Read Online The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories by Etgar Keret - Free Book Online

back.”
    â€œOkay,” replied Sivan, giving me an apologetic smile and getting up. “It’s really crowded here.”
    She went to sit with Gilead at the back. Gilead was Sharon’s best friend; they played together on the school basketball team. I looked at the stage and breathed deeply, my hand still sweating. Some of the ninth graders got up onto the stage and the ceremony began.
    When all the students had declaimed the usual texts, an oldish man in a maroon sweater came onto the stage and told us about Auschwitz. He was the father of one of the students. He didn’t speak long, just fifteen minutes or so. Afterward we went back to our classrooms. As we went outside I saw Sholem, our janitor, sitting on the steps by the nurse’s room, crying.
    â€œHey, Sholem, what’s wrong?” I asked.
    â€œThat man in the hall,” he said, “I know him, I also was in the
Sonderkommando
.”
    â€œYou were in the commandos? When?” I asked. I couldn’t picture our skinny old Sholem in any kind of commando unit, but you never know.
    Sholem wiped his eyes with the back of his hand andstood up. “Never mind,” he said. “Go, go back to class. It doesn’t matter.”
    I went down to the shopping center in the afternoon. At the falafel stall I met Aviv and Tsuri. “You heard?” said Tsuri, with his mouth full of falafel. “Sharon passed the interview today, then he’ll have one little orientation course and he’s in the naval commandos. You know what it means? They’re hand-picked . . .”
    Aviv began cursing, his pita split open and all the tehina and salad juice were dripping over his hands. “We met him just now on the basketball court. Gilead and him were celebrating, with beer and everything.”
    Tsuri giggled and choked and bits of tomato and pita flew out of his mouth. “You should have seen them joy-riding on Sholem’s bike, like little kids. Sharon was thrilled to bits he’d passed the interview. My brother said it’s at the interview that most guys drop out.”
    I walked over to the school but there was no one there. Sholem’s bike, which was always chained to the rail by the nurse’s room, had gone. On the steps there was a loose chain and a lock. When I got to school the next morning the bike still wasn’t there. I waited for everyone to go into class and then I went to tell the principal. He told me I’d done the right thing, that no one would know about our talk, and asked the secretary to give me a late pass. Nothing happened that day or the day after, but on Thursday the principal came into our classroom with a uniformed cop and asked Sharon and Gilead to step outside.
    The police didn’t do anything to them, just cautionedthem. They couldn’t give back the bike because they just dumped it somewhere, but Sharon’s father came to school specially and brought Sholem a new mountain bike. At first, Sholem didn’t want to accept it. “Walking is healthier,” he said to Sharon’s dad. But Sharon’s dad insisted and in the end Sholem took the bike. It was funny seeing Sholem riding a mountain bike, and I knew that the principal had been right and I’d done the right thing. No one suspected that I’d told on them, at least that’s what I thought at the time. The next two days passed as usual, but on Monday when I came to school, Sivan was waiting for me in the yard. “Listen, Eli,” she said, “Sharon found out it was you who snitched about the bike. You’ve got to get out of here before he and Gilead get hold of you.”
    I tried to hide my fear, I didn’t want Sivan to see it.
    â€œQuick, run away,” she said.
    I started to walk away.
    â€œNo, not through there,” she said, pulling my arm. The touch of her hand was cool and pleasant. “They’ll come through the gate, so you’d better go through