Free Montecore by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

she studies my shabby status, and expresses in a whisper:
    “Couldn’t you have called first?”
    And I find no response. No words are nearby to me. All that exists is she. She! I sobered myself quickly, transported the bottle to my inside pocket, and followed her to the metro.
    Since this day we have lived in fantastic symbiosis in her little two-piecer where Bob Marley sits as a poster on the wall and odor of the incense is to me homey. Pernilla flies domestically so it is seldom that I am forced to pass longer times in isolation.When she is working I associate with my notebook where I collectionize observations and poetic phrases. Like for example this: “Sweden … oh, Sweden. A land of quiet metro cars, delicious women, and possibilities of the plurality. Sweden is airy cleanness, watery celestiality, and breathtaking views from centrally located bridges. Everything in Sweden is odorless and colorless, properly squared, white and pink and soft in resemblance to the forearm skin that is Pernilla’s. Oh, Pernilla’s skin. Only one of numberous motives for why I chose to leave my best friend and newly started photographer career.”
    The celebrating of Christmas was lived through by me without great difficulty. Before the festival Pernilla said:
    “Just so you know—Swedes’ Christmas traditions are a very internal affair and it takes many years before one reaches the status of being invited as an external guest.”
    Consequently I passed my Christmas holidays waiting solitarily in Pernilla’s apartment. The silence of the neighborhood was tombish. Nowhere was there the tiniest indication that this was a festival of rejoicing. I portioned my company with the television, I forced myself to understand sporadic Swedish words and mixed my
julmust
with alcoholic reinforcement. I played my newly invested Stevie Wonder record. I smoked frequent cigarettes on the snow-filled balcony. The time without Pernilla was experienced by me as bizarrely protracted. I do not understand what she has done with me. Is it really this that is called love, Kadir? To experience oneself in solitary status as so split that each breath becomes an effort?
    Pernilla returned from her parents two days after the eve of Christmas and I noted the modified shine of her eyes.
    “What has taken place?” I interpellated.
    “Nothing.”
    “Come on, tell me.”
    “No … I do not want to summarize it.”
    “My dear Pernilla, let us not carry secrets between us. Now portion me your emotion.”
    Pernilla sighed her lungs and vibrated her lower lip.
    “It is just that … Do you know how it feels to be crestfallen by the prejudices of the people you are closest to?”
    “Well, that emotion is actually not particularly known to me.”
    “Then you do not know how I feel. My mother is scared to the death over our initiated relationship. Ever since I told her about you she has warned me cyclically about the aggressive temperaments of Muslims. She has presented me numberous articles about Muslim terror; she persists in calling you ‘the gold digger.’ ”
    “Hmm …”
    “And now she refused to invite you to our Christmas celebration.”
    “But … you said that the celebrating of Christmas was familially internal …”
    “I lied. My older brother’s goddamn tennis partner and his girlfriend from the U.S. were invited. The whole neighborhood gathered on Christmas Day. Neighbors, cousins, the cousins’ kids’ goddamn dogs. But not you, who share both my love and my lodging. Sometimes I really hate them. HATE. ”
    Here her tears burst and I held her shaking shoulders and hugged her warmth. I thought: “Even her crying presents its own character. Pernilla’s crying is so far from the generality of other women. Never can it be referred to resignation or weakness. Instead it is vibrations with volcanic internal hate. She dries all the tears with her hand as quick as the windshield wipers of a car. Every tear that she does not succeed in