The Girl on the Fridge: Stories

by Etgar Keret

Overview

A birthday-party magician whose hat tricks end in horror and gore; a girl parented by a major household appliance; the possessor of the lowest IQ in the Mossad—such are the denizens of Etgar Keret's dark and fertile mind. The Girl on the Fridge contains the best of Keret's first collections, the ones that made him a household name in Israel and the major discovery of this last decade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429933179
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	06/04/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	196
File size:	418 KB

About the Author

Etgar Keret was born in Tel Aviv in 1967. His stories have been featured on This American Life and Selected Shorts. As screenwriters/ directors, he and his wife, Shira Geffen, won the 2007 Palme d'Or for Best Debut Feature (Jellyfish) at the Cannes Film Festival.

Read an Excerpt

The Girl on the Fridge

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By Etgar Keret, Miriam Shlesinger, Sondra Silverston

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright © 1994 Etgar Keret
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-3317-9

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CHAPTER 1

Asthma Attack

When you have an asthma attack, you can't breathe. When you can't breathe, you can hardly talk. To make a sentence all you get is the air in your lungs. Which isn't much. Three to six words, if that. You learn the value of words. You rummage through the jumble in your head. Choose the crucial ones — those cost you too. Let healthy people toss out whatever comes to mind, the way you throw out the garbage. When an asthmatic says "I love you," and when an asthmatic says "I love you madly," there's a difference. The difference of a word. A word's a lot. It could be stop, or inhaler. It could even be ambulance.

Crazy Glue

She said, "Don't touch it," and I asked, "What is it?"

"It's glue," she said. "Special glue. Superglue."

And I asked: "What did you buy that for?"

"Because I need it," she said. "I've got lots of things to glue together."

"There's nothing that needs gluing together," I snapped. "I can't understand why you buy all this crap."

"The same reason I married you," she shot back, "to kill time."

I didn't feel like getting into a fight, so I kept quiet, and so did she. "Is it any good, this glue?" I asked. She showed me the picture on the box, with this guy hanging upside down from the ceiling after someone had smeared some glue on the soles of his shoes.

"No glue can make a person stick like that," I said. "They took the picture upside down. He's standing on the floor. They just stuck a light fixture in the floor to make it look like a ceiling. You can tell right away by the way the window looks. They put the clasp on the blinds backwards. Take a look." I pointed at the window in the picture. She didn't look. "It's eight already," I said, "I've got to run." I picked up my briefcase and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll be back late. I'm —"

"I know," she snapped. "You're swamped."

I called Mindy from the office. "I can't make it today," I said. "I've got to be home early."

"How come? Is anything the matter?"

"No. I mean, yeah. I think she suspects something." There was a long silence. I could hear Mindy breathing on the other end.

"I don't see why you stay with her," she whispered in the end. "The two of you never do anything. You don't even bother fighting anymore. I can't figure out why you go on like this. I just don't get what's holding you together. I don't get it," she said again. "I simply don't get it ..." and she started crying.

"Don't cry, Mindy," I told her. "Listen," I lied. "Somebody just came in. I've got to go. I'll come over tomorrow, promise. We'll talk then."

I got home early. I called out hello when I walked in the door, but there was no reply. I went from room to room. She wasn't in any of them. On the kitchen table I found the tube of glue, completely empty. I tried to pull one of the chairs out, to sit down. It didn't budge. I tried again. Stuck. She'd glued it to the floor. The fridge wouldn't open. She'd glued it shut. I couldn't see why she'd pull a stunt like this. She'd always seemed reasonably sane. This just wasn't like her. I went into the living room to get the phone. I thought she might have gone to her mother's. I couldn't lift the receiver. She'd glued that down too. Furious, I kicked at the telephone table and almost broke my toe. The table didn't budge.

That's when I heard her laughing. It was coming from up above me. I looked, and there she was, hanging upside down, her bare feet clinging to the high living room ceiling. I looked at her, stunned. "What the fuck. Have you lost your mind?" She didn't answer, just smiled. Her smile seemed so natural, the way she was hanging, as if just her lips were subject to gravity. "Don't worry," I said. "I'll get you down," and I pulled some books off the shelf. I stacked up a few volumes of the encyclopedia and got on top of the pile. "This may hurt a little," I said, trying to keep my balance. She went on smiling. I pulled as hard as I could, but nothing happened. Carefully, I climbed down. "Don't worry," I said. "I'll go to the neighbors to phone for help."

