NE W S HORT F I CTI ON

The Girl on the Refrigerator

byEtgar Keret

Alone HEtold her that he once had a girlfriend who liked to be alone. And that was very sad, because they were a couple, and couple, by definition, means together. But mostly she preferred to be alone. So once he asked her, “Why? Is it something in me?”. And she said, “No, it has nothing to do with you, it’s something in me, from my childhood”. He didn’t really get it, the childhood thing, so to understand it a tiny bit better, he tried to find something similar in his own childhood, but he couldn’t find anything. The more he thought about it, the more his childhood seemed like a hole in someone else’s tooth - unhealthy, but not too annoying, at least not to him. And that girl, who liked to be alone, kept hiding from him, and all because of her childhood. It really pissed him off. Finally, he told her, “Either you explain it to me, or we stop being a couple”. She said okay, and they stopped being a couple.

Ogette Is Sympathetic “That’s very sad”, Ogette said. “Sad and at the same time, moving”. “Thanks”, Nahum said and took a sip of his juice. Ogette saw that he was crying a little and she didn’t want to upset him, but in the end, she couldn’t resist, and she asked, “So to this day you don’t know

what it was in her childhood that made her leave you?”. “She didn’t leave me”, Nahum corrected her, “We broke up.” “Whatever you say”, Ogette said. “It’s not ‘whatever I say’”, Nahum insisted, “It’s my life. For me, at least, those details are important”. “And to this day, you don’t know what event in her childhood started all this?”, Ogette continued. “It wasn’t an event that started all this”, Nahum corrected her again, “It was you”. And after a short silence, he added, “Yes, something to do with the refrigerator”.

CHIASMUS FOR A DOE

In my lap – a doe, and in her lap – a harp; she plays it with her fingers, and kills me with her heart.

Sa’adia Ibn Danaan (mid-fifteenth century–1505) trans. Peter Cole

Not Nahum’s When Nahum’s girlfriend was little, her parents had no patience for her because she was little and full of energy, and they were already old and worn-out. Nahum’s girlfriend tried to play with them, talk to them, but that only

annoyed them more. They didn’t have the strength. They didn’t even have enough strength to tell her to shut her mouth. So instead, they used to hoist her up, sit her on the refrigerator and go to work. Or wherever they had to go. The refrigerator was very high, and Nahum’s girlfriend couldn’t get down. And so it happened that she spent most of her childhood on top of the refrigerator. It was a very happy childhood. While other people had the crap beaten out of them by their big brothers, Nahum’s girlfriend sat on the edge of the refrigerator, sang to herself and drew little pictures in the layer of dust that had collected there. The view from up there was very beautiful, and her bottom was nice and warm. Now that she was older, she missed that time, that alone time, very much. Nahum understood how sad it made her, and once he even tried to fuck her on top of the refrigerator, but that didn’t work. “That’s an awfully beautiful story”, Ogette whispered, brushing Nahum’s hand with hers. “Yes”, Nahum mumbled, pulling his arm back. “An awfully beautiful story, but not mine”.

Etgar Keret’s latest collection of stories, Missing Kissinger, is published by Chatto. His film ‘Jellyfish’ won the Camééra d'Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

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‘Etgar Keret’s short stories are fierce, funny, full of energy and insight, and at the same time they are often deep, tragic and very moving.’ Amos Oz

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