Montecore

by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

  It is soon obvious that you are something of a gifted game master. At first, of course, it was mostly fights with black orcs and princesses with hard-as-steel slanted bangs and Hubba Bubba gum who must be rescued. But soon you learn more about the world. You read up on monsters and their characteristics, you learn everything about Cerberus and Evard’s Black Tentacles, ice dragons and hydras. Imran has played with four other gangs of friends before, in three different cities. But no other game master has created adventures like you. No one else has let all times be mixed together into one, no one else supplies rakshasas with mini-Uzis or basilisks with mirrors (so that their petrifying gazes can be sent around corners). No other game master lets two-winged dinosaurs attack on those air skateboards from Back to the Future. And only you persist in never letting the adventure end. Because right when the head boss is conquered and Miss Super Zulu Sister and MC Mustachio are catching their breath and doing high fives and are about to take the treasure, some extra-hungry hippogriffs or some manticores with newly sharpened claws and rocket packs always show up. And Imran shrieks in fury and Melinda threatens you with a real beating but that’s life, manticores are monsters like everything else and you haven’t finished your task until you’ve gotten out of here, so what do you say? Who’s going to attack first?

  The final battle begins and it’s always just the right level of bloody; Mustachio throws his razor-sharp vinyl records and Zulu Sister peppers with the AK-47, and the manticores attack with their tail spikes. Just when it seems that the lion monsters with the human faces have the advantage, you let Mustachio get out his Forty Ounce beer grenade and the manticores flee and Zulu and Mustachio fall down to the ground half dead. But alive. With yet another treasure. You did it! Again!

  And you have just written “Again!” when you’re struck by the fact that “manticore” is like monte and you think about the Kroumirie Mountain Range and Dads, who says that you’re monte-men, and Moms, whose name was Bergman, and as usual you’re tempted to see a pattern, proof that nothing is random.

  But then you suddenly remember the summer of 2001 when you were in Tunis to study Arabic and had just started seeing Faiza, the first since E. who really meant something. And you two live in that run-down apartment with the piss-smelling stairwell, and of course you tell the story about your parents’ first date and the symbolism of their names, Moms Bergman and Dads Khemiri. And Faiza laughs and lets you look up the letters of Khemiri in her Arabic dictionary and you look up KH and you find KH-M and you find KH-M-R.-And you realize that the consonants without their vowels mean … drunkard. And you remember that then, sitting there on the brown sofa with round cigarette burns, you think that nothing is a pattern, that everything is random, and you promise yourself to stop looking and stop missing Dads.

  You contemplate whether you should really keep the chapter above.

  You are still contemplating.

  Now you have decided.

  You push control s and paste in the next heading from Kadir’s mail.15

  MORE DETAILS OF YOUR FATHER’S SUCCESS

  What else is there to tell? Dads finally get customers. But instead of artistic photographs that capture the fleeting spirit of time, Dads capture the cairn terrier Matilde in the middle of a jump. Instead of documenting the landing in Normandy like Robert Capa, Dads document a conductor’s bulldog in a humorous high hat. Instead of summarizing impressions from his new homeland like Robert Frank, Dads summarize impressions from the Scandinavian Sealyham Terrier Society’s annual special exhibition, where the dog Torset Temptress wins both Best Bitch and Best in Show.

  Dads buy economy packs of dog treats, print real business cards, and promise discounts to owners of standard schnauzers. Dads rescue the family finances and soon Moms can stop cutting their hair and Dads can afford squeaky brown leather jackets from Rocco Barocco. Soon you start buying juice for everyday use and Kellogg’s cornflakes instead of those crispier Eldorado ones. Soon you start having whole-grain bread instead of rye bread and one time you have Skagen shrimp salad at home and it’s a weekday and it’s just sitting there in the refrigerator and there’s not even a note about “for the weekend” and you think that this, just like this, must be what it’s like to live in the rich part of Söder and have vice president parents. But at the same time, Dads have gotten so busy. Dads always have to work late and never have time for anything and instead of photographer quotes, Dads start to mantra the lines from the pilot film Top Gun where the instructor says with a steely voice: This school is about combat. There are no points for second place. And Dads agree: “Remember that, my son, in life there are no points for the second. You always have to be the absolute best.”

