Perhaps the desire to believe was so well formed that no alternatives were provided to him? Because do you know how many gallery owners picked up the phone and called your father?
Not a single one.
The years pass.
In 1982 your father transforms himself from dishwasher to metro driver for Stockholm Public Transit, SL. He receives his position after having passed a Swedish test by actively reflecting his glance toward his neighbor’s paper …
Here I suggest that you inject your three earliest memories of your father. Do you feel ready? Good luck!
Dearest greetings!
Thank the correspondence of your three earliest memories. Hmm … I presume that we will class this text as preliminary and in need of a great deal of polishing? Why have you decided to describe yourself as “you” instead of “I”? Why do you write “Dads” instead of “Dad”? Is this carelessness, or intention? The quality of the text can be substantially stimulated, with my opinion, with a more classic form,
à la
“Oh, my father, let me now form my first memories of my great hero …”
Did this take you three weeks to formulate? Now I am starting to realize what you mean about being “sooooo not pumped” to write your secondary book. It must be so much easier to accuse one’s dear author colleague of insufficient honesty and competence … Is it not tempting to mask one’s own inability by aggressively attacking others’? Because is that not what you are doing? In the next message you are welcome to disambiguate your ambiguity. First you hail your father’s poetic letters. You write that my translation is reminiscent of the professionalism of BabelFish and you write that their injection into the book would be like “gilding the lily.” What is more beautiful than a gilded lily? Then your tone suddenly becomes harsh and sharp. You write that now it is your turn to participate more in the book and you suddenly accuse your father’s letterish writing style of being “suspiciously like” mine? Let me response like this:
1. Your father wrote me in Arabic. I have translated the letters to Swedish. That my linguistic tone could not be modified from its foundations in order to
PRECISELY
capture your father’s phrases is a surprise that we should call entirely expected. I write with those knowledges of the Swedish language which I have at my disposal. My effective time in Sweden was limited and I am aware that I cause certain grammatical glides.
It would not raise my eyebrows if you were to find three defects in each document! But it would detach my eyebrows if these defects were to grow your doubt about my honest ambition.
2. But … With the ideal of honesty I must simultaneously admit that you are correct when you write that your father’s letters are not
ENTIRELY
objective from my influence. Certainly I have
SOMETIMES
let a little Kadir be injected. For example, I embroidered the text with certain life-giving metaphors (see: your mother’s crying hand likened “as a car’s windshield wipers”). I also amplified the visuality (see: your mother’s shined smile at Central Station). But I have not modified
ANYTHING
that your father would oppose, I know this with voluminous certainty. That is how well I know his soul. He often talked about how your mother’s smiling lines could placate everyone from social-service ladies to metro inspectors to police to camera sellers. And incidentally this is what he wrote in an e-mail in 2002, just home from a photo session with the Dalai Lama: “But his [the Dalai Lama’s] smiling power could still not measure up to Pernilla’s. Certain smiles shine like suns; others like stars. But only one smile presents its rays with radioactive volume.” If I have amplified your father’s letters in order to truly reflect his opinion, then a streak of fantasy cannot really be called dishonesty. Right?
3. Of course it is now your turn to take over the baton of the narrative. Prior to the triangular section of the book it is delegated wholeheartedly to you, which is perfect because the relationship between your father and me is frozen to stillness during the coming years, a little like a paused
DVD
.
• • •
Feel free to correspond me your developing text, and I will promise you prominent, not to say exalted, commentary. As inspiration for your continued work I affix to you a text that forms your father’s dramatic return to Tunisia in 1984.
Your charming friend,
Kadir
After a lengthy illness, old Faizal farewelled this earth in the spring of 1984. Abbas returned to Jendouba to participate in the funeral. I myself could not take time off from the Hôtel Majestique because of the tragic poker misfortunes of my latest period. The cards had tortured more than stimulated me, and I was forced to work very harshly in order to be able to pay back my latest losses. Patiently I awaited your father in Tabarka, in the hope that he would convey my loaned economy.
One cold February twilight, a taxi retired outside the entrance to Hôtel Majestique, and out journeyed your father’s silhouette, clad in dark brown Ray-Bans, grown-out hair, and a light blue T-shirt from the magazine
Current Photography
on which the letters spelled forth: “Photographers make it a memory for life.”
“Abbas!” I cried happily, and our arms hugged each other, accompanied by repeated confirmations of each other’s health. Then we released each other and your father observed me. He was just about to formulate something; his lips circled themselves, but no sound came. In the next second his legs swerved sideways. His body timber-fell toward the sidewalk, and his near fainting was my fact. I supported him into the foyer on shaking legs and parked him in the leather sofa that was actually reserved for guests. His cheeks bore a pale color and it seemed to hurt to separate his adhered lips.
“What has happened to you?” I asked, again and again. “Is it the funeral of Faizal that has ached you so much? Or is it the return visit of Jendouba? Calm my unease, my dear best friend.”
