Free The Nimrod Flipout: Stories by Etgar Keret

he looked up, he realized you weren’t there,” he said to Neeva in an accusing tone as they walked down King George Street trying to reconstruct the route of that disastrous evening stroll. “How many times have I told you not to let him out of your sight?” “Tell me,” Neeva said as she stopped walking and stood in the middle of the street like a wife about to make a scene. “What exactly are you trying to say? That I’m not a good enough au pair for your smelly dog? That I don’t walk him according to the rules of the International Dog-Walkers’ Association? If you were home instead of fucking around with your Germans , you could’ve taken him out yourself and none of this would’ve happened.” Ronel could have complained about how he worked his ass off till all hours just to put food on the table, but he decided, for tactical reasons, to hold his peace. One of the first things he’d learned in the business world was never to reach a point of no return. You always left open as many options as possible. This often meant not saying or doing the thing you wanted to say or do. Now, for example, he felt very much like kicking Neeva in the shin as hard as he could. Not only because she’d let Darko run away, but also because she didn’t call him by his name and insisted on referring to him as “smelly,” and mainly because she refused to take responsibility for her actions and behaved as if this terrible tragedy were God’s way of punishing Ronel and not the mistake of a self-centered and totally irresponsible wife. He didn’t kick her in the shin as hard as he could because that, as mentioned, would have been a point of no return. Instead, with that same composure and self-control so often displayed by murderers when cleaning up the scene of the crime and getting rid of their victims’ bodies, Ronel suggested that she go home and wait there in case someone called with information about Darko. “Who’s going to call?” Neeva laughed. “Your stupid dog from a pay phone? Or his kidnappers asking for ransom? Even if someone does find him, they won’t know our number.” “I still think it would be better if we split up,” Ronel insisted, and seriously considered abandoning the insight that had served him so well for so many years and kicking Neeva very hard after all. When she persisted in asking why, he shook his head wildly and said, “No reason.”
    Ronel leaned against a yellow mailbox and read over the list he’d just made on the back of the receipt from the restaurant he and Renana had eaten in that night. The list was headed “Places Darko Likes (?)” He didn’t know why he’d tacked on that question mark and parentheses. Maybe because he felt that if the list didn’t include an element of uncertainty, it would be like claiming he knew all there was to know about Darko, whereas Ronel himself had readily admitted countless times, to himself and to others, that he didn’t always understand Darko. Why sometimes he barked and other times chose not to. Why he started digging holes so furiously, then left the excavation as suddenly as he’d started it, for no obvious reason. Did he think of Ronel as his master? His father? His friend? Maybe even as his lover? At any rate, it was definitely no more than a list to help Ronel search, and that’s why it needed a question mark of uncertainty. The first place on the list was Meir Park, where he and Darko went every morning. That was where Darko met the dogs who were his friends and enemies, not to mention his bosom buddy, the stumpy Schneider. At that late hour, there were no dogs or people in Meir Park. Only a drunk, homeless Russian dozing on a bench. Ronel presumed he was Russian not just because of the somewhat stereotypical bottle of vodka cradled in his arms, but because he kept laughing and speaking Russian in his sleep. Ronel stopped for a minute and said to himself that despite the troubles that kept plaguing him and sometimes made him feel