Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories (9 page)
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Authors: Etgar Keret,Nathan Englander,Miriam Shlesinger,Sondra Silverston
BOOK: Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories
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One weekend when they were returning with their daughter from a visit to his wife’s parents on a kibbutz, they passed a two-car collision. The drivers ahead of them slowed down to rubberneck, and his wife said it was disgusting, and that only in Israel did people behave that way. Their daughter, who’d been asleep in the back, woke up because of the ambulance sirens. She put her face up to the window and looked out at a man covered in blood, unconscious, being carried away on a stretcher. She asked them where they were taking him, and Oshri told her they were taking him to a good place. A place filled with colors and tastes and smells that you couldn’t even imagine. He told her about that place, about how your body becomes weightless there, and how even though you don’t want anything, everything there comes true. How there’s no fear there, so that even if something is going to hurt, when it happens it turns into just another kind of feeling, a feeling that you’re grateful to be able to have. He went on and on until he noticed the angry look on his wife’s face. On the radio they reported heavy traffic on the highway, and when he looked in the rearview mirror again he could see Meital smiling and waving bye-bye at the man on the stretcher.
When she comes, my girlfriend screams out “Ari.” Not just once, a lot. “Ari-Ari-Ari-Ari!” And that’s just fine, as I’m an Ari born and raised. Still, sometimes I kind of want her to yell something else, it wouldn’t matter what. “My love.” “Tear me in half.” “Stop, I can’t take any more.” Even a plain old “Don’t stop!” would do. It’d just be nice to hear something different once in a while, something specific to the occasion—an emotion a little more to the point.
My girlfriend is a law student at the local college. She wanted to go to one of the big universities but they didn’t take her. Right now she’s gearing up to specialize in contract law. There’s really a thing like that, lawyers who deal only with contracts. They don’t meet with people, they don’t appear in court, they just sit there all day looking at line after line printed on paper, as if that makes up a world.
She was there with me when I rented the apartment. And within a minute she caught the owner trying to bamboozle us on some clause. In a million years I’d never have noticed, but she spotted it in a flash. My girlfriend, she’s box-cutter sharp. And how she comes. In my life, I’ve never seen anything like it. Her flying in every direction, body in full riot. It’s like seeing someone electrocuted. She gets swallowed up by these waves of convulsions, involuntary ones, from deep inside. They rumble their way into her neck and tickle the soles of her feet. It’s like her whole anatomy is trying to say thanks without knowing how.
One time I asked her what she used to yell when she came with other guys—back before me. She stared at me, surprised, and said that with all of them, when she came, she yelled “Ari.” Always “Ari.” And I couldn’t let it go. I asked her what she used to say when she came with guys that didn’t happen to be named Ari. She thought about it for a minute, and said that she’d never once fucked anyone who wasn’t named Ari. Twenty-eight guys she’d already bedded, including me, and all of them—now that she was thinking back on it—were Aris, every last one. After she said it, she went silent. And then, real calmly, I told her, “That’s one crazy coincidence … or maybe that’s your whole selection process, finding a new Ari.” “Maybe so,” she said, all thoughtful. “Maybe so.”
From that moment on, I became hyperaware of all the Aris in my midst: there’s the one at the falafel stand, and my accountant, and there’s the pushy one at our coffee shop who’s always asking me to put the sports section aside. I didn’t make a big deal out of it, just made a mental note—Ari+Ari+Ari. Because deep down I knew, when all the torment is unleashed—
if
it’s unleashed—it will spring from one of those guys.
if
it’s unleashed—it will spring from one of those guys.
It’s strange to tell you so much about my girlfriend without even mentioning her name. As if it’s of no importance at all. Except that it really isn’t. If you woke me in the middle of the night, it’s not her name that would come to mind. It would be that half-surprised look of hers one second before she starts to cry that would float through my head; or a vision of her ass; or that beautiful, childlike way she always says “I want to tell you something” right before sharing a thought that moves her. My girl, she’s fantastic. But sometimes I’m not so sure that this whole story will end well.
Our landlord, the one that tried to fleece us with the lease, he’s also named Ari. He’s basically nothing but a fifty-year-old prick whose dead grandmother left him a whole building five blocks from the beach. Apart from collecting checks from his tenants, the man hasn’t done a stroke of work in his life. He’s also got the kind of blue eyes you see on fighter pilots, and silver-gray hair that shines like the goddamn edge of a cloud. But this guy’s no pilot. When we signed the agreement, he told me that he passed his whole military service pushing papers at Tzrifin, on some transport base. It’d been maybe a dozen years since his reserve unit even bothered to check where he was.
It was only by happenstance that I discovered he was fucking her. If she hadn’t let me in on this whole story of the Aris, I wouldn’t have been suspicious. When I caught them both in the apartment, he was in the living room, fully dressed. He said he’d come by to check that we weren’t “destroying his assets.” Right after he left, I pressed her and she came out and admitted it. But this was a confession with no guilt attached to it: when she spoke, her tone was completely matter-of-fact, totally dry. She told me the way a stranger would tell you the number 8 bus doesn’t stop at Dizengoff. And as soon as she’s done, she says she has something to ask. What she wants to know is if we can all do it once, together. Him and me, both.
She’s even willing to make a deal. If we do it just once, she won’t ever see him again. Just once in her life she wants to feel a pair of Aris inside her together. He’ll definitely agree, bored perv that he is. She’s sure of it. And in the end I’ll also give in, because I love her. I genuinely do.
And that’s how I find myself in bed with my landlord. One second before he strips down he’s still haranguing me about the shutters in the kitchen, that they don’t close right, that I need to oil up some hinge. After a while, my girlfriend’s body starts to shake up above me. I sense she’s on her way. And I can tell that when she screams, somehow, everything will be all right. Because our name is truly Ari. Only, what we’ll never know is if her scream is him or if it is me.
Widower
. He loved the sound of that word so much, loved it, but at the same time was ashamed that he loved it, but what can you do, love is an uncontrollable emotion.
Bachelor
always sounded a bit egotistical to him, hedonistic, and
divorced
—defeated ; even more, totaled. But
widower
?
Widower
sounds like someone who took responsibility, was committed, and if he was now on his own, you could only blame God or the forces of nature, depending on where you’re coming from. He took out a cigarette and was about to light it when the anorexic girl sitting across from him in the car started grumbling in French and pointing to the sign NON FUMEUR. Who would’ve believed that on the Marseilles–Paris train they don’t let a person light a Gauloise. Before he became a widower, every time he was about to light up, it was Bertha who broke into a monologue that began with his health and, somehow, always ended with her migraines, and now, when that too-skinny French girl yelled at him, he suddenly missed her.
. He loved the sound of that word so much, loved it, but at the same time was ashamed that he loved it, but what can you do, love is an uncontrollable emotion.
Bachelor
always sounded a bit egotistical to him, hedonistic, and
divorced
—defeated ; even more, totaled. But
widower
?
Widower
sounds like someone who took responsibility, was committed, and if he was now on his own, you could only blame God or the forces of nature, depending on where you’re coming from. He took out a cigarette and was about to light it when the anorexic girl sitting across from him in the car started grumbling in French and pointing to the sign NON FUMEUR. Who would’ve believed that on the Marseilles–Paris train they don’t let a person light a Gauloise. Before he became a widower, every time he was about to light up, it was Bertha who broke into a monologue that began with his health and, somehow, always ended with her migraines, and now, when that too-skinny French girl yelled at him, he suddenly missed her.
“My wife,” he said to the French girl as he showed her that he was putting the cigarette back in the pack, “also don’t like me to smoke.”
“No English,” the French girl said.
“You,” he persisted, “same age like my daughter. You should eat more. It is not healthy.”
“No English,” the French girl repeated, but her hunching shoulders gave her away: She understood every word.
“My daughter live in Marseilles,” he continued. “She is married to a doctor, an eye doctor, you know.” He pointed at one of her green eyes, which were blinking in fear.
Even the coffee on the train was on a level three times higher than anything you could find in Haifa. Yessir, when it came to taste, those damn French outclassed everyone. After a week in Marseilles, he couldn’t button his pants. Zahava had wanted him to stay longer. “Where are you rushing off to?” she’d asked. “Now that Mom’s dead and you’re retired, you’re all alone.”
Alone
and
retired
, there was something so open about those two words that when she said them, he could feel the wind on his face. After all, he’d never really liked working in the store, and Bertha, well, he did have a soft spot for her, but, like the wooden wardrobe in their tiny bedroom, she took up so much space that there was no room left alongside her for anything else. The first thing he did after she died was call the junkman and get rid of that wardrobe. To the neighbors watching with interest as the huge wardrobe slid down from the third floor on belts, he explained that it reminded him too much of the tragedy. The tragedy. Now, without that wardrobe, the room had suddenly become spacious and lighter. After all those years, he’d forgotten a window was hidden behind it.
