On the way to school – Liberation

Lev wasn’t sure if he wanted to go to the new school, so we made a list of pros and cons. The pros column was quickly filled in with Lev’s adorable little illegible handwriting. On the cons side, there was only one word written in big letters: FAR AWAY!

It is true that distance is an important parameter in choosing a school. Especially when the parents do not have a car. But the tight words of the “for” column prevailed and we enrolled Lev in the new school. The three ways to get there are by shared taxi, by bike or on foot. The taxi and the bike are quick ways but, for my part, I tried every morning to tip the scales in favor of walking. Tel Aviv at a quarter past seven has a crazy charm. The sleepy streets are full of birds, cats stretching and you hardly meet anyone.

At first, on the way to school, we played “Where did they go?” and each of us took turns making up a story about the people who would later pour out into the streets. They had been abducted by aliens, gone to an enchanted world and created another country, where Hebrew was spoken, in the savannahs of Africa. In fact, it didn’t matter where they were, but their absence allowed us to pick up sounds, details, impossible to distinguish in the hubbub of the city, to talk about things we didn’t have time to discuss during the day. For example:

“Which superhero has the best sense of humor, Spiderman or Hockey? (Spiderman in Knockout.)

– What superpowers would we like to choose? (Lev wanted to rule over magnetic fields; I dreamed of a “magic poop,” a superpower that would allow you to make a poop so dry that you wouldn’t have to wipe your butt.)

– And if the Prime Minister offered us a position in his government, which one would we choose? (I wanted to be Minister of Education and Lev Minister of Desserts or Minister without Portfolio.)

During the long journey to school, there were stops: the bald man’s grocery store where we bought bagels and talked a little about sports; the fresh juice shop where we drank a banana-date shake and listened to the bleary-eyed owner tell us about his baby who didn’t sleep at night; the square with the shameless pigeons that took up all the benches and made a hell of a racket if we tried to sit next to them to rest a little. For me, who has almost no habits, this morning walk with Lev has become the only ritual in my life. A slow and pleasant awakening in a still sleepy world, until one evening when Lev had a conversation with Shira and me that shook us up a bit.

All the kids in his class go to school alone, he told us, he too had grown up and no longer needed a chaperone. I stammered that he lived further away than the other kids, but in an act of treachery, Shira said that while the walk was long, it wasn’t dangerous, and I declared, heartbroken, that I had no objection to Lev going to school alone from now on.

The next morning, the separation was difficult. Not the separation from Lev, who seemed more excited and determined than usual, but the journey together to which I had become so accustomed. In the evening, Lev reported that he had walked very quickly and arrived at school ten minutes earlier than usual. The next day, he beat his own record by two minutes more early. The third morning, I went down with him, barefoot with my garbage bag, and told him that I was proud of him going to school alone, but that if he wanted to, I was ready to accompany him one day. Not to watch him, I specified, but for our morning walk. He did not answer me, he just «hmmm» and, just as I was about to go back up after throwing away the garbage bag, he said to me: “Are you coming?”

That was six months ago, and we’ve been walking to school together ever since. From the conversations at the grocery store, Israeli sports still need to improve, the shameless pigeons in the square are getting bigger, and the juice seller’s baby sleeps through the night without waking up or even calling. «Maman !»

This morning, July 1st, the first day of vacation, the noise of birds woke us up. After brushing our teeth and getting dressed, Lev opened the apartment door and nodded to me. We went downstairs and began walking to school in silence. “Holidays are great, aren’t they?” I told Lev casually, just to make sure he was aware of it. “It’s clear”, he said, bending down to pet a cat, “no more schoolbag to carry.”

Etgar Keret, Latest book published: Seven Years of Happiness, ed. de L’Olivier, 2014.

Translated from Hebrew by Rosie Pinhas-Delpuech