Authors: Jonas Hassen Khemiri
Montecore (25 page)
YOUR FATHER
(in Swedish):
Hello-this-is-Krister-you-have-the-animal-I-have-the-camera.
ME
(in Arabic):
It is Kadir.
YOUR FATHER
(in Swedish):
Hello?
ME
(in Arabic):
Stop being silly. I know it is you, Abbas, I can hear your voice!
YOUR FATHER
(in
Swedish):
Hello? Is someone there? This is Krister Holmström, can I be of assistance?
ME
(in Arabic):
Arrest this idiotic spectacle, it is me, Kadir, your only and most antique friend!
YOUR FATHER
(in Swedish):
Oh, so strange, still a foreign language that I do not control!
ME
(screaming):
Hello, you damned betrayer, stop playing me as your father played you!
YOUR FATHER
(whispering):
Sorry, Kadir, it was a humoristic joke that unfortunately lacked humor. Excuse me.
I excused your father and we smoothed our conflict. Abbas began to summarize his latest happenings. He successively filled
his voice with more and more bubbly happiness, a little like a well-chilled Dom Pérignon in a silver bucket.
“I have succeeded!” he auctioned. “My studio has reached establishment and many assignments are frequent to me!”
The telephone trembled with your father’s euphoria.
“Which assignments are offered you?” I interpellated.
“Can you imagine? My success is here. Soon we will probably be able to relocalize our address to the inner-city Östermalm, my children will be able to play with the children of fully Swedish journalists and politicians! My three sons will be like the generality of regular Swedes! No outsiderness will ever infect their souls! They will excel their mentalities and play tennis and practice piano and bear tidy collar shirts and be diplomaed with the highest grades and drape themselves in custom-tailored Boss suits.”
“And which assignments are offered you?”
“Many different ones. Mostly artistic fashion jobs and celebrity photographing and a great quantity of similar assignments. And sometimes pet portraits.”
“Praise my golden congratulations!”
“Your voice does not sound honestly happy.”
“It is.”
“No.”
“Hmm … Perhaps it is explained by that your life is modified while mine stamps static holes in the same place as usual. I have encountered a
VERY
serious poker tragedy.
I MUST
obtain my loaned finances. Otherwise there could be trouble.”
Your father stopped smacking his mouth with pleasurement and spiced his voice with a new solemn tone, which I did not recognize.
“Dear Kadir. I have guaranteed you your economy. Soon. But you cannot just blame your staticness on me! Do not follow the mistakes of other Arabs. Do as I did! Advance your position to the maximum instead of accusing the context.”
“But …”
“Look at me … I have installed my own photographic studio. Thanks to my two striving hands.”
“But …”
“If your ambition is to start a hotel you must wander new steps on the steep escalator that we can call your career! Understood?”
“In that case you must guarantee me the same faithfulness that I offered
YOU
, for God’s sake!!! If you do not return home with my finances soon you will be sorry!!!”
I realized that the use of discussing with your father was less (like subtraction) and parked my telephone with a crashing sound on its holder.
And you remember another time
and it’s the same spring sun and the same basketball court, the same friends and the same passed-around cola bottle that still has the faint soda taste. And Imran starts the contest by saying: By the way I have Melinda’s mom over this morning and it was nice because she swallowed my sperm like yogurt because she was crazy hungry, bro. And Patrik who right away wants to show that he’s learned the game says: Sure but your mom was at my house last weekend and she was so fat I swear she couldn’t get out of the apartment if you didn’t tempt her with a huge Snickers and oil the door frame. And Melinda says: But both your moms are so fat they’re as wide as they are tall! And you say: Tuskut because
ALL
your moms are so fat they have their own area codes! and Imran says: Shut up, whores, because your moms are so fat I swear they have the equator for waist measurements! and you say: Bitch, your mom’s so ugly I swear every time I see her I think of like a huge … butt-ugly … mutant!
And then it’s quiet for a few seconds before they roar their laughter and:
WOOO!
you lost, bro, just admit you’re out!
And they continue the contest according to classic tradition. Patrik says Melinda’s mom is so dumb she got fired from giving blow jobs and Melinda says Imran’s mom is so ugly she should live in the zoo and Imran says Patrik’s mom’s teeth are yellower than butter and Melinda says Patrik’s mom’s teeth look like a chessboard and Patrik shows both his palms and gives up. Imran can smell the scent of victory and yells Melinda’s mom is so fat she lost her watch in her fat rolls when he was finger-fucking her yesterday and Melinda fumbles, Melinda is going downhill, Melinda is counted out … Melinda has a brain fart and happens to say something about Imran’s dad selling polyester Indian whore clothes.
