Tech gadgets, outdoor-grilling gear, and novelty mugs are the gifts that we might expect a son to bestow upon his father. Not so in “World Champion,” a short story by the Israeli writer Etgar Keret, translated from Hebrew by Miriam Schlesinger and originally published in Columbia Journal’s forty-fourth issue. In this tale, a son honors his father’s 50th birthday with both a “gold-plated navel cleaner” and violent revenge.
As a writer, Keret (whose newsletter you can find here) is recognized for his humor and embrace of colloquial speech. In conversation with Terry Gross on the occasion of the publication of his personal-essay collection The Seven Good Years, Keret described the enduring influence of his father’s bedtime storytelling on his own literary production. “The idea is that you kind of look reality straight in the face—doesn’t matter how ugly it is—and you try to find humanity in it,” Keret said. “At the same time, you should find these tiny things that would make a very violent and unhappy occasion still human and emotional.”
The father in “World Champion” is described as bald, pot-bellied, unhappily married, and diminished by time. In contrast, Keret recollects that his parents, who both survived the Holocaust, created a “very wild and happy” home for him and his siblings. A similar spirit of rambunctiousness animates Keret’s stories, even in their bleakest moments, to produce an irresistibly joyous reading experience.
World Champion
Etgar Keret
Translated by Miriam Shlesinger
In honor of my dad’s 50th, I brought him a gold-plated navel cleaner with “For the man who has everything” inscribed across the handle. It was a toss-up between that and Axis of Evil —Axis of Hope, and I debated a lot. My dad was in a good mood all evening, the life of the party. He showed everyone how he brushes his navel clean, and trumpeted like a happy elephant. My mom kept telling him “Menahem, cut it out.” But he didn’t cut it out.
In honor of my dad’s 50th, the tenant who lives in the upstairs apartment decided he wasn’t leaving, even though his lease was up. “Look, Mr. Fullman,” he told my dad as he bent over a dismantled Maranz amplifier, looking like a butcher. “In February I’m off to New York to open a stereo lab with my brother-in-law, and there’s just no way I’m moving out my gear just to find myself a new place for a couple of months.” And when my dad told him the lease was up in December, Shlomi-Electronics went right on working as if nothing had happened, and said in the tone you use to shake off the pest who hits you up for money for a worthy cause: “Lease-shmease, I’m staying. You don’t like it? Then sue me,” and stabbed his screwdriver all the way through the amplifier’s innards.
In honor of my dad’s 50th, I went with him to see his lawyer, and the lawyer said there was nothing to be done. “Settle with him,” he suggested, rummaging through his drawer in a desperate search for something. “Try to get another three-four hundred out of him, and leave it at that. A court case will only give you an ulcer, and after two years of running around you’re still not sure to get any more than that.”
In honor of my dad’s 50th, I asked him why we don’t just go into Shlomi-Electronics’ apartment at night and change the lock and dump all his stuff into the yard. And my dad said it was illegal, I should forget about it right there. I asked him if it was because he was afraid, and he said he wasn’t, he was just being a realist. “Why bother?” he asked and rubbed his bald spot. “You tell me, why bother? For another couple of months? Forget it, it’s not worth the effort.”
In honor of my dad’s 50th, I thought back about what he’d been like when I was a kid. Really tall, and working for the city. He used to take me places. He’d carry me piggy-back. I’d yell “giddyup,” and he’d run up and down the stairs, with me on his back, like a lunatic. He wasn’t a realist back then. He was the world champion.
In honor of my dad’s 50th, I stood on the landing and looked at him. He was bald, he had a little potbelly, he hated his wife, who was my mom. People kept stepping on him and he’d tell himself it wasn’t worth the effort. I thought of the sonofabitch tenant stabbing amplifiers up there in the apartment that had belonged to my grandfather who was dead, and just knowing that my dad wouldn’t do a thing, because he was tired, because he didn’t have the guts. Because even his son, who was only 23, wouldn’t do a thing.
In honor of my dad’s 50th, I thought about life for a second. About how it spits right in our face. About how we always give in to all kinds of assholes because they’re not worth the effort. I thought about myself, about my girlfriend, Tali, who I don’t really love, about the bald spot that’s hiding under my hairline, about the inertia that somehow always keeps me from telling a girl I don’t know on the bus that she’s really pretty, from getting off at the stop with her and buying her flowers. My dad had gone inside already, and I was left there on the landing by myself. The light went out and I didn’t even go turn it back on. I felt like I was choking. I felt like a punk. I thought about having kids who’d go running like mice through an underground mall just to come back to me with Axis of Evil —Axis of Hope.
In honor of my dad’s 50th, I whacked his tenant across the face with a wrench. “You broke my nose,” Shlomi whimpered, writhing on the floor. ”You broke my nose.” “Nose-shnose,” I lifted the Phillips screwdriver off his workbench, ”You don’t like it? Then sue me.” I thought about my dad, who must be sitting in the bedroom now, cleaning his navel with a brush with a gold-plated handle. It got me mad, it got me burning mad. I put the screwdriver away and gave him a kick in the head for good measure.