Alone
and
retired
, there was something so open about those two words that when she said them, he could feel the wind on his face. After all, he’d never really liked working in the store, and Bertha, well, he did have a soft spot for her, but, like the wooden wardrobe in their tiny bedroom, she took up so much space that there was no room left alongside her for anything else. The first thing he did after she died was call the junkman and get rid of that wardrobe. To the neighbors watching with interest as the huge wardrobe slid down from the third floor on belts, he explained that it reminded him too much of the tragedy. The tragedy. Now, without that wardrobe, the room had suddenly become spacious and lighter. After all those years, he’d forgotten a window was hidden behind it.
In the dining car, a woman of about seventy was sitting across from him. She’d been beautiful once, and she did everything she could to remind people of that. But she did it subtly, with artful touches of lipstick and eyeliner. “Ah … if you could only have seen me fifty years ago.” Next to her, on the shelf meant for food trays, sat a small poodle, also dressed elegantly, in an embroidered, powder-blue sweater. The poodle fixed huge, familiar eyes on him. “Bertha?” he thought to himself, half-terrified. The poodle gave a short bark in confirmation. The old woman flashed a pleasant smile at him that tried to say he had nothing to be afraid of. The poodle’s eyes never left his. “I know that wardrobe didn’t fall on me by accident,” they said. “I know you pushed it.” He took a short drag on his cigarette and shot a nervous smile back at the woman. “And I know that you didn’t want to kill me, that it was just a reflex. When I asked you to take down the winter clothes again, you just lost control.” His head seemed to nod on its own—another reflex, apparently. If he’d been someone else, less tough, there would already have been tears in his eyes. “Are you happy now?” the poodle’s eyes asked. “So-so.” He looked back at it. “It’s hard alone. And you?” “Not bad.” The poodle opened its mouth into almost a smile. “My mistress takes care of me; she’s a good woman. How’s our daughter?” “I’m just coming from her place. She looks wonderful, and Gilbert finally agreed to try to have a baby.” “I’m glad.” The poodle wagged its stumpy tail. “But you, you have to take better care of yourself. You’ve gotten fat, and you smoke too much.” “May I?” he asked the old woman without words, making petting motions in the air. The old woman nodded and smiled. He petted Bertha’s whole body, then bent down and kissed her. “I’m sorry,” he said in a broken, tearful voice. “I’m sorry, Bertha, forgive me.” “She love you,” the old woman said in broken English. “Look, look how she lick your face. I never see her like that with a stranger.”
This story is the best story in the book. More than that, this story is the best story in the world. And we weren’t the ones to come to that conclusion. It was also reached by a unanimous team of dozens of unaffiliated experts who—employing strict laboratory standards—measured it against a representative sampling taken from world literature. This story is a unique Israeli innovation. And I bet you’re asking yourselves, how is it that we (tiny little Israel) composed it, and not the Americans? What you should know is that the Americans are asking themselves the same thing. And more than a few of the bigwigs in American publishing stand to lose their jobs because they didn’t have that answer at the ready while it still mattered.
Just as our army is the best army in the world—same with this story. We’re talking here about an opening so innovative that it’s protected by registered patent. And where is this patent registered? That’s the thing, it’s registered in the story itself! This story’s got no shtick to it, no trick to it, no touchy-feely bits. It’s forged from a single block, an amalgam of deep insights and aluminum. It won’t rust, it won’t bust, but it may wander. It’s supercontemporary, and timelessly literary. Let History be the judge! And by the way, according to many fine folk, judgment’s been passed—and our story came up aces.
“What’s so special about this story?” people ask out of innocence or ignorance (depending on who’s asking). “What’s it got that isn’t in Chekhov or Kafka or I-don’t-know-who? The answer to that question is long and complicated. Longer than the story itself, but less complex. Because there’s nothing more intricate than this story. Nevertheless, we attempt to answer by example. In contrast to works by Chekhov and Kafka, at the end of this story, one lucky winner—randomly selected from among all the correct readers—will receive a brand-new Mazda Lantis with a metallic gray finish. And from among the incorrect readers, one special someone will be selected to receive another car, cheaper, but no less impressive in its metallic grayness so that he or she shouldn’t feel bad. Because this story isn’t here to condescend. It’s here so that you’ll feel good. What’s that saying printed on the place mats at the diner near your house? ENJOYED YOURSELF—TELL YOUR FRIENDS! DIDN’T ENJOY YOURSELF—TELL US! Or, in this case—report it to the story. Because this story doesn’t just tell, it also listens. Its ears, as they say, are attuned to every stirring of the public’s heart. And when the public has had enough and calls for someone to put an end to it, this story won’t drag its feet or grab hold of the edges of the altar. It will, simply, stop.
But if one day, out of nostalgia, you suddenly want the story back, it will always be happy to oblige.
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