Suddenly Imran stands up and his eyes are lasers behind his glasses and in one second the atmosphere has changed from joking to absolute seriousness. Melinda flies up reflexively because fighting while sitting is impossible and there are religion insults like Muslim cunt and idiot Catholic and I spit on your Muhammad and fuck your pope and then fucking Somali lesbian whore and fucking ugly cunt Indian and you and Patrik get between them and try to stop it but Imran’s glasses are already off and Melinda’s guard is already up and there’s the first shove and there’s the next coming back and you yell calm down calm down but they still both have threat stares and their breathing is like breathless divers’ and they’re just about to start winding up when you hear yourself yell:
QUIT IT! WE’RE BROS DAMMIT!
And your voice echoes between the box houses and some birds fly from trees and both Melinda and Imran stop short as you raise your voice and afterward like this you’re a little uncertain what was actually said but you remember that all those things you started to think but maybe didn’t formulate all the way suddenly spray out and you roar enemies are enemies and friends are family and brothers are bros and sisters are siblings and we have to stand strong and not let ourselves be separated because there are more and more racists and fucking skinheads hang out at the helicopter platform and the Nazis own the city every November 30 and it’s us against them, don’t you get it!? It’s white against black, it’s Swediots against
blattar
and I swear any
blatte
that fight with another
blatte
, he worse than the biggest Bert Karlsson, we have to stop fighting with each other, we have to unite and spread love. And every time we see a
blatte
going by in a fancy Benz, Beamer, or Audi I swear we never play Swediots and play jealous instead we just make a fist in the air and show respect because what the racists want most of all is we fight with each other and we won’t do that, shit we’ll even show the fist of respect if it a cheap damn sellout Iranian who’s driving a Volkswagen Passat, it don’t matter, Iranian, Assyrian, Polski—
blatte
is
blatte!
Now shake hands.
Your friends look at you and you can’t explain where the yelling voice came from, you just know that you have suddenly gone from a regular person to something much bigger, you’re a U.N. diplomat, you are Malcolm and Gandhi combined, you are Palme reborn. Then come the laughs and they crack up and poke you in the ribs and Imran says: Wzup, Prophet! and Patrik says: Total Martin Luther King! But they do it with complete
love and the best respect and Imran and Melinda make peace and they both say sorry and when you say goodbye in the dusk you feel like something has grown on the inside.
And now, afterward, when you’re writing these words in a poorly lit hotel room in Gothenburg after a reading at Högsbo library, you have trouble remembering why Dads always had to be defended and Moms always made dirty. Maybe because Dads’ positions were way too precarious to be tested.
Or maybe because your Dads were your eternal heroes who will never become anything else
?
Write me … You may certainly formulate yourself freely, but … the Swedish in the above sections seems me more unpolished than in the previous parts. Is this your intention or your carelessness?
At the parallel time I realized that your father’s position was more demanding than he wanted to admit. He feared that Sweden’s coming recession would threaten his studio. At the same time, he noticed how Swedes still observed him with the glances of suspicion. Despite his success they weighed him in a constant ambition of predicting his actions. He was still threatened by the smothering net of prejudices and in sympathy for all of this I forgave him the belated payment of my loaned economy. Oh, how tragically transparent are all those people in our lives who do not cement our prejudices!
I promised myself never to become one who does not forgive mistakes that people implement in their weak moments. Like a godlike reward for my amnesty, the poker cards began to stimulate me again; soon I had won back my debt, then I expanded it to a considerable profit and one evening I returned home with a capital
that was adequate for investing the lot where since the days of my youth I had projected my hotel!
It’s the nineties and fall
when the gaze of the world is aimed at Iraq for the alliance invasion. Soon you gonna start high school and it’s the time when you start reading the paper seriously and on CNN the war looks like in a film with trailers and American narrator voices and exact sights that hit exact targets and no innocents who die. On the front page of
Dagens Nyheter
is the photo of the aircraft carrier with the airplanes’ burning turbo motors and arrows show the simplicity of the attack and everything is static and blood-free, about like in
Top Gun
. You sense that something is wrong and try to talk to Dads.
But Dads have closed himself in the studio and only come out on weekends with a crooked back and red eyes and a constant tension headache. Dads have gotten a different smell and become mute and refuse to talk about the Gulf War. Something has happened in Tunisia that’s made Dads have to take Treo tablets until the metal tubes fill their own glass bowl in the kitchen and Moms watch anxiously from the outside.
Instead you talk with friends and in the evenings you start to hang out in the city and most often it’s you, Melinda, and Imran, because Patrik is starting to have problems coming into town because his parents have become worried about the change in his clothing style and his new vocabulary.
