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equipment: the flash cables, the tripods, inside-out umbrellas, strongly aimed spotlight shine. I counted the number of cameras to be three of varied style and model. In focus for the tripod stood a half sofa on a patterned rug, and as photographic props the Greek had invested fezzes, fake mustaches, gold platters, tea services, djellabas, veils, decorative hookahs, and eight or nine pairs of leather slippers.
    The Greek indicated how your father should place his body on the half sofa and convinced him to decorate his head with a very humorous turban. Your father did not find the humor so humorous. While Abbas was flashed by cameras I felt the bodily emotion that most closely resembles cold back winds. Without knowing why, my arm skin was bowled up to small bumps, as though I could feel that this glimpse would have great consequences for thefuture. All the while the flashes blinded and the Greek pronounced “Fabulous!” and “Magnificent!” and “Perfect!”
    The work-related time was expanded and the amount of photo clicks only continued and continued. Sometimes breaks were taken for communication between your father and the Greek, but because my tongue at that time only controlled Arabic and a little French, their English meaning was not understood.
    The Greek wanted approximately “Relax” and “Yes yes” and your father wanted “No no.” This was repeated approximately every five minutes while I glided my fingers through black mini-photo squares, negative cards, piled fashion magazines, and glossy photo books. My surprise became great when the Greek suddenly left his camera to show your father how his ultramodern gigolo jeans ought to be unbuttoned and abducted for the sake of the picture. Your father responsed with an exploding aggression and the result was the blood gush of a Greek nose; your father’s foot visited the Greek’s stomach and your father’s mouth added a glob of spit on the Greek’s neck where he lay coughing on the ground. The tumult of turbulence, Greek hands wanted to catch your father, who, with the effectiveness of Van Damme, ducked and hopped aside, served new strikes and kicks combined with a cascade of insultations which noted the Greek’s mother’s resemblance to a prostitute and the Greek’s own resemblance to a stray dog.
    A second later your father and I rushed our legs toward the stairs; the Greek did not manage to collect his body and we did not reduce our running tempo until we were on the street, three blocks away. Then I noted that my hands held one of the Greek’s photo books. Observe: This was not my intention. Write:
    “Dear reader. Kadir is neither thief nor raven; in the confusion of the tumult his hands had acted solitarily and the consequence was the collection of a book by the photographer Philippe Halsman. This book was delivered by Kadir to my father as proof of his desire to share his future friendship.”
    In coming scenes your father and I begin to restore our amicable duo. Together we became the only people in Jendouba’s early seventies who presented a rebellious discrepancy against the ideal of tradition. Our nights were passed on the roof of the student housing where we shared our lodging. With stars as our audience we smoked hashish and drank Celtia and listened to your father’s audiotapes from Tunis. In the quiet of the evening we echoed soul at the sky with Otis Redding’s stomp and James Brown’s rasp and Etta James’s blues. For the melodramatic final, the authentic French song was vocalized by not-particularly-authentic Frenchmen like Charles Aznavour, Léo Ferré, or Edith Piaf.
    As musical illustration there were Halsman’s magical photos. We let ourselves be shined by eternity in his photographic excellence. There were celebrated actors; a stripe-shirted Brando, a melancholy Bogart, a smoking Hitchcock with a little dickey bird at the end of his cigar. There were assorted Negroes: a yawning Muhammad Ali, a perspiring Louis Armstrong, and