Read Online The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret - Free Book Online

night.”
    â€œEven worse,” I said. “I dreamed we were making peace with them.”
    That hit her really hard. “Maybe S. was wrong,” she whispered in terror. “Maybe the Iranians won’t attack. And we’ll be stuck with this filthy, run-down apartment, with the debts and your students, whose papers you promised to give back by January and haven’t even started to mark. And with those nudnik relatives of yours in Eilat we promised to visit for Pesach because we were sure that by then—”
    â€œIt was just a dream,” I said, trying to cheer her up. “He’s a lunatic, you can see it in his eyes.” But that was too little, too late. I hugged her as hard as I could, letting her tears flow onto my neck, and whispered, “Don’t worry, honey. We’re both survivors. We’ve already survived quite a bit together—illnesses, wars, terrorist attacks, and, if peace is what fate has in store, we’ll survive it, too.” Finally my wife fell asleep again, but I couldn’t. So I got up and swept the living room. First thing tomorrow morning, I’m calling a plumber.

What Does the Man Say?
    T he minute we got into the taxi, I had a bad feeling. And it wasn’t because the driver impatiently asked me to buckle the kid’s safety belt in the backseat after I’d already done so, or because he muttered something that sounded like a curse when I said we wanted to go to Ramat Gan. I take a lot of taxis, so I’m used to the bad tempers, the impatience, the armpit sweat stains. But there was something about the way that driver spoke, something half violent and half on the verge of tears that made me uncomfortable. Lev was almost four then, and we were on our way to Grandma’s. Unlike me, he couldn’t have cared less about the driver and focused mainly on the tall, ugly buildings that kept smiling at him along the way. He sang “Yellow Submarine” quietly to himself with words he made up that sounded almost like English, and waved his short legs in the air to the rhythm. At one point, his right sandal hit the taxi’s plastic ashtray, knocking it onto the floor. Except for a chewing gum wrapper, it was empty, so no trash was spilled. I had already bent to pick it up when the driver suddenly braked, turned around, and with his face really close to my three-year-old son’s, began screaming. “You stupid kid. You broke my car, you idiot!”
    â€œHey, are you crazy or something?” I shouted at the driver. “Yelling at a three-year-old because of a piece of plastic? Turn around and start driving or, I swear, next week you’ll be shaving corpses in the Abu Kabir morgue, because you won’t be driving any public vehicle, you hear me?” When I saw that he was about to say something, I added, “Shut your mouth now and drive.”
    The driver gave me a look that was full of hatred. The possibility of his smashing in my face and losing his job was in the air. He considered it for a long moment, took a deep breath, turned around, shifted into first gear, and drove.
    On the taxi’s radio, Bobby McFerrin was singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” but I felt very far from happy. I looked at Lev. He wasn’t crying, and even though we were stuck in a very slow-moving traffic jam, it wouldn’t take long to reach my parents’ house. I tried to find another ray of light in that unpleasant ride, but couldn’t. I smiled at Lev and tousled his hair. He looked at me hard, but didn’t smile back. “Daddy,” he asked, “what did the man say?”
    â€œThe man said,” I answered quickly, as if it were nothing, “that when you’re riding in a car, you have to watch how you move your legs so you don’t break anything.”
    Lev nodded, looked out the window, and a second later asked again, “And what did you say to the man?”
    â€œMe?” I