In “Made in Wonderland,” the Tunisian father at the center of the story is a force. He’s a man whose dreams take up all the space in a room. He sees the world richly—be it through the immersive scents of his Tunisian cuisine, the verdant landscapes he tends, the five-language jousts with the women in his life, or on the set of his chaotic student film Made in Wonderland, he captivates. His greatest admirers, his daughters, are enraptured by his consuming vision. I chose this story because it brilliantly turns this vision on itself, and what the girls see is profound, lucid, and heartbreaking. — Guest Judge Julie Iromuanya
Los Angeles, California 1973
Pa was making a film called Made in Wonderland, and my sister, Jessica, and I were going to be in the final scene. He’d been preoccupied by the movie my whole life, but since he worked as a gardener during the day and did his film school assignments at night, it was taking him forever to finish. The last scene had to be completed so Pa could enter the National Film Student Competition and achieve his dream of being a filmmaker. I thought it was going to be easy because our role in the film involved sitting at the picnic table in the yard and eating a snack as we watched the actors go by. Except, it turned out there was nothing easy about being in a movie after all.
In the days leading up to filming, Pa made a North African feast for his cast and crew because he paid people by feeding them. He was from Tunisia, and everyone went crazy over his cooking. The day before the shoot, I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water and was immersed in the smells of sautéing garlic, bay leaves, cumin, and coriander. Pa stood at the stove stirring the couscous broth and throwing spices in while my Tunisian grandma, whom we called Bavica, shaped boulettes—meat and potato dumplings—in her hands. They yelled at each other in five languages, none of which I understood. But they didn’t sound angry, like when Mom and Pa fought in French—it was more of a loud banter. Bavica washed her hands, took over my attempt at reaching the faucet on my tiptoes, and handed me a glass of water. Then she went back to the story she was telling Pa, which included her impersonating a fancy lady by placing the backs of her hands under her chin, turning her head side to side, and batting her long black eyelashes like Betty-Boop. She pushed up at the bottom of her hair, then ran her palms swanky style over her hips. As a final gesture, she slapped her behind, stuck out her tongue, and let loose a long raspberry.
Bavica noticed my empty water glass, and she took it from me, cradled my chin, said endearing words in Arabic, and sent a light shower of spit at my face, protecting me from the evil eye. Picking up my arm, she gave me a love bite, not too hard, but hard enough that I let out a squeal of shock. Pa noticed and slipped into English, saying, “Ma, in America, we don’t bite the children.” She yelled back at him, and when their voices began venting harsh-sounding words that didn’t sound playful anymore, I took my cue to exit the kitchen.
I walked through the living room, where my sister, Jessica, sat reading Little House on the Prairie. Clematis vines covered the bay window, and the sun shone in slivers and shimmied like the ocean across the Indian print blanket that covered the couch. Her face was set hard in concentration, speckled sunbeams dancing across it. Jessica was six, a year older than me, and all the grownups were so impressed with her reading abilities. What a showoff.
I opened the front door and walked outside, holding up the edges of my floor-length prairie dress as I stepped through a maze of mini hills and crevasses along the cement walkway. Splattered avocados from the tree overhead smeared streaks of brown onto the pavement. A recently dropped fruit begged to be squished underfoot, and I popped it out of the peel, oozing the light green mush between my toes. Too bad Jessica wasn’t out here so I could make her scream in disgust.
I wandered the block on a foraging mission, hunting for sweet pink berries and sour grasses that grew in the bushes along the sidewalk. We lived on the corner of Santa Monica and Second Avenue, where palm trees lined the streets and swayed in the ocean breeze. We were a few blocks from the beach, the Santa Monica Pier, and the Pacific Palisades. Our house encircled a shared yard with several other dilapidated craftsman bungalows. These were the last old houses in the neighborhood. Condominiums sprawled around us, and towering concrete buildings encroached on all sides.
The bush that separated our yard from the sidewalk had a small crop of berries, and I climbed through the underbrush to pick them. Harvest in hand, I tucked my long dress under me and ate my stash. Through the leafy bushes, I saw our landlady, Mrs. Kirby, come out to her back porch with a broom in hand. Her house abutted the yard, and she swept her steps with scraping strokes, sending a cloud of dust flying. Her personality changed depending on who you were with. When Jessica and I had been out here with Mom, Mrs. Kirby told her how sweet we were, and she gave us Almond Roca candies. My sister and I resembled our white American mother. Pa’s brown skin had turned darker from working as a gardener in the Los Angeles sunshine.
One time, we’d been in the yard with Pa playing our favorite game—Baboons. He was the papa baboon, and Jessica and I were the mischievous babies, and we’d flung ourselves at his back, over and over, only to be tossed to the ground. While I was in exhilarating mid-tumble, Mrs. Kirby appeared on her back porch. The rhinestones on her cat-eyed glasses sparkled in the sun as she yelled at Pa, “Get the hell outta my yard before I call the police! Go back to Mexico where you belong, you monkey!”
A terrifying screaming match ensued between Pa and Mrs. Kirby. Jessica and I clung to our father, one on each hip, with our arms wrapped over his chest. His volume was a booming roar over our sobs. Pa became a scary monster when he got angry. When he lost his temper, there was nothing to do but brace yourself and hold on tight to whatever you could grab, which, in this case, was him.
Now I looked through the bushes at Mrs. Kirby sweeping her steps and sniped dagger eyes at her. Pa called to me from the house, “Ava, lunchtime!” The sound of his voice caused our landlady to bristle, and her face pinched into a scowl. I leaped out of the bushes, startling the old witch into a jolt that made the broom eject from her hand, and I skipped across the yard towards our back door, my dress flowing behind me.
Lunch was a sneak preview of the meal we’d have the following day with the cast and crew: couscous with boulettes. I shoveled boulettes into my mouth like a feral cat because there was nothing so delicious as the dumplings with the soft outer layer, a thin slice of boiled potato, and savory ground lamb with cinnamon and saffron in the middle. Bavica laughed when she saw me devouring my food and went to the kitchen for more. Jessica tried to match my boulette eating fervor, but she had nothing on me. My sister may have been way smarter than me, but at least I had her beat in the boulette-eating competition.
Pa came in with his plate and said, “Ha—I knew it! The baboons were hungry, no?”
After lunch, all of us had full bellies, and there was a lull in the sun-drenched dining room. Pa got up to clear our plates and said, “I think we deserve to watch the afternoon matinée.” My father always wanted to go the movies. His true passion was for the French New Wave Cinema, but unlike his artsy film school friends, he’d watch just about anything.
When we went to the movies, it was a loud affair. Bavica talked through entire films, giving an opinionated commentary. During the love scenes, Pa yelled, “Bousa, bousa! Kiss her, kiss her!” Jessica and I hid our heads in our hands in embarrassment.
“But what about Made in Wonderland?” I asked. “Is everything ready for the shoot tomorrow?”
“Why didn’t I make you my assistant director, Ava?” Pa leaned down and kissed my head, and I beamed with pride. I appreciated that he recognized my efforts. Even though I’d done no real work for the final shoot of Made in Wonderland, fretting about the film’s completion felt like a big exertion on my part. Pa went on, “Everything is under control. We’ve succeeded to get ready. I propose we take the afternoon off, no? I’ll check the paper to see what’s playing at the El Miro. I think it’s a good spaghetti western.”
“No way, I hate westerns,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, westerns are so boring,” I agreed.
“What are you crazy baboons talking about? How is it possible that my kids say this?” Pa asked, stopping en route to the kitchen and setting the plates back down on the table. “Did I tell you the story? When I was a kid in Tunis, not much older than you and my parents and my little brothers were taking a nap, my brother Mimi and I snuck out with a nickel in our pockets.”
Bavica spoke, acting as Pa’s narrator, her tone a continuous low rumble, “C’est vrai. Il a fait ça. Il est fou mon fils!”
“And we ran across the city to the cinema. We bought the tickets,” Pa said, “and went up to the balcony to the seats. Back then, it was one theater in town with a big screen—everyone went—you sat together in the dark and felt the magic of the film. And Mimi and me, we didn’t speak English yet, but with the westerns, it didn’t matter, you just understood. The Duke rides his horse into town…”
Pa turned his back to us and stepped a few paces away. He stayed like that for several beats, letting us hang in anticipation. I shuffled my feet and tapped my fingers, waiting.
“Et voilà!” Bavica shouted.
When Pa turned back around, he’d transformed into a cowboy riding a horse, his arm twirling a lasso overhead. He pulled the reins of his imaginary steed to a stop, got off, tied it to a hitching post, and sauntered bowlegged through the swinging doors of a saloon. Hands at his hips like guns in a holster, knees bent, face screwed up into a menacing scowl with one eye half closed. And then Pa spoke in the manner he remembered westerns sounding like to him as a kid—a long string of gibberish with a Cowboy drawl: “I wanna shang-a-lang-a-bang-a-rang-a.” Then he pulled the guns out of the holster, pantomimed spinning them around on his fingers, fired them into the air, “Pow-pow,” blew into one, and then the other, and put them back. He jumped deeper into a bandy-legged squat and grimaced harder than ever like he was going to show those bad guys who’s the boss.
Bavica pounded the table, Jessica doubled over, and I fell out of my chair. “More Tunisian cowboy!” we yelled. “Encore!”
* * *
That night, I lay in bed in the dark next to Jessica, who was crying because she missed Mom. Our mom had been spending weekends in Long Beach at her lover Susan’s house. Our parents were married but had other lovers, and this seemed normal to me at the time. I also tried to feel sad about missing Mom, but when I searched for the feelings, I couldn’t find them. I wondered if something was wrong with me. But I had Pa, and my grandmother was in a bed across the room, snoring softly.
Eventually, Jessica’s whimpering and Bavica’s snores became quiet. I lay in the darkness thinking about kidnappers. There was the one from the movie Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang with the long pointy nose who captured kids in nets while saying, “I smell children.” I thought about the Moonies who lived in a big brick building along the boardwalk, and once, when walking past, I’d glanced towards a window and saw kids with shaved heads except for a tuft at the top, dressed in orange clothes. I’d asked Mom about them, and she said they’d all been brainwashed. I lay in the dark, paralyzed with fear.
The quiet was soon replaced by the sound of Pa’s electric typewriter. He worked on his screenplays at night. First came the whirring noise of the paper loading. Then the long stream of “tap-tap-tap-tap,” of the keys. Finally, the “ding” at the end of the line and the “chug-chug-chug-chug,” going back to the beginning.
It was a rhythmic pattern that lulled me into sleep.
I woke up sometime later in a panic from a nightmare: I was being marched in a line by people wearing cloaks over their heads—the Moonies had gotten me! The sound of Pa’s typewriter calmed me and put me back to sleep. Later still, I woke up and the house was quiet. I sat up in bed and took a sniff. The smell of noodles and garlic wafted from the kitchen. If Pa thought he could have a midnight snack without me, he was wrong. I got out of bed and stood in kitchen doorway with my hands on my hips. Pa was facing the counter with his back to me, pouring a generous amount of olive oil onto the pasta.
“Are you eating without me?” I demanded.
“Agh!” Pa jumped up, startled. “Why are you up so late, Ava? It’s after midnight, no?”
“I smelled the noodles.”
“You caught me.” He spooned out a plateful and handed it over.
We sat at the dining room table under the reddish glow of the hanging stained glass lampshade. Pa’s typewriter looked like a disheveled third guest, surrounded by papers in piles and crumpled heaps.
“What are you writing?”
“I’m making last-minute changes to the Made in Wonderland script.”
“What’s it about, anyway?” The film had been part of my life for as long as I could remember, and I’d always felt the pressing need for it to get made so that Pa could succeed in becoming a filmmaker. However, beyond my yearning for its completion, it hadn’t occurred to me until now to ask about the story.
“It’s about an immigrant—a man from a faraway land named Borris, who arrives to America as a stowaway on a ship. The year is 1965. Actually, he finds himself on the UCLA campus, and the Students for a Democratic Society are very sympathetic to him. They like to have a foreigner as a comrade. Alors, he becomes involved in their revolutionary activities. Borris adores the hippie movement and the young people who want to make change to the world. But he’s never entirely accepted. It’s a story of being an outsider, like me, and the struggle to find a home.”
“But you have a home.”
“It’s true.” A trembling sigh heaved from his chest. It was his worrying breath—the sound Pa made when he was feeling blue, thinking about his family, scattered around the world since they left Tunisia, and his brother, Mimi, who’d died as a teenager. I’d only just started to understand the concept of death, and I felt it looming constantly. Why did we go about the business of living when we were going to die? I couldn’t let him know how despondent I was because then he’d worry about me. We were a couple of expert worrywarts, Pa and me.
“You should film Made in Wonderland at Disneyland,” I said.
“Haha.” Pa gave his phony laugh, the one he used when he tried to act happy, but he wasn’t. He laughed like that around his American friends. “I’m agreeing with you, but we must make do with the backyard. Hopefully, I can edit him on time to enter the National Film Student Competition.”
“You have to,” I said, and I slurped noodles into my mouth.
* * *
The next day, Pa’s cast and crew, the cameraman, the soundman, his assistant, and several actors, all of whom happened to be a ragtag group of his friends, came over to film the final scene of Made in Wonderland. But first, we ate the feast that Pa and Bavica had been preparing for days. We devoured the chicken and artichoke couscous and boulettes, along with the tangy side dishes: ajlouk—pureed zucchini with garlic, caraway, coriander, and lemon juice—and meshouia—finely chopped grilled tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants with olive oil.
“This food is pure bliss,” an actress said as she chewed slowly with her eyes closed.
“It’s out of this world, man,” Pa’s assistant exclaimed.
“You have to open a restaurant, Lilo,” the cameraman said.
People constantly told him to open a restaurant.
“Why would I open a restaurant?” Pa’s French accent always seemed more prominent next to his American friends. “I’m going to make films, no?”
The soundman’s kids, Seamus and Finnegan, who were about the same age as Jessica and me, consumed multiple boulettes, stealing my thunder at the one activity where I’d bested my sister. Now, they got all the attention from Bavica, and she said encouraging remarks about their appetites in French as she piled more dumplings on their plates. An actress asked Bavica how she made such delicious food, and Pa translated the question for her. My grandmother shook a hand in the air and said, “C’est tout dans la main!”
“She says it is all in the hand,” Pa explained.
Mom’s other lover, Betty, arrived in the middle of lunch because she taught a women’s self-defense class in our living room on Sunday afternoons.
“Y’all seen Joanie?” Betty asked. She was from Louisiana and had a Southern accent.
I think Pa felt bad telling Betty that Mom was at Susan’s house so instead, he invited her to join us for a plate of couscous. She ate until women started arriving for her class. We were still eating as Betty, in the next room, demonstrated how to get an attacker off you by kicking him in the balls and gouging out his eyes. The women practiced their moves while yelling, “Hi-yah!”
“After you get the motherfucker off you,” Betty said in her Southern drawl, “you run like hell, screaming, ‘Fire!’ at the top of your lungs.”
Disturbed by the shrieking women in the living room, Bavica stomped into the kitchen, making a racket, slamming pots and pans around, and swearing in Arabic.
“Is your mom all right?” an actress asked Pa.
“She’s believing the women invite the evil eye into the house. She’ll calm herself soon,” he said.
“I love those old folksy superstitions,” the actress remarked.
Pa did his phony laugh.
The dining room sat between the noises of the women screaming, “Fire!” and Bavica cursing and banging in the kitchen, and Pa decided it was time to take his cast and crew outside to get ready to start filming.