"Fine," she said and laughed. "I'm not going anywhere." By then I was laughing too. She was so pretty, and so incongruous, hanging upside down from the ceiling that way. With her long hair dangling downward, and her breasts molded like two perfect teardrops under her white T-shirt. So pretty. I climbed back up onto the pile of books and kissed her. I felt her tongue on mine. The books slipped out from under my feet as I hung there in midair, not touching a thing, dangling from just her lips.

Loquat

"Go on, Henri, go talk to them. You're a gendarme, they'll listen to you."

I put down my empty coffee cup and moved my feet around under the table, trying to find my slippers. "How many times do I have to explain it to you, Grandma? I'm not a gend — a policeman. I'm a soldier, a soldat. I don't have anything to do with them, so why should they listen to what I have to say?"

"Because you're tall as a building and you wear a gendarme's uniform —"

"Soldat, Grandma."

"So you're a soldat, what's the difference? You go to them with your pistolet and tell them that if they climb our loquat tree one more time, you'll throw them in the calabouse and shoot them, or something, just so they stop coming into our yard ..."

Grandma's faded eyes were moist now, and bloodshot. She really hated those kids. The old lady wasn't all there, but out of respect I said okay. That evening, I heard them in the tree. I put on a pair of shorts and a sleeveless undershirt and told Grandma I was going out to talk to them.

"No," she said, blocking my way to the door, holding my ironed dress uniform. "You're not going out to them like that. Put on your uniform."

"Leave it alone, Grandma," I said, trying to get past her. She leaned against the door stubbornly, handing me my uniform.

"Your uniform," she said firmly.

I walked down the front steps, with her hopping down behind me. I felt mortified dressed up like a model soldier. She even made me wear the unit insignia. "Henri, you forgot this," she whispered in her raspy voice and held out the Uzi, loaded and cocked. If my commander had seen me then with my weapon in my hand, I'd have gotten two weeks inside.

I snatched the gun out of her hand, took out the magazine, and gently uncocked it. A bullet fell out of the muzzle onto the grass. "Why'd you bring me the gun, are you crazy? They're only kids."

I gave her the gun, but she slapped it right back into my hand. "That's not kids, that's animals," she said resolutely.

"Okay, Grandma, I'll take the rifle." I gave in with a hopeless sigh and kissed her cheek. "Now go inside."

"Oh, mon petit gendarme," Grandma said, clapping her hands happily. Filled with satisfaction at her small victory, she skipped up the steps.

"Soldat," I cried after her. "For fuck's sake, I'm not a fucking policeman." And I walked down the rest of the steps.

The kids in the loquat tree kept on making noise and breaking branches. I was planning to take off my shirt, wrap the rifle in it, and hide it in a bush so I'd look more or less normal when I went over to them, but the sight of Grandma's face peering out from behind a curtain stopped me. I walked over to a kid who was climbing the tree, grabbed him by the shirt, and pushed him onto the ground. "Yallah," I yelled, "everyone out of the tree. This is private property."

There was a second of silence, then an answer came from one of the high branches. "Oh, I'm so scared. A soldier. You want to kill us, Mr. Soldier?" A rotten loquat hit me in the head.

The kid I'd pushed onto the ground got up and looked at me with contempt. "Paper pusher," he said. "My brother's in a combat patrol unit, working his ass off, and you're not ashamed to walk around with the insignia of that unit of pussies from Tel Aviv?" He brought up a gob of phlegm and spat on my shirt. I whacked him on the head hard enough to knock him down.

How the hell did the little schmuck know about insignias?

"Did you see that son of a bitch hit Meron?" someone yelled up in the tree.

"Hey, homo, what are you doing walking around in uniform on a Friday night?" another one shouted. "Can't you afford Levi's?"

"If he's so hot for the army, let's give him an intifada so he doesn't get bored," the first one shouted, and the one in the tree started throwing loquats. I tried to climb up to him, but it was next to impossible, what with the rifle and all.

