Tribune. Since the outbreak, I can finally imagine my own death. Not that I didn’t try before, but every time I lay down on my bed, closed my eyes and tried to imagine my last breath, things always went wrong. If I saw myself losing control of my car on the highway for example, zigzagging between lanes, wheels locked, at almost 100 kilometers per hour while aggressive drivers honked at me like crazy, a few seconds before the fatal accident, my car started sliding on its side and even if it was very distressing and the airbags were deployed, I always managed to get out of it. And I didn’t just imagine car accidents. Everything was there: terrorist attacks, violent clashes with neighbors, heart attacks live on television in the middle of a cultural program. No matter how much I imagined the worst horrors, I always got away with them. Sometimes it ended with me being interviewed on TV, my hair all messed up, in the evening news. Or I woke up in the hospital and my son would rush to me to hug me. Despite my efforts, all these dramas ended without a victim.
Then came the coronavirus and wiped everything out. Every night when I go to bed, I close my eyes and see myself being rushed to the hospital in severe respiratory distress. The few doctors still in the emergency room are exhausted and at the end of their rope. My wife politely asks a young, bleary-eyed doctor if he can examine me, explaining that I am a high-risk patient because I have asthma. He stares blankly at her, clearly thinking of something else. Maybe his own death when the time comes. Or a nice shower. I try to smile—I read somewhere that you generate more empathy when you smile, which is why crooks smile a lot—and I put on my most charming smile. If only this young doctor would deign to glance in my direction, he would be struck by my humanity, my pale face would remind him of an uncle he once loved who died tragically in a diving accident. But he doesn’t. He watches a hairy giant with receding hairlines as he riot in the nurses’ office. I gather from his screams that he’s been waiting three hours for someone to examine his father. The older nurse tells him to calm down. Instead of answering, the hairy giant lights a cigarette. A stocky security guard rushes over and tells him to shut up, which the hairy giant tells him he’ll do the second a doctor agrees to examine his father. My wife tries to get the young doctor’s attention, but he ignores her and heads toward the giant and his father. I feel like no matter how hard I try, I can’t breathe. It’s like pushing open a locked door. I’ve known that feeling since I was a child. I remember every detail of my asthma attacks. But when I think back, I could still fill my lungs with a trickle of air. And the doctors took care of me. I look at my wife. She is crying, which is driving me crazy. My death is near, I have always accepted it. It is a matter of minutes. But these tears! Why do I have to leave the wonderful life that was mine like this: no more sun, no more blue sky, a hairy giant screaming and blowing smoke in my face, and my beloved wife crying? Death is supposed to be the end of the first season of this TV show that is my life; the fact is that, since I am dead, there is no risk of a second season. And who wants a final scene of a family crying in a crowded emergency room? I say “family,” even if my son is not there. He is at home playing Fortnite. At least that’s what he was doing when they took me to the hospital. I told him not to come because I was afraid he’d catch something in the emergency room. It’s better to avoid getting sick during this coronavirus period, even if you’re a child. I’m glad he’s not here to see me die. If he were here and saw my wife crying, he’d do it too: when it comes to emotion, he never takes the initiative. And then things would get really complicated. I’d like to tell my wife something that would make her happy, that would make her think of something else, anything as long as she stops crying. But I can’t talk anymore. I’m dead. And then I can’t fall asleep anymore.
I talk to my wife about it. I know that these days of coronavirus are not the most propitious to confide such things, but all this burns inside me like a hemorrhoid and I have to clarify the situation. “Is that it? she exclaims, “Is that really what you’re concerned about? Not the fact that you’re dying young or leaving behind a wife, a child and a rabbit, but the fact that I’m crying?” I try to explain to her that the coronavirus, my damaged lungs, the failing health care system, the hairy giant screaming in the emergency room, these are all real facts. I can’t change anything. However, if she cries, that’s her choice. And for me, that’s extremely upsetting.
«OK ! said my wife, pretending to understand, in the same tone she uses to address the tied dogs that bark as she passes. What you’re saying is that if we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario, would you like me to work on that aspect? So that the day you die in front of me in the emergency room, I don’t start crying?”
I agree enthusiastically. It’s a rare moment. Most of the time, she doesn’t quite understand what I want.
“So what if I promise you, right now, that no matter what happens, I won’t cry and instead I… I don’t know, I… I’ll give you a wink?” she wonders. I explain to her that she doesn’t need to wink at me, she can just hold my hand and be gentle and serene. Like those grieving mothers who appear on TV to ask that we not give in to terrorism. We can see that it’s hard for them, that they are torn inside, but they want to keep up appearances and show that they are strong. It is much easier to leave this earth knowing that you are leaving behind a woman as solid as a rock. “No problem, said my wife. If it’s easier for you, I’ll do it. No tears. Deal.”
That night I lie in bed, awake once more. My wife is asleep, I can hear her steady breathing beside me, and when I close my eyes it’s all there: the pain, the fluorescent lights flickering above my bed, the air that can’t get into my lungs. I hear the hairy giant screaming and the older nurse trying to calm him down. I try to breathe in, to push the door as hard as I can, but it’s locked. Above me I see my wonderful wife desperately searching for the doctor. She knows she won’t find him, but she tries anyway. I’m gasping for air and she can tell. She looks at me and I can see in her eyes that this is the end. She takes my hand and brings her face close to mine. She’s strong, like those mothers on TV, but much calmer. Her green eyes say to me: “You’re leaving us, my friend, too bad, but it’ll be okay here after you’re gone, it’ll be okay.” I fall asleep.
Text translated from Hebrew into English by Jessica Cohen and from English into French by Alexandra Schwartzbrod.
Coming soon on Arte, the series the real estate agent, by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, with Mathieu Amalric and Eddy Mitchell.
Etgar Keret is the author ofIncident at the bottom of the galaxy, L’Olivier, March 2020, and available for sale digitally.