I felt a deep sense of despair when I learned that the soundman’s kids, Seamus and Finnegan, were also going to be in the movie, and they’d share the role with Jessica and me of “kids eating a snack at the picnic table as we watch the actors go by.” Frankly, I didn’t think these two clowns were up for the task, judging by how they lolled around under the picnic table in a food coma. They didn’t have the lifelong understanding that Jessica and I shared about how important it was that this scene be completed and done well.
The actors put on costumes, the soundman and cameraman set up their equipment, while Pa’s assistant walked around holding a clipboard, chatting with everyone. I thought she behaved too casually at a time when she should’ve been checking boxes on her list and making sure that all was in order. Pa called the cast and crew over to give scene cues, and Seamus and Finnegan stayed under the table. Jessica sat nearby in a patch of shade from the bougainvillea bush, reading By the Shores of Silver Lake. I stood with the grownups, listening in and hoping someone would notice that I was the only kid taking my job seriously.
“In this scene, the revolutionaries are on the run from the police.” Pa wore a checkered Arab scarf around his neck. “I remind to you, the car chase scene ended here.” He pointed to Mom’s ’65 Volvo which he used as the getaway car in the film. It was parked in the alleyway that abutted our yard beyond a low cement wall. Pa moved with the fluidity of a dancer, his arms floating gracefully as he motioned to where the action would take place. “You rebels exit from the car one by one and mount the wall. Alors, you pause to evaluate the situation. The camera will pan to the children at the table eating.” Pa’s hand drifted, and everyone’s heads followed so that all eyes were on Seamus and Finnegan napping, and Jessica absorbed in her book.
“Ha! You kids must come out from under the table when we commence filming.” Pa’s voice was playful, and everyone laughed. “Presently, the Wandering Jew emerges from the trunk and onto the wall, evaluating that he’s indeed come to a safe haven, and he makes the call of the insurgents.” Pa held his hands over his mouth and made the sound, “Caw-caw-caw.”
The actor who played the Wandering Jew had a long beard taped onto his face, and he nodded in understanding.
“Annette,” Pa turned to a blonde woman who wore a skirt made of real bananas with a leotard underneath, “you mount the wall, open your parasol, and present a tightrope aerialist routine.” Pa hopped up on the wall with the ease of a cat, opened the paper umbrella, and spun it behind him as he took elegant heel-toe steps.
“As you jump, cry, “Viva la Revolución!” Pa demonstrated, heels kicking together as he leaped, parasol held overhead, reminding me of both Mary Poppins and Gene Kelly. “When you cross the yard, stop at the table and make sympathetic eyes to the children. We aspire to create a burlesque atmosphere. D’accord. Everyone, places.”
When Pa’s assistant snapped the clapper for take-one, we kids were supposed to eat the cheese, crackers, and grapes laid out on a checkered tablecloth, but we were already so full. The Triscuits tasted like cardboard and the cheese like chalky mush. And the afternoon sun hit the picnic table and shone directly into our eyes when we were supposed to look at the actors, causing us to squint. I tried hard not to scrunch up my face, knowing it didn’t match Pa’s vision for the scene, but I saw stars from the sun.
We had to cut filming when the trunk of Mom’s car got locked with the Wandering Jew inside, and everyone ran around in panic, trying to find the keys.
After they got him out, we had to cut filming again when Betty came outside and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but your mom is shouting obscenities at the women in my class.”
Pa had to run in and try to calm Bavica down while everyone else milled about the yard for a half hour, and we could hear my grandma shrieking from inside the house. She finally quieted, and Pa came out looking tense. I sent him telepathic messages, chanting in my head: Do not lose your temper, Pa.
They got back to filming, but it became stressful again when Pa realized that the cameraman was almost out of film. “Peter, you told to me you brought three reels, no?”
“I thought I had extras in my car,” the cameraman shrugged. “I’m sorry, man. I must’ve left them back on campus.”
I could tell that Pa was trying hard to hold it together. It would be bad if he flew into a rage in front of his friends. A knot of dread filled my stomach, combined with nausea from too much food. I closed my eyes, clenched my fists, and thought with all my might: Do not lose your temper, Pa.
“Actually, we must continue without cuts,” he called out. There was an edginess in his voice. “We get what we can. Please, places everyone!”
