The Girl on the Fridge: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

in Arabic, dipshit. We learned Arabic together in basic training,” Yordan said to himself, his feelings hurt, sincerity in his voice. “Trust him, he’s telling the truth,” the voice in the back of his mind whispered with a slight Russian accent. “After all, he is you. You have to trust him.” “I have no duty but to sacrifice my life for my country,” Yordan said to himself. “Besides…Hey, wait a minute, what’s with that slight Russian accent?” He plunged his hand into the back of his mind and pulled out a dwarf in a Cossack hat.

    While Yordan was driving the handcuffed midget to be interrogated at headquarters, the little man volunteered some information. “Look,” he said, “ever since glasnost, there’s been no work. All KGB guys are dying of boredom. So we decided to, how do you people say it, to pull a leg. We searched our files for an agent with the lowest IQ in the world and we—” Yordan didn’t listen to the rest. He pulled out the car lighter, shoved the Soviet dwarf in the hole, reinserted the lighter, and pushed till he felt the click. Eight seconds later, the dwarf stopped screaming. Yordan made a U-turn and went home. “So maybe I was a little weak when they tested us on the shapes,” he said to himself. “But the lowest IQ in the world? You know,” he said to himself with false bonhomie, “I once knew a Georgian agent who could hardly count to three…” He smiled irresistibly into the mirror.
    Deep down, he still didn’t trust him.

Vacuum Seal
    The sergeant took Alon’s vacuum-sealed bandage and pushed it into the pail. Air bubbles rose to the surface. The sergeant ignored them and went on pressing the bandage down to the bottom, smirking. Alon couldn’t help feeling that the sergeant was trying to drown his bandage, his personal bandage, for no reason whatsoever.
    The stream of bubbles stopped. The sergeant took his hand out of the pail and gave the wet corpse a look of contempt. “Is this what you call a vacuum seal, Schreiber? There’s a hole in this seal that’s as big as a cunt.” The sergeant moved closer, till their faces were practically touching, and said in a loud whisper: “But I’m sorry, Schreiber. Have you ever once seen a girl’s cunt?”
    Alon had once seen a girl’s cunt. Many times, in fact, although he couldn’t find any connection between her naked and loving body and the sergeant’s word.
    “I asked you a question, Schreiber.” Alon felt as if the sergeant had invaded his brain and was undressing her against her will, against his will. He wouldn’t let him destroy that, too. He wouldn’t.
    “I can’t hear you, Schreiber.”
    “No, sir.”
    “Never mind, it isn’t your fault you were born a loser. Why don’t you ask your mother nicely? Maybe she’ll show you the hole you came out of. Lugassi, I wouldn’t laugh if I had a face like yours.”
    The sergeant turned toward Alon. There was a menacing look in his eyes. “Am I imagining things, Schreiber, or are you crying?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Schreiber, you’re a piss-poor excuse for a human being, a piss-poor excuse for a soldier, and a piss-poor excuse for a vacuum sealer.” By now the sergeant was screaming, spraying droplets of spit in Alon’s face. The droplets stung, like an all-consuming acid. “I can’t make a man out of you. Even God almighty couldn’t do that. But I can make a soldier out of you. Tomorrow morning, I expect to see every single one of your shorts and undershirts vacuum-sealed. One by one. And they’d better be done properly this time. And you know why, Schreiber?” The sergeant’s voice rose even higher. “Because good vacuum sealing is an inseparable part of being a good soldier. I bet you’re smiling, Bugamilsky.” The sergeant turned to face Bugamilsky with a nervous jerk. “It’d take a cherry retard like you to smile when I’m explaining about vacuum sealing. I’d like to see you smile after you cross the Zahrani with your pants full of Arab