It’s you with the downy mustache that’s sometimes enough for you to buy near beer at 7-Eleven, the black synthetic jacket with the blue panther print on the back
and worn-down Ewing shoes. It’s Melinda with a grown-out Afro and a special comb in imitation ebony, give-blood T-shirts from her mom’s job, and heavy, dragging LA Gear sneakers with double laces, black and white. It’s Imran with a shiny polyester shirt, red-striped bandanna, and black-and-white flannel shirt buttoned with one button at the top. Everyone’s jeans are supermega-extra loose with too-big waists, perfect for highest-kick contests and secretly placed
brännboll
bat. All of you have drawn tattoos between your thumb and index finger and around your necks are just-bought bling-bling chains, which look like shining gold at first, but after the first shower slowly but surely start to change color to green rust.
Together you sit on the backs of benches or at the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s and talk about all of those subjects that at that time meant more than anything. Is Dr. Dre really a real doctor? Is Paula Abdul really an Arab (as you stubbornly maintain)? Where exactly is Compton? Does Madonna have to have specially pointed boobs for them to work in that cone bra? Where do you get the cheapest fake ID? What’s up after school? Is it true that you get crazy drunk if you put sugar in beer? What’s the best practice for balling once it’s time? (Imran: I mean, I’ve heard, but I haven’t tried it myself, but apparently you can take an orange and make a hole in it and then boil it and then you can stick in your cock and it’s supposed to like feel totally like
punani
but remember like I said I haven’t tried it. You: You’d have to find a fucking huge orange. Both, with roaring voices: Yeah, really, huge-ass, super gigantic. Melinda: You are fucking insane. You: Maybe a melon would be better.)
Sometimes you get into politics and you agree that
there’s something fishy about the pictures from the Gulf War and you keep talking Sweden and Melinda says she saw skinheads again at Slussen and Imran says a Swediot-alcoholic spit on the windshield and yelled Muslim whore when his mom dropped his sister off at handball practice last week. And you think about his beautiful steel-banged sister and say: Shouldn’t there be an organization that unites all
blattar
that makes it obvious that
blattar
must never fight with each other but should fight the system instead? And they nod and agree and while you’re finding unity Dads seem to be splitting in half.
Dads sit quiet at the dinner table while Moms try to tempt out Dads from before with wine and appetizers and her weekend face with makeup. You try to tell about basketball games where you ruled poor Swedelows and when it doesn’t work you tell about how Patrik made a scene when his shop teacher read his middle name wrong and called him Jörgen instead of Jorge. Do you know what he did then? He just bent his head back at the exact right angle and yelled:
Orale vato loco!
but he did it with just the right Spanish pronunciation and … Moms listen and little brothers listen but not Dads and then it doesn’t feel particularly interesting to keep telling.
Dads’ eyes have lost their glow and Dads are starting to look like shells and Dads seem emptied of color.
Except that time when the news is telling about Saddam’s Scud missiles at Israel and then Dads suddenly get up from the easy chair so the blanket flutters to the ground and yell: How can
ALL
Arab leaders be such damned merry idiots? And Dads’ cheeks glow and his fists shake and your eyes meet.
It’s the nineties and dark news bills warn of coming recession and headlines shriek about mass immigration of refugees and it’s Iraqis and Yugoslavians and Somalis by the thousands and more thousands who are invading our beautiful country and robbing our travel trailers and raping our women. Soon the new party New Democracy is launched, the mass media latches on, and there are articles and public meetings and stacked crates. It’s that guy Bouvin who maintains that Swedish aid is causing a catastrophe by helping African children survive (because they should actually be eaten up by wild animals). It’s Bert Karlsson who says that ninety percent of all crimes against the elderly are committed by Gypsies and wishes that Bengt Westerberg’s daughter would be infected with
HIV
by a refugee. It’s Ian Wachtmeister with the fisherman’s hat and hawk nose who shouts about “full speed ahead” and thinks all refugees should be tested for AIDS and no mosques should be allowed in Sweden and the Swediots laugh and the public meetings are a success and Dads?
Dads sit quietly.
And you remember the papers that form stacks in your room and you start to clip headlines about firebombs in refugee camps and assaults by racists and you read
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
and listen to Public Enemy while the attacks on immigrants wander from the news bills to headlines to articles to notices and the police call them “schoolboy pranks” and Dads?
Dads sit quietly.
The only thing that rouses Dads’ second-long engagement is the immigration question. But not in the right way. Because Dads start to call the immigrants “them” and Dads say: After all, there are getting to be a few too
many immigrants here in Sweden and Dads say: After all, there are still many who don’t act as they should. I can understand the Swedes, because there weren’t any problems like this in the eighties. And lots of immigrants are lazy idiots who just sit around and live on welfare and tightly hold on to their traditions.
And one time when you’re sitting in front of
Rapport
, Dads suddenly yell that one actually
MUST
crap down on
EVERYONE
who commits a crime and refuses to learn Swedish! And you say crack down and Dads say crack? and you say crack and Dads become quiet again.