Suddenly, a brick landed on my shoulder, and it turned out that there was another kid in the bushes. "PLO," he yelled and gave me the finger. Those kids were really fucked up. Before I could chase him, the kid who'd spat on me got up, his whole face covered with mud, kicked me in the balls, and started to run away. I saw red and caught up with him in about three steps. I pulled him by the shirt from behind and he fell. I started to beat on him. The one who threw the brick jumped onto my back, and two others came down from the tree to help him. They stuck to me like leeches. One of them bit me on the neck. I tried to shake them off and we all fell in the mud. I was punching them left and right. But those midget bastards had balls. They wouldn't give up no matter how much I hit them. I was holding one with each hand and was choking the third one with my legs when suddenly that Meron, who seemed to be their leader, smashed me in the head with a rock. The world spun, and I felt blood dripping onto my forehead. I heard a round of gunfire and noticed that I hadn't had the rifle for a while. It must have fallen when we were rolling around in the mud.

"Leave my grandson alone, sales bêtes." I heard my grandmother's voice. "Or else I'll finish you all off like carp in the bathtub."

I didn't know if it was real or I was dreaming. "Watch out, the old lady's crazy." I heard Meron's voice and felt all the hands letting go of me.

"And now get out of here, tout de suite," I heard my grandmother order them and then the sound of feet sloshing through mud.

"Look at how they dirtied your gendarme clothes," she said, and I could feel her hand on my shoulder. "And they split your head open," she continued her lament. "Never mind, I'll bandage you up and wash the clothes so they look like new. And God, he'll take care of those little devils. Come home, Henri, it's getting cold." I stood up, and the world kept spinning and spinning.

"Tell me, Grandma," I asked, "where'd you learn to load a gun and shoot like that?"

"From a Jacques Norris movie. It was on TV, before that cable bastard turned off the movies," she recalled angrily, "and ran away with my money. Tomorrow you'll wear your gendarme uniform and go pay him a visit too."

"Grandma!" I blurted out furiously, my forehead burning like hell.

"Sorry, Henri. Soldat," Grandma apologized and skipped up the steps.

Hat Trick

At the end of the show, I pull a rabbit out of the hat. I always save it for last, because kids love animals. At least, when I was a kid I loved animals. That way the show ends on a high note, at the point when I pass the rabbit around so the kids can pet it and feed it. That's how it used to be. It's harder with kids nowadays. They don't get as excited, but still, I leave the rabbit for the end. It's the trick I love best. Or rather, it used to be. I'd keep my eyes fixed on the audience as my hand reached into the hat, groping deep inside it till it felt Kazam's ears.

And then "A-la-Kazeem — a-la-Kazam!" and out it comes. It never fails to surprise them. And not only them, me, too. Every time my hand touches those funny ears inside the hat I feel like a magician. And even though I know how it's done, the hollow space in the table and all that, it still seems like actual magic.

That Saturday afternoon in the suburbs I left the hat trick to the end, the way I always do. The kids at that birthday party were incredibly blasé. Some had their backs to me, watching a Schwarzenegger movie on cable. The birthday boy wasn't even in the room, he was playing with his new video game. My audience had dwindled to a total of about four kids. It was especially hot that day. I was sweating like crazy under my magician's suit. All I wanted was to get through it and go home. I skipped over three rope tricks and went straight to the hat. My hand disappeared deep inside it, and my eyes sank into the eyes of a chubby girl with glasses. The soft touch of Kazam's ears took me by surprise the way it always does. "A-la-Kazeem — a-la-Kazam!" One more minute in the father's den and I was out of there, with a three-hundred-shekel check in my pocket. I pulled Kazam by the ears, and something about him felt a little strange, lighter. My hand swung up in the air, my eyes still fixed on the audience. And then — suddenly there was something wet on my wrist and the chubby girl started to scream. In my right hand I was holding Kazam's head, with his long ears and wide-open rabbit eyes. Just the head, no body. The head, and lots and lots of blood. The chubby girl kept screaming. The kids sitting with their backs to me turned away from the TV and started to clap. The birthday kid with the new video game came in from the other room and, when he saw the severed head, gave a loud whistle through his fingers. I could feel my lunch rising to my throat. I threw up into my magician's hat, and the vomit disappeared. The kids were ecstatic.