The assistant snapped the clapper for take three, and the small amount of film left in the camera went on rolling. We kids sat in the blazing sun, and while the others only pretended to eat, I was determined to stay in character despite being on the verge of vomiting, and I kept the food going in. The Wandering Jew emerged from the trunk, stood on the wall, and made the “caw-caw-caw” signal to his comrades. The soundman crouched in the bushes, his fuzzy microphone sticking out of the bougainvillea, his leather recording bag slung across one shoulder.
It was going well. Everything was going to be ok. The scene would be completed. Pa would finish Made in Wonderland, win the National Film Student Competition, and realize his dream of being a filmmaker. I allowed myself to breathe a small sigh of relief.
As the woman in the banana skirt did her aerialist routine, I heard the creaking noise of a screen door, followed by a slam. While she was jumping off the wall, bananas midair, yelling, “Viva la Revol–” she was interrupted.
“What the hell are you hippies doing in my yard?” Mrs. Kirby shouted from her porch.
“Merde alors!” Pa bellowed loud enough that it echoed off the concrete condominium across the street.
* * *
The following afternoon, when Pa picked me up from nursery school, I overheard my teacher tell him in her affirming tone, “She’s doing much better lately.” She was referring to my stealing habit, which had subsided when she started bringing me gifts at school to combat my thievery. But that day, I’d seen a teddy bear in a classmate’s cubby that was too good to resist, and I’d stuffed it into my Raggedy Ann lunch pail, furry limbs sticking out, somehow unnoticed. I climbed into Pa’s 1962 Ford van, the front vinyl bucket seat hot from the sun and the smell of gasoline coming off the lawnmower in the back. The gardening tools made rattling noises as we drove on the freeway. Jessica went to the elementary school where Mom worked, and Pa and I spent the afternoons together.
“I have to stop off and finish a job before we go home,” he told me.
“Can we stop for donuts?”
“Of course.”
We were eating glazed donuts as we drove through the Bel Air neighborhood with its posh homes. I couldn’t take my eyes off Pa’s Styrofoam coffee cup as it jiggled on the dashboard. He held it as we turned up a driveway, relieving me of my task as mental spill-preventer, and I gazed out the window. Pa had a sharp eye for creating beauty, and the places where he worked stood out with lush, flowing gardens bursting with color. Mom worked at a private elementary school, and this was the home of one of her students. The kid’s father was a big Hollywood movie producer, and Mom had got Pa the job.
We came to a stop and the coffee cup tipped over. Pa tried to catch it, but the hot liquid burned him, and he shouted, “Merde!” as he rubbed his hand on his t-shirt. The coffee spilled down the dashboard and into the fan vent. He got out, cursing, and hoisted the lawnmower out of the back of the van. I took the teddy bear from my lunchpail, leaned over the clutch, and sopped up the coffee off the dashboard with its fuzzy back. The teddy bear looked up at me with shocked marble eyes, so I tossed it on the floor face down. I rolled the hand crank on the window and stuck my head out, gawking at the rambling house.
I saw the big wooden front door open, and a bald man stepped out. It was him: the movie producer! Now’s your chance, Pa.
“My wife and I love the work you’ve done with the gardens,” the man said.
I held my breath and squinted as if focusing my will at a target. Tell him about Made in Wonderland.
“Ah, thanks, uh, I also—Actually, I work on an independent…” Pa started to say. As he stammered, he suddenly looked different, not like my larger-than-life father. I could see what the movie producer saw: another brown-skinned man who worked for him.
“You keep up the gardening, and I’ll make the movies.” The man chuckled as if he’d said something clever, and he went back inside and closed the giant door.
Pa pulled the starter cord on his mower and pushed it across the lawn.
Abigail Bokaer is an MFA student at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program. The novel that she’s currently writing, Tunisian Cowboy, is based on her relationship with her immigrant father and his lifelong dream of being a filmmaker. Abigail lives in Ithaca, New York, where she worked as a public elementary school educator for twenty-five years. She teaches English language and literacy to adults.