David Grossman - A Horse Walks Into a Bar

People straighten up a little in their seats and start breathing again, carefully. The story is rousing them now, together with the narrator’s newfound energy, and his gesticulations, the impersonations, the accents.

Dovaleh, onstage, can feel the new spirit immediately, and he looks around with a grin. Each smile births another and they pop out like soap bubbles.

“So I pick myself up from the sand and I wait, and the door opens, and a pair of red shoes stuffed with drill sergeant walks down the steps, and he goes: ‘Let’s go, buddy. My condolences.’ And he holds his hand out for a shake. Yikes—the drill sergeant is shaking my hand! He kind of snivels, like that’s his way of signaling muffled-sadness-slash-grief: ‘Sergeant Ruchama told you already, right? Sorry, buddy, this can’t be easy. Especially at your age. Just know you’re in good hands, we’ll get you there like clockwork, but we gotta run and grab your stuff now.’

“That’s what the drill sergeant says, and me”—he opens his eyes wide in a terrifying dollish expression—“I’m in total shock, I’m not taking in anything, all I get is that I’m not going to be punished for anything, and I’m also realizing this is not the same douche-bag drill sergeant who’s been busting our balls all week. No, now he’s all fatherly: ‘Come with me, buddy, the ride’s waiting, buddy.’ Any minute he’d have said, ‘Thank you for choosing us, buddy, we know you had the choice of losing a parent on many other army bases…’

“Okay, so off we go, me dragging like a doormat behind all six foot six of his dense matter, and you know how drill sergeants walk, like cyborgs—head up, legs as far apart as they can get ’em so people will think they must be hung like a horse down there, fists clenched, pecs flapping right to left with every step.” He demonstrates. “Drill sergeants, you know, they don’t walk—they spell out the walk, isn’t that right? Was anyone here a drill sergeant in the army? No way, man! What unit? Golani? Wait, are there any paratroopers here? Awesome! Let’s go, guys, duke it out!” The crowd laughs. The two gray-haired men hold their glasses up to each other from afar.

“By the way, Golani, d’you know how a Golanchik commits suicide?”

The guy shouts back: “Jumps off his ego onto his IQ!”

“Bravo, sir!” Dovaleh cheers. “Now would you mind not stealing my job?

“Bottom line, we get to the tent and the drill sergeant stands aside—as in, to give me some privacy. I shove everything my dad packed for me into my backpack. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I was a mama’s boy but a papa’s soldier, and my dad pimped my gear out so I had everything a proper commando might need when he sets off for Operation Entebbe. Mom wanted to help, too, and she had a lot of experience with camping, as we’ve mentioned—although her camps were more of the concentration variety. Anyhoo, by the time the two of them had finished packing for me, I was equipped for any possible development on the international or regional front, including asteroid-induced jock itch.”

He stops, smiles at some recollection that pops into his mind, perhaps the picture of his father and mother packing. He slaps his thigh and laughs. He laughs! An ordinary laugh, from inside, not the professional kind. Not the toxic, self-deprecating snicker. Just a person laughing. A few people quickly join in, as do I—how can I resist wading in with him for a moment of tenderness toward himself?

“Seriously, you should have seen her and my dad’s packing show. Better than any stand-up routine. You’d have asked yourself: Who are these two weirdos and who’s the Einstein who invented them and why the hell can’t I get a brilliant mind like that to come work for me? And then you’d think: Oh, shit! He does work for me! Picture this: My dad comes in, goes out, runs back in, hurries out. The way he moved—you know those little flies that only go in straight lines? Bzzz bzzz! He keeps coming back from their bedroom with one more thing, puts it in the bag, arranges everything, packs it in, runs out for something else, towel, flashlight, mess kit, bzzz, cookies, bzzz, bouillon cubes, first-aid cream, hats, inhaler, talcum powder, socks…Crams it all in, tamps it into a perfect cube, doesn’t even see me, I don’t exist for him, it’s just him against the backpack, all-out war, toothpaste, bug repellent, that plastic thing for your nose so it doesn’t get sunburned, bzzz, runs out, runs back in, his eyes get even closer to each other…

“I’m telling you, he was unparalleled at these things: organizing, planning, taking care of me. He was a pro, he was in his element. Do you even understand how stressful it is when you’re three and your dad makes you take a different route to preschool every day to confuse the enemy?”

Laughter.

“No, seriously, when I was in first grade the guy used to stand outside my classroom interrogating the other kids: ‘Is that your bag? Did you pack it yourself? Did anyone give you anything to deliver?’ ”

Hearty laughter.

“Then my mom turns up with a big wool coat, I don’t know whose it was, it reeked of mothballs. Why the coat, Mom? ’Cause she’d heard it was cold at night in the desert. So he takes it from her very gently, like this, and goes, ‘Nu, Saraleh, yetz ist zimmer, di nar zitz unt kik,’ which means ‘It’s summer now, you just sit and watch.’ Like hell she’d sit and watch! A second later she’s back with boots. Why? Because! Because after you’ve walked barefoot through snow for more than thirty miles, you don’t leave home without them.” He waves his ridiculous boots at us. “You have to understand, this woman had never seen a desert in her life. From the second she got to Israel she only left home to go to work, and she had a regular route like a cuckoo in its clock, apart from that episode where she went all Goldilocks on the estates around Rehavia, but we won’t go into that. And always with her head down and the schmatte over her face so no one could see her, God forbid, chop-chop alongside the walls and fences so no one would snitch on her to God and He’d find out she existed.”

He stops for a sip. He wipes his glasses on the hem of his shirt, stealing a few seconds of respite. My tapas finally arrive. I’ve ordered far too much, enough for two. I ignore the looks. I know this is no time for a feast, but I have to steady my blood sugar, so I scarf down the empanadas and grilled mullet and ceviche and pickled mushrooms. Turns out that once again I ordered the dishes she likes, which will undoubtedly give me heartburn. She laughs: Well, if this is the only way, it’ll have to count as a kind of meeting. I wolf everything down and turn bilious. It’s not enough, I tell her with my mouth full. This make-believe game we play is not enough for me; I’m not satisfied with one-player ping-pong, or with having to sit here on my own with his story. You and your new boyfriend… I almost choke, and the wasabi prickles my nose and brings tears to my eyes. She quickly turns her impish smirk into a million-dollar smile and coquettishly responds: Don’t say that! Death isn’t my boyfriend yet. We’re just friends. Maybe friends with benefits.

“Where were we?” he mumbles. “What was I saying? Oh, right, my mother. She couldn’t do anything. None of the homemaking things, the mom things,” he grumbles, veering off onto an internal detour. “Couldn’t do laundry, couldn’t iron, definitely couldn’t cook. I don’t even think she made an egg her whole life. But my dad did things no other man does. You should have seen the way he kept the towels neatly folded and stacked in the linen cupboard, and the drapes with perfect pleats, and the polished floor.” He wrinkles his forehead and his eyebrows actually collide. “He even ironed our underwear, for all three of us. I’ll tell you something that’ll make you laugh—”