Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il paese dei fat cats

un racconto di Etgar Keret
http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/24058/fat-cats/print/
In preparation for the meeting with Lev’s preschool teacher, I shaved
and took my good suit out of the closet.
“It’s a ten-in-the-morning meeting,” my wife laughed. “The teacher will
probably be wearing sweat pants. And with that white shirt and jacket,
you’ll look like a groom.”
“Like a lawyer,” I corrected her. “And when the meeting’s over, you’ll
thank me for dressing up.”
“Why are you acting like she wants to talk to us because Lev did
something bad?” my wife protested. “Maybe she just wants to tell us that
Lev is a good kid who helps the other kids in his group?”
I tried to picture our Lev in the preschool yard generously sharing his
sandwich with a scrawny, grateful classmate who forgot to bring a snack
that day. The incredible strain of trying to conjure up that image
almost gave me a stroke. “Do you really think they asked us to come to
hear about something nice Lev did?” I decided to abandon my rather
limited imagination and focus instead on my wife’s surprising optimism.
“No,” she admitted sadly. “I just like arguing with you.”
The teacher was actually wearing sweat pants, but she really liked my
suit and enjoyed hearing that it was the same suit I wore to my wedding.
“But then he could still wear it without having to hold in his stomach,”
my wife said, and she and the teacher exchanged the empathetic smiles of
women stuck with men who have three pizzerias on speed dial but have
never seen the inside of a gym.
“Actually,” the teacher said, “the reason I asked you to come does have
something to do with food.”
The teacher told us that little Lev had forged a secret pact with the
school cook, that she was bringing him chocolate on a regular basis,
even though the board of education had strictly prohibited children from
eating sweets on school grounds. “He goes to the bathroom and comes back
with five chocolate bars,” the teacher explained. “Yesterday, he sat in
a corner and kept eating until streams of chocolate started running out
of his nose.”
“But why don’t you talk to the cook about it?” my wife asked.
“I’ve already done that,” the teacher sighed. “But she says Lev is so
manipulative that she just can’t help it.”
“And you think it’s possible,” my wife continued, “that a 4-year-old can
control an adult and force her to—”
“Don’t pay attention to her,” I whispered to the teacher. “She knows
it’s possible. She just likes to argue.”
In the afternoon, I took advantage of a friendly soccer game with Lev to
have a heart-to-heart. “You know what Ricki, your teacher, told me
today?” I asked.
“That even though I water her computer every morning, it doesn’t help
and the screen will always stay a midget?” Lev asked.
“No,” I said. “She told me that Mari the cook brings you chocolate every
morning.”
“Yes,” Lev said happily. “Lots and lots and lots of chocolate.”
“Your teacher also said that you eat all the chocolate yourself and
won’t share it with the other kids.” I added.
“Yes,” Lev agreed quickly. “But I always explain to them that I can’t
give them any because kids aren’t allowed to eat sweets in school.”
“Very good,” I said. “But if kids aren’t allowed to eat sweets in
school, why do you think you can?”
“Because I’m not a kid,” Lev smiled a pudgy, sneaky smile. “I’m a cat.”
“You’re what?”
“Meow,” Lev answered in a soft, purry voice. “Meow, meow, meow.”
The next morning, I was drinking coffee in the kitchen and reading the
papers. The coach of the Israeli national soccer team was caught by
customs smuggling more than $25,000 worth of cigars into the country. A
Knesset member from the Shas party bought a restaurant and forced his
parliamentary aide, paid out of the Knesset budget, to work there.
Basketball coaches for Maccabi Tel Aviv, the country’s star team, are
facing charges of income tax evasion. Then, while I ate breakfast, I
read a little about the trial of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert,
accused of graft, and topped it all off with a short item stating that
former Finance Minister Avraham Hirshson, presently incarcerated for
embezzlement, has been called “a model prisoner” by his fellow inmates.
For years I’ve struggled in vain to understand why such well-heeled,
successful people choose to break the law, risking punishment and scorn,
when they already have everything. Olmert, after all, was not living in
abject poverty when he forged flight expenses so he could squeeze
another thousand dollars out of Yad Vashem. And Hirshson wasn’t exactly
starving when he embezzled money from the organization for which he was
working. But then, after that heart-to-heart with Lev, it all suddenly
became clear. Those men, just like my son, cheat and steal and lie only
because they are sure they are cats. And as adorable, furry,
cream-loving creatures, they don’t have to abide by the same rules and
laws all those sweaty two-legged creatures around them have to obey.
With that in mind, it’s easy to predict the former prime minister’s line
of defense:
Prosecutor: Mr. Olmert, are you aware of the fact that forgery and fraud
are against the law?
Olmert: Of course. As a moral, law-abiding former prime minister, I am
completely aware that they are against the law for all the citizens of
the country. But if you read the country’s laws carefully, you will see
that they don’t apply to cats! And I, sir, have been well-known
throughout the world as a lazy fat cat.
Prosecutor (flabbergasted): Mr. Olmert, certainly you do not expect the
court to take your last remark seriously.
Olmert (licking the cuffs of his Armani suit): Meow, meow. meow.

 Olmert (licking the cuffs of his Armani suit): Meow, meow. meow.
http://tinyurl.com/nbpq32