David Grossman: A Horse Walks Into a Bar

“Then he did this to me with his hand—he gave up on me. He turned and went back inside to continue the funeral, and I got up and ran through the people and the cars, and I knew then that that was it, I wouldn’t be going home. Home was shut for me.”

He slowly puts the flask down by his feet. His head droops forward as it did when he began the story.

“Where could I go? Who was waiting for me? I spent the first night in the school basement, and the second night in the synagogue storeroom, and on the third night I crawled home with my tail between my legs. And he opened the door for me. He didn’t say a word. He made me dinner as usual, but without talking, either to me or to himself.”

Dovaleh straightens up. His head sways on his thin neck.

“And that’s how our life after her began. Me and him, alone. But that’ll have to wait for another evening. I’m a little tired now.”

Silence. No one moves.

A minute passes, then another. The manager looks right, left, clears his throat, slaps his fleshy thighs with both hands, stands up, and starts stacking chairs. People get up and quietly leave without looking at one another. Here and there a woman gives Dovaleh a subtle nod. His face is extinguished. The tall silver-haired woman approaches the stage and bows her head at him. When she passes me on her way out, she puts a folded note on my table. I notice the laugh lines around her tearful eyes.

—

Then only the three of us are left. The little woman clutches her red purse with both hands, standing next to her chair and leaning on one leg. She is so tiny, little Eurycleia. She waits, looking at him hopefully. He slowly comes back from the place he sank into, looks up at her, and smiles.

“Good night, Pitz,” he says. “Don’t stay here. And don’t walk home either. This isn’t a good area. Yoav!” he calls to the lobby. “Call her a cab! Take it off my fee if there’s anything left.”

She doesn’t move. She’s planted herself there.

He gets down heavily from the stage and stands facing her. He’s even shorter than he appeared onstage. He leans over with old-fashioned, knightly grace and kisses her on the cheek, then takes a step back. She still doesn’t move. She stands on her tiptoes, eyes shut, her whole body pulling toward him. He moves closer again and kisses her on the lips.

“Thanks, Pitz,” he says, “thanks for everything. You have no idea.”

“You’re welcome,” she says with that matter-of-fact seriousness, but her face is flushed and her birdlike chest swells. She turns and walks out with a slight limp, her lips rounded into a smile of pure joy.

Now it’s just me and him in the club. He stands facing me, leaning one hand on the edge of my table, and I sit down immediately so as not to distress him with the mass of my body.

“I sentence you now to death by drowning!” he says, quoting the father to his son from Kafka’s story, then holds the flask up over his head and drizzles the last few drops on himself. A few of them fall on me. The dark-skinned man in the undershirt is back in the kitchen washing dishes, belting out “Let It Be.”

“Do you have another minute?” His arms shake with effort as he hoists himself back onto the stage and sits on the edge.

“Even an hour.”

“You’re not in a rush to get home?”

“I’m not in a rush to get anywhere.”

“Just, you know…” He smiles feebly. “Just till the adrenaline goes down a bit.”

His head is on his chest. He looks like he’s fallen asleep sitting up.

Suddenly Tamara is here, all around me. I feel her presence with such force that I have to hold my breath. I tune in to her and I can hear her whisper in my ear, quoting our beloved Fernando Pessoa: “To be whole, it is enough to exist.”

Dovaleh shakes himself awake and opens his eyes. It takes him a minute to adjust his pupils. “I saw you were scribbling a bit,” he says.

“I thought I might try and write something up.”

“Really?” His face fills with a smile.

“When it’s finished, I’ll give it to you.”

“At least there’ll be a few words left behind.” He laughs awkwardly. “Like sawdust, you know…”

—

“It’s funny,” he says afterward and dusts his hands off. “I’m not a person who misses…anyone.”

That surprises me, but I don’t say anything.

“But tonight, I don’t know…Maybe for the first time since she died…” He runs a finger over the glasses lying on the stage floor. “I had some moments when I really felt her…Not just like my mother, I mean, but like a human being. One human being who was here in the world. Dad kept going almost thirty years after her, you know? For the last few years I took care of him. At least he died at home, with me.”

“You mean in Romema?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I didn’t get very far.”

I see him and his father passing each other in the hall. Dusty time piles up over them.

“How about you let me take you home?” I suggest.

He thinks for a moment. Shrugs again. “If you insist.”

“Go get ready,” I say, standing up. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Wait, not so fast. Sit down. Be an audience for one more second.”

He puffs up his chest and cups his hands around his mouth like a megaphone: “Show’s over, Caesarea!” From the edge of the stage he sends me his most glowing smile. “That’s all I have to give you. There’s no more Dovaleh being given out today, and there won’t be tomorrow either. This concludes the ceremonials. Please be careful on your way out. Pay attention to the ushers and security personnel. I’m told there’s heavy traffic at the exits. Good night, everyone.”

David Grossman was born in Jerusalem, where he still lives. He is the best-selling author of many works of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature, which have been translated into thirty-six languages. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Buxtehuder Bulle in Germany, Rome’s Premio per la Pace e L’Azione Umanitaria, the Premio Ischia International Award for Journalism, Israel’s Emet Prize, and the 2010 Frankfurt Peace Prize.

Jessica Cohen was born in England, raised in Israel, and now lives in the United States. She translates contemporary Israeli fiction, nonfiction, and other creative works, among them David Grossman’s critically acclaimed To the End of the Land. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Tablet, Words Without Borders, and Two Lines.

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THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

English translation copyright © 2017 by Jessica Cohen

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in Israel as Sus echad nichnas lebar by Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad, Tel Aviv, in 2014. Copyright © 2014 by David Grossman and Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad.