Read Online Montecore by Jonas Hassen Khemiri - Free Book Online
Authors: Jonas Hassen Khemiri
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Cherifa, living in Jendouba. I commented on nothing.
Night after night for three weeks your father invaded the
paillote
with the same imbecilic dawn cry:
“Her name is Bergman! Pernilla Bergman!”
How far they went sexually is unknown to my knowledge. But before their farewell they exchanged addresses and promised the promises of a future relationship.
Thus it is here that everything begins. Which will end with plane trips and moves and love and matrimony and conflicts and three confused mix sons and perpetual misunderstandings and terminal tragic silence between a son and a father.
During the coming period, Abbas placed all his wakefulness on two things: the occupation of a lab worker and the letter correspondence with Pernilla. He declared self-composed love poems to the sea instead of to German touristettes. He was TOTALLY sexually solitary (which of course supplied an increased sexual plurality for me). While I rose in the gradation of the kitchen from washer of plates to washer of glasses to preparateur of simple bar menus, your father began to serve his pictures to local papers. Soon his name was spread; he was hired to document weddings and invited to photograph before-and-after photos in a hairdresser’s salon. Abbas climbed his first steps on the steep staircase that would become his photographic career. It was as though his love for your mother motivated him to finally find a focus. Simultaneously I spent more and more time with my poker partners and planned for the upcoming establishment of my own hotel.
While waiting for new letters from Sweden, Abbas developed magical double-exposed photos in which your mother’s silhouette encountered groves or cork oaks or dramatic mountaintops. He sat sighing toward these photos for hours. Then he correspondedthem in envelopes to Sweden with specially written love poems or applied them to the wall in the
paillote
.
Then in September 1977, your mother’s longed letter of invitation arrived. Abbas was free to journey. What happened? Did he telephone her and travel directly—euphoric from the chance? Did he immediately bid farewell to the photo lab and whiz up over the Mediterranean? No, instead something happened which I cannot explicate.
Your father made himself transparent.
First he passed a week with a quiet, overcast mood. Then he was just gone. A notation in the
paillote
expressed a simple wish: “Bear no worry. I will return soon.”
I trusted your father and waited calm. Hours became days. No one heard from him. Achraf from the laboratory afflicted us in a rage and I could only shrug my shoulders and questioningly tell the truth: that I knew nothing about Abbas’s disappearance.
Then one morning your father was back. He invaded the
paillote
at dawn with his camera around his neck, a stale stink from his tight polyester shirt, and a multitude of twigs in his black hair.
“Kadir! Now I am going. I have found my insight. It is time.”
“Where have you been?”
“On a photographic and spiritual expedition!” responsed your father with his smile shining.
Still today I am unstable about where and why he localized his body during these eight days. Your father can be so curious. Perhaps one must just observe and accept.
I admit that I tried to convince him to stay in Tabarka. I described my plans to open my own hotel and cautioned him humoristically about Sweden, that northerly country of chilly blonds, Eskimos, and fully frozen winters. I pointed out the risk of colds and the threat from hungry polar bears. But your father only laughed and promised his cyclical letter correspondence. “A friend’s loss is a loss. But a life without one’s beloved Pernilla is no life.”
This he repeated again and again. Only to later pronounce an interpellation that would be fatal:
“I must, however, ask you for a favor of gargantuan value. The tongues of the village whisper about your latest period’s gigantic prosperity at the poker table. Can you delegate me
Night after night for three weeks your father invaded the
paillote
with the same imbecilic dawn cry:
“Her name is Bergman! Pernilla Bergman!”
How far they went sexually is unknown to my knowledge. But before their farewell they exchanged addresses and promised the promises of a future relationship.
Thus it is here that everything begins. Which will end with plane trips and moves and love and matrimony and conflicts and three confused mix sons and perpetual misunderstandings and terminal tragic silence between a son and a father.
During the coming period, Abbas placed all his wakefulness on two things: the occupation of a lab worker and the letter correspondence with Pernilla. He declared self-composed love poems to the sea instead of to German touristettes. He was TOTALLY sexually solitary (which of course supplied an increased sexual plurality for me). While I rose in the gradation of the kitchen from washer of plates to washer of glasses to preparateur of simple bar menus, your father began to serve his pictures to local papers. Soon his name was spread; he was hired to document weddings and invited to photograph before-and-after photos in a hairdresser’s salon. Abbas climbed his first steps on the steep staircase that would become his photographic career. It was as though his love for your mother motivated him to finally find a focus. Simultaneously I spent more and more time with my poker partners and planned for the upcoming establishment of my own hotel.
While waiting for new letters from Sweden, Abbas developed magical double-exposed photos in which your mother’s silhouette encountered groves or cork oaks or dramatic mountaintops. He sat sighing toward these photos for hours. Then he correspondedthem in envelopes to Sweden with specially written love poems or applied them to the wall in the
paillote
.
Then in September 1977, your mother’s longed letter of invitation arrived. Abbas was free to journey. What happened? Did he telephone her and travel directly—euphoric from the chance? Did he immediately bid farewell to the photo lab and whiz up over the Mediterranean? No, instead something happened which I cannot explicate.
Your father made himself transparent.
First he passed a week with a quiet, overcast mood. Then he was just gone. A notation in the
paillote
expressed a simple wish: “Bear no worry. I will return soon.”
I trusted your father and waited calm. Hours became days. No one heard from him. Achraf from the laboratory afflicted us in a rage and I could only shrug my shoulders and questioningly tell the truth: that I knew nothing about Abbas’s disappearance.
Then one morning your father was back. He invaded the
paillote
at dawn with his camera around his neck, a stale stink from his tight polyester shirt, and a multitude of twigs in his black hair.
“Kadir! Now I am going. I have found my insight. It is time.”
“Where have you been?”
“On a photographic and spiritual expedition!” responsed your father with his smile shining.
Still today I am unstable about where and why he localized his body during these eight days. Your father can be so curious. Perhaps one must just observe and accept.
I admit that I tried to convince him to stay in Tabarka. I described my plans to open my own hotel and cautioned him humoristically about Sweden, that northerly country of chilly blonds, Eskimos, and fully frozen winters. I pointed out the risk of colds and the threat from hungry polar bears. But your father only laughed and promised his cyclical letter correspondence. “A friend’s loss is a loss. But a life without one’s beloved Pernilla is no life.”
This he repeated again and again. Only to later pronounce an interpellation that would be fatal:
“I must, however, ask you for a favor of gargantuan value. The tongues of the village whisper about your latest period’s gigantic prosperity at the poker table. Can you delegate me
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