That night, I didn't sleep a wink. I kept checking my gear. I had no explanation at all for what had happened. Couldn't find the rest of Kazam either. In the morning, I went to the magicians' shop. They were baffled too. I bought a rabbit. The guy tried to sell me a turtle. "Rabbits are played," he told me. "Nowadays it's all about the turtles. Tell them it's a ninja, they'll freak."

I bought a rabbit anyway. I named it Kazam too. By the time I got home, there were five messages on my machine. All job offers. All from kids who'd witnessed the performance. One kid actually stipulated that I leave the severed head behind just like I'd done at the party. It was only then that I realized I hadn't taken Kazam's head with me.

My next gig was on Wednesday. A ten-year-old in Savyon Heights was having a birthday. I was stressed out all through the show. I couldn't get in the zone. I fucked up the Queen of Hearts trick. All I could think about was the hat. Finally it was time: "A-la-Kazeem — a-la-Kazam!" The penetrating look at the audience, the hand into the hat. I couldn't find the ears, but the body was the right weight. Smooth, but the right weight. And then the screaming again. Screaming, but also applause. It wasn't a rabbit I was holding, it was a dead baby.

I can't do that trick anymore. I used to love it, but just thinking about it now makes my hands shake. I keep imagining what terrible things I might wind up pulling out of there, the things waiting inside. Last night I dreamed I put my hand into the hat and it was caught in some creature's jaws. It baffles me how blithe I used to be about sticking my hand into that dark place. How blithe I was about shutting my eyes and sleeping.

I've stopped performing altogether, but I don't really care. I've stopped earning a living, but that's fine too. Sometimes I still put on the suit when I'm at home, for kicks, or I check the secret space in the table under the hat. That's about it. Apart from that, I pretty much stay away from magic tricks, I pretty much don't do anything. I just lie awake and think about the rabbit's head and the dead baby. Like they're clues to a riddle. It's as if someone was trying to tell me this is no time to be a rabbit, or a baby. Or a magician.

An Exclusive

I was knocking down a wall.

All women reporters are whores and I was knocking down a wall. It was already something like four months since she'd left. At first, I thought all that manual labor would calm me down, but meanwhile it only upset me more. The wall I was knocking down had stood between the living room and the bedroom. So the balcony was always behind me. But I remembered. You don't have to see to remember. I remembered how we used to sit there at night.

"Look," she'd said, "a falling star. We have to make a wish. Come on," she'd said, kissing me on the neck, "wish for something."

"Okay, okay," I said, "I'm wishing."

"What did you wish?" she asked and tightened her arms around me. "Won't you tell me? Come on, tell me."

"That it'll always be like this, like it is now." I stroked her hair. "A breeze. The two of us together on the balcony."

"No," she said, pushing me away, "that's not a good wish. Wish for something else, something just for you."

"Okay, fine," I said with a laugh, "don't rush me. An FZR 1000. I wish for a Yamaha FZR 1000."

"A motorcycle?" She looked at me, shocked. "You get a wish and you ask for a motorcycle?"

"Yes," I said. "What did you wish for?"

"I'm not telling," she said, hiding her face in my sweater. "If you tell, it never comes true."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Girl on the Fridge by Etgar Keret, Miriam Shlesinger, Sondra Silverston. Copyright © 1994 Etgar Keret. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Asthma Attack,
Crazy Glue,
Loquat,
Hat Trick,
An Exclusive,
Painting,
Yordan,
Vacuum Seal,
The Girl on the Fridge,
World Champion,
No Politics,
The Real Winner of the Preliminary Games,
Cramps,
A No-Magician Birthday,
Through Walls,
Quanta,
One Hundred Percent,
Not Human Beings,
Freeze!,
Alternative,
Without Her,
Sidewalks,
Slimy Shlomo Is a Homo,
Terminal,
Journey,
Nothing,
Myth Milk,
The Night the Buses Died,
Moral Something,
Happy Birthday to You,
The Backgammon Monster,
On the Nutritional Value of Dreams,
Monkey Say, Monkey Do,
Gulliver in Icelandic,
Cheerful Colors,
Goody Bags,
My Best Friend,
Boomerang,
So Good,
Raising the Bar,
Vladimir Hussein,
Knockoff Venus,
Atonement,
Patience,
Gaza Blues,
The Summer of '76,
Translation Acknowledgments,