7/30/2019 The Key Game_Ida Fink

1/2

The Palestine-Israel Journal is a q uarterly of MIDDLE EAST PUBLICATIONS, a registered non-profit organization (No. 58-023862-4).

Editorial Board

Hisham Awartani

Danny Rubinstein

Sam'an Khoury

Boaz Evron

Walid Salem

Ari Rath

Zahra Khalidi

Daniel Bar-Tal

Ammar AbuZayyad

Galit Hasan-Rokem

Khaled Abu Aker

Galia Golan

Nazmi Jubeh

Gershon Baskin

Edy Kaufman

Ata Qaymari

Benjamin Pogrund

Vol.4 No.1 1997 / Children of The Conflict

Culture

The Key Game

A short story on a Jewish family in the Holocaust.

by Ida Fink

They had just finished supper and the woman had cleared the table, carried

the plates to the kitchen, and placed them in the sink. The kitchen was

mottled with patches of dampness and had a dull, yellowish light, evengloomier than in the main room. They had been living here for two weeks. It

was their third apartment since the start of the war; they had abandoned the

other two in a hurry. The woman came back into the room and sat down

again at the table. The three of them sat there: the woman, her husband, and

their chubby, blue-eyed, three-year-old child. Lately they had been talking a

lot about the boy's blue eyes and chubby cheeks.

The boy sat erect, his back straight, his eyes fixed on his father, but it was

obvious that he was so sleepy he could barely sit up.

The man was smoking a cigarette. His eyes were blood-shot and he kept

blinking in a funny way. This blinking had begun soon after they fled the

second apartment.

It was late, past ten o'clock. The day had long since ended, and they could

have gone to sleep, but first they had to play the game that they had been

playing every day for two weeks and still had not got right. Even though the

man tried his best and his movements were agile and quick, the fault was his

and not the child's. The boy was marvelous. Seeing his father put out his

cigarette, he shuddered and opened his blue eyes even wider. The woman,

who didn't actually take part in the game, stroked the boy's hair.

"We'll play the key game just one more time only today. Isn't that right?" she

asked her husband.

He didn't answer because he was not sure if this really would be the last

rehearsal. They were still two or three minutes off. He stood up and walked

towards the bathroom door. Then the woman called out softly, "Ding-dong."

She was imitating the doorbell and she did it beautifully. Her "ding-dong"

was quite a soft, lovely bell.At the sound of chimes ringing so musically from his mother's lips, the boy

jumped up from his chair and ran to the front door, which was separated

from the main room by a narrow strip of corridor.

"Who's there?" he asked.

The woman, who alone remained in her chair, clenched her eyes shut as if

she were feeling a sudden, sharp pain.

"I'll open up in a minute, I'm just looking for the keys," the child called out.

Palestine-Israel Journal: The Key Game http://www.pij.org/details.php?id

of 2 4/24/13 8:31

7/30/2019 The Key Game_Ida Fink

2/2

Nafez Nazzal

Simcha Bahiri

Nadia Naser-Najjab

Dan Jacobson

Jumana Jaouni

Dan Leon

Anat Cygielman

Khuloud Khayyat Dajani

Izhak Schnell

Then he ran back to the main room, making a lot of noise with his feet. He

ran in circles around the table, pulled out one of the sideboard drawers, and

slammed it shut.

"Just a minute, I can't find them, I don't know where Mama put them," he

yelled, then dragged the chair across the room, climbed onto it, and reached

up to the top shelf of the etagere.

"I found them!" he shouted triumphantly. Then he got down from the chair,

pushed it back to the table, and without looking at his mother, calmlywalked to the door. A cold, musty draft blew in from the stairwell.

"Shut the door, darling," the woman said softly. "You were perfect. You

really were."

The child didn't hear what she said. He stood in the middle of the room,

staring at the closed bathroom door.

"Shut the door," the woman repeated in a tired, flat voice. Every evening she

repeated the same words, and every evening he stared at the closed

bathroom door.

At last it creaked. The man was pale and his clothes were streaked with lime

and dust. He stood on the threshold and blinked in that funny way.

"Well? How did it go?" asked the woman.

"I still need more time. He has to look for them longer. I slip in sideways all

right, but then... .it's so tight in there that when I turn ... And he's got tomake more noise - he should stamp his feet louder."

The child didn't take his eyes off him.

"Say something to him," the woman whispered.

"You did a good job, little one, a good job," he said mechanically.

"That's right," the woman said, "you're really doing a wonderful job, darling

- and you're not little at all. You act just like a grown-up, don't you? And

you do know that if someone should really ring the doorbell someday when

Mama is at work, everything will depend on you? Isn't that right? And what

will you say when they ask you about your parents?"

"Mama's at work."

"And Papa?" He was silent.

"And Papa?" the man screamed in terror. The child turned pale."And Papa?" the man repeated more calmly.

"He's dead," the child answered and threw himself at his father, who was

standing right beside him, blinking his eyes in that funny way, but who was

already long dead to the people who would really ring the bell.

2012 Palestine-Israel Journal. All Rights Reserved. Articles, excerpts, and translations may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

The Palestine-Israel Journal gratefully acknowledges the support of UNESCO for the initial development of the website.

The Palestine-Israel Journal gratefully acknowledges the support of the European Union for the maintenance and development

of the website.

Palestine-Israel Journal: The Key Game http://www.pij.org/details.php?id

of 2 4/24/13 8:31