  When it gets too cold out you move your role-playing into Kadir’s old room, the storeroom in the very back of the studio. You sit on the soiled mattress and make a game board from old boxes and you always close the door carefully so that your friends won’t hear how Dads answer the telephone with his enthusiastic almost-Swedish voice. Hello-this-is-Krister-you-have-the-animal-I-have-the-camera …

  Because for some reason it’s hard to hear Dads, who have given up his beautiful Khemirish where all the languages were blended with all the others until no outsider could understand. In order to instead start stumbling over consonants, abusing prepositions, and taming his tongue to approach the melody of Swedish. In the studio it works, because here Dads soon have a routine of fawning his voice and presenting himself as Krister and shooting the wind, petting cocker spaniels, and angling the reflector so that the pets’ eyes have the exact right Disney shine.

  But outside the studio it’s another world. There it only takes one single mini-mistake for Dads to be met with the obnoxious smile, the smile that smells like dill chips, uncooked meatballs, and egg farts, the smile that has hidden fangs and pats his head condescendingly and whispers clever idiot and trytofitinbutyoucan’tfoolme. The smile that laughs deep down in the belly but can’t be seen on the outside, refuses to understand Dads’ questions, and, at the same moment Dads clear their throats to try again, turns to you in order for you to act as interpreter. Explain now what Dads’ tongues can’t. But Dads don’t give up, Dads learn that it’s called Magnum’s “annual” instead of “annuary,” “deposit slips” instead of “deposition papers,” “olive oil” instead of “oil olive,” “macaroni” instead of “potties.”

  Dads learn everything that there is to know. But still. One single wrong preposition is all it takes. A single en word that should be an ett. Then their second-long pause, the pause they love, the pause that shows that no matter how much you try, we will always, ALWAYS see through you. They enjoy taking the power and waiting waiting waiting until just when Dads think they are defeated. Then they point out the right way with vowels that are quadrupled as if they were talking with a deaf imbecile. STRAAAAAIGHT AHEEEEAD, then to the LEEEEEEEEEEEFT, okay, then RIIIIIIGHT. You’re welcome. And Dads say thanks politely and bow and you’re standing alongside and feeling how something is bubbling inside.16

  YOUR GROWING CONFUSION

  You’re not sure what Kadir means by this. Confusion? Sure, the role-playing takes over that coming winter and sure, you spend most of your time in the stockroom with Melinda and Imran. But confusion? You remember that Dads start to come in and complain that you’re disturbing his clients. You apologize, tell Melinda and Imran to sit down again and try to keep the volume of their battle cries down. But soon MC Mustachio and Zulu Sister are attacked from the back by four tree leeches with poisonous yo-yos and cockatrices with solar-powered crossbows and Mustachio is trapped in a cage and tries to pry himself free with his superstrong mustache but everything looks bad until Zulu Sister remembers her hidden voodoo dolls and starts pricking them into pincushions and the dice are hit and incantations are called and in the middle of the heat of battle the magic is broken by Dads, who come roaring in: That’s enough! and overturn the game board and force you out to the courtyard.

  Why? You suppose that Dads are probably jus
t jealous that you have new, real friends. Friends who are your age, who are just like you and who understand that if you aren’t allowed to play role-playing games you can just as well go together to the mountain on the other side of the train tracks and play mountain climbers and smash icicles. The first time you do it you remind yourselves that you’re not playing, because you’re too big for that, this is also like role-playing only like in real life. And the second time you’ve made up your own mountain climber names and your own special characteristics and the third time you’ve brought along hockey helmets and ropes and a hammer and a Phillips screwdriver and Imran has an empty backpack and Melinda has plastic glasses and looks a little like that construction guy in the gay band YMCA and you laugh at her until you see yourselves in the plate glass of the video store and realize that you look at least as funny as she does. But you don’t give up, now all the damn ice must go, a mountain clearer got to do what a mountain clearer got to do. You climb up the slope, secure ropes, and bang icicles and have gotten about halfway when a hat man stops his car and yells: What are you doing, damn niggers? You always have to destroy! And you just turn around and pretend that nothing happened and are ashamed, because that’s what Dads have taught you to do. And Imran does the same. But in the corner of your eye you see how Melinda is bending down and weighing a chunk of ice in her right hand and then she chucks it straight at the man and she’s not far from hitting him and the man shields himself with his hands and roars about the police and slides himself back toward the car and you let the icicles rain over him as he accelerates himself away in a panic. You’re still standing there laughing on the edge of the mountain and you’ve won your first battle and the next time some senior citizen says something you’re ready with a supply of particularly throw-worthy icicles.