Your father collected his nerves, cooled his throat with a few gulps of water, and began his story. I remember his words like this:
“Excuse me, Kadir. I am very glad to see you again, do not believe otherwise. But to see Jendouba again was a very suffocating process. I really understand why you do not return. To participate in Faizal’s funeral awoke an inexplicably strong emotion in my breast. The tears welled my eyes in rivers, and my leg muscles betrayed
me cyclically just like here. That he was not my real father could not comfort me. I do not know why the consequence was so great.”
Your father was interrupted by some drunk Dutchmen who bellowed their happiness from the bar over a soccer goal. He continued with a steadier voice:
“After the funeral I did not find any peace. Of course, I portioned my sorrow with everyone else; of course, it was happiness to see Cherifa again. But every day our sorrow was disturbed by afflicting neighbors and poor families with hopeful expectations that my saved Swedish finances had been maximized to that of a millionaire. They knocked the door and interpellated me about investment aid for taxis, finances for cheese factories or travels abroad, bribes for visas or for supporting their cousin’s children’s study diplomas. Even our old friends from the orphanage days were looking forward to sumptuous presents as a matter of routine. Dhib and Sofiane, Amine and Omar, not one understood that I have my own family and that my finances might not measure up to JR’s in the TV series
Ewings
. Do you know that TV series, by the way?”
(Your father really did say
Ewings
but was referring to the series
Dallas
, of course. I did not want to correct him right then.)
“Anyway, it is a big success in Sweden; Pernilla and I observe it every Saturday evening when Jonas has gone to sleep. It is about JR and Bobby and an alcoholic woman by the name Sue Ellen. The music sounds about like this: daa-da-daaa-dadadadadaaa …?”
“Abbas … weren’t you going to relate the background of your mental imbalance?”
Your father quieted his song.
“You are right, Kadir. Excuse me. You are truly the only person in the world who sees through my attempts at dodging. Let me instead tell you about the true background of my confusion. It happened this morning … It was the souk in Jendouba. As usual, the city was full of agricultural families who auctioned peppers and
figs, apples and pears, wagonloads of golden melons. Salesmen’s throats roared sweetness of peaches, durability of lightbulbs, softness of rugs. Bananas and green cubes of washing soap, veils and spice buckets and extra-fresh goats at the price of the sale …”
(Yet again your father tried to evade in a drawn-out description of the souk. You have, of course, visited Jendouba during the souk? Feel free to inject your own memories of the market—just remember that this is 1984. Subtract consequently all commerce of neon yellow cell phone covers, batteries, Eminem T-shirts, and fake Nike shoes.) Finally I interrupted your father:
“Abbas … get to the point.”
“Yes. Sorry. Here it comes. Anyway, this morning I wandered my steps toward the
louage
station, happy that I could leave the city. My camera was escorted as usual on my chest. Suddenly I noticed a dispute between a street boy and a potbellied seller of saucepans. Here is photographic potential, I thought, levitating my camera and assuming a perfect angle.”
“Well?”
Your father took his bracing in order to be able to terminate the story.
“I adjusted the focus and discharged the camera at the exact second that a face wandered right in and blocked my motif. His head bore a twisted, worn keffiyeh; his bagging blue jacket was combined with thin drawstring pants. In his hand he transported a foot-borne turkey which gesticulated its arms. I lowered the camera with an insultation ready on my tongue. Our eyes were reflected in each other. A few seconds’ searching, and then my insight struck with the power of a waterfall. ‘
RACHID!
’ roared my tongue so that the potbellied man shortstopped himself in his kicking series against the shorts-clad rear of the street urchin. ‘
RACHID!!!
’”
“Your antique neighbor from Algeria?”
“Yes! First he seemed to mistake himself for someone else. He accelerated his steps to running speed and refused to give hearing
to his name. But I caught up with him and captured his shoulder: ‘Hello! It is me! Abbas! Haifa’s son. Whom you saved from a sure death!’ Rachid stopped, out of breath, focused me from toe to top, and cracked up his smile.
“ ‘My dear boy, you have been transformed to a man! And you are not angry with me?’
“ ‘Angry? How could I be angry?’ For a long time we hugged each other, teared our eyes, and returned our greetings. All while the turkey cawed confusion and wobbled its throat.”
“Did he look as you remembered him?”
“Well, the tooth of time had munched a festive breakfast on his exterior; the sun wrinkles hung heavy over his furrowed eye corners, his black beard shone gray, and his shoulders had thinned to the boy size.”
“Then when happened?”
“We accompanied our steps to a café, where we shared our résumés. Rachid was very impressed by my life. ‘Who could believe this when we farewelled each other in Cherifa’s yard?’ he said. ‘That you would live in Sweden, have a stately stature and a photographic career?’
“ ‘And that you would bear your exterior with the same youth as always,’ I responsed.
“ ‘Thank you very much, you well-mannered liar.’ We laughed in stereo and the atmosphere was excellent.”
“It sounds like a perfect rendezvous. Right?”
Your father extincted his smile.
“It was a perfect rendezvous. Until I happened to ask Rachid whether he was acquainted with anything about my real father’s news. I interpellated whether my father’s life was ended like Ali Boumendjel’s, or whether he is perhaps living in luxury somewhere in the world. Rachid fixed his eyes on the horizon and let his lungs produce a deep sigh.