  When you’re not hanging with your friends you go to school or help with Dads’ shoots. You angle reflectors according to Dads’ instructions, you fetch photographic props, you bring out the just-bought background paintings that depict dark, drab forest paths, cloud-filled skies, or stormy wave scenery. You wipe up drool from disgusting pit bulls and take out dog biscuits for bribing. You turn on the coffee machine and welcome customers who come too early. And the whole time you keep yourself from thinking that something is wrong. Because the family is getting its finances secured, of course, and Moms regret their skepticism and one big day, one eternal day in the spring of ’89, Grandma’s little white Toyota stops outside the studio. A line-mouthed Grandma wriggles herself out of the car, straightens her blouse, and enters the studio. She looks down at Dads, who are bent over the contact sheets with the magnifier in his eye, and says in one breath: “Well-I-just-thought-I’d-see-how-it’s-going-for-you-and-I-guess-it-looks-like-it’s-going-well-that’s-great-Gösta-would-be-proud-but-yes-yes-I-don’t-want-to-be-a-bother-absolutely-not-and-coffee-no-no-I-don’t-want-to-impose-and-you-must-be-busy-just-keep-working-good-bye-then! And Dads just look at the door where Grandma was just standing, the magnifier still in his eye as Grandma catches her breath out by her Toyota like after a marathon.

  Times change. But some things are the same. Like the voices you still hear every time before you fall asleep. Like your nightly dreams and sweaty awakenings. Your way of thinking of systems for keeping fate in check. Sometimes you just have to touch yellow things and sometimes you just have to tightrope alongside a whole flower bed. Just because. And sometimes Dads get tired of all of that and make you walk right on the cracks in the sidewalk and right on bad-luck manhole covers. But only one time do Dads get so angry that you are locked in the darkroom until you silence your screaming and admit that you’re not scared at all and that you have no problem at all telling the difference between fantasy and reality.17

  THE HAPPY SUMMER OF 1989

  And you remember how you take the bikes and it’s towels on the luggage carriers and lunch bags in the bike baskets, Dads who ride the red women’s bike and Moms who ride the blue one, and you who borrow your cousin’s little red one. Then the whole happy family, first on the forest path with the pine smell and pinecone mashing and then the gravel road past the outdoor pool with real salt water and Dads’ and Moms’ legs move so slowly but their wheels so quickly while your legs are bouncing pistons and you still end up last. But they don’t ride away from you on purpose, they wait for you before the curve down to the beach and then you go on together with the sea breeze from the side to the secret sand dune that only you know, where the wind is on the lee side behind the rose hip bushes and you can drink juice and eat grapes and cheese sandwiches with peppers without anyone seeing and Dads and Moms who once kiss each other on the lips even though you’re there and of course you look away and check out ants and check out the sky and those clouds aren’t on their way here, are they? Then comes the rumble and the first drops of water, which land heavy on the plastic bags, and it’s quick packing up but it’s already too late because the drops are falling and you can hear them landing and the light sand dune sand is becoming dotted dark brown and the bike seats are already wet and all the dips are puddling and soon you stop biking fast because everyone’s jeans legs are already dark blue wet-through and everyone’s hair is loose and stringy and you taste the fruit flavor of the hair gel and Dads and Moms start to laugh and yell and you almost get a little scared about being alone in the middle of an empty beach in a rainstorm with two psycho parents but they keep laughing and one time they hold hands even though the diagonal wind makes it hard to balance and then you do the same, laughing and yelling, and the rain roars while the whole happy family rides the beach road, the gravel road, and the forest path back up to the house.

  And you remember summer days that are called workdays and everyone, absolutely everyone, helps with the raking and the outhouse painting and the cleaning of the creek and the sawing down of shading pines. And you remember Dads, who stand on the roof and clean the gutters, Dads with a borrowed lawn mower in the area that used to just be for compost, Dads who chop wood in the dusk until uncles come out and say that the woodpile was full a long time ago. Dads with bulked-up arms and a V-shaped upper body in overalls with paint flecks, who fix flat bike tires and repaint window frames and fell birches with cracking sounds. Dads, who bend down with the rake to fill hundreds of plastic buckets with needles and pinecones, Dads who suddenly stop and call your name because the back pain has come and you have to support Dads into the house and their face is grimacing when they slowly slowly stumble along and lie down on the sofa. And then Grandma’s voice, murmuring from the kitchen: So convenient. And you who don’t really understand what she means.

  And you have just written “ … what she means” and put the period when you realize that you’re mixing up summers. Because it can’t be eighty-nine when you borrowed your cousin’s bike, right? Because you saw it a year or two ago, rusted out and tiny. And the creek was already drained in eighty-seven and Dads’ back pain must have been when little brothers were newborns because Grandma would never say that in eighty-nine. You must remember wrong. The summer of eighty-nine, what really happened then?

  This is the summer when finances for once are not the family’s constant concern. It’s the first summer that Dads don’t need to work extra at either SL or a restaurant. Dads come along to the country and Grandma makes an effort to not clear her throat over Dads’ strange ways of making bread and killing mosquitoes by throwing hand towels at the ceiling and his even more suspicious way of cleaning off tartar with a razor blade. It’s the summer when Hallandsås for once doesn’t serve up weeks of rain and little brothers have gotten teeth and learned to run and can follow instructions to build Legos. It’s the summer when you take sunset walks on beaches like real families and sometimes Grandma comes along and sometimes Grandma and Dads agree that the day was nice but that the sunset was really more beautiful the day before. Dads pull little brothers in the wagon proudly like a real dad and in the evenings you can maybe afford mini golf or arcade games in front of the downtown kiosk or soft-serve from the ice
cream bar or bulk candy for watching track and field on TV. And Dads are nice and polite, Dads eat their kassler and speak their Swedish and don’t even start a discussion when Moms’ aunts comment on the hundred-meter race and the camera shows the waving Kenyan (he looks dangerous) and then the waving black American (wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley) and the waving Irishman (oh, he looks nice). Dads just swallow hard and look out at the chopping block and soon the extra shed has so much wood that it will last for the next four summers.

  It’s this summer that you meet Patrik, who’s a few years older and has premature pimples and legs bent like parentheses, and together you spy on uncles’ wild midsummer parties and taste schnapps when no one’s looking and discuss who is prettier, Madonna or Paula Abdul.

  But pretty often you are homesick for Melinda and Imran, because sure Patrik is great and stuff, but at the same time you’re very different, because Patrik’s parents are totally Swedish and Patrik has another country place that’s near the Riviera and they have sunny balconies and waiters as servants there. You sit on the beach and Patrik tells about his luxurious school in Täby and his sister who got to go on a language course abroad and his jeans are real Levi’s and he has a bought tape of Guns N’ Roses and … what do you counter with? How can you answer? You who live in a Million Program box in the city and have secondhand jeans and not even a single video game? You who have never been the richest and never been the poorest but instead have always been the constant in-between. You just take Patrik by the forearm and lead him up from the beach to the sunset light where long-shadowed Dads are standing, still, a whole afternoon later, with paint-flecked overalls and the whole yard full of billions of raked-up leaf piles. Dads with a bare chest and a slightly bigger stomach than previous summers but with the same just-worked smell and the same eternal greeting: Hello, you damn fools! And you don’t bother with introductions, you just ask Dads to do the knuckle-cracking trick and Dads raise his hands and crack his knuckles, one after the other, and the sound echoes forth as it always does and it gets white around Patrik’s pupils and on the way back to the beach Patrik is finally quiet.