The Dinner

by Herman Koch

They’re going to withdraw cash here, at this ATM, and nowhere else. Of course, they’d had a little to drink at the school party. And it is in fact that same stubbornness, the stubbornness of the tipsy driver who says he’s perfectly capable of taking the wheel himself—and the stubbornness of the guest who hangs around too long at the end of your birthday party, who grabs one last beer (“one for the road”), then tells you the same story for the seventh time that evening.

Something in me whispered that I needed to stop thinking, that I should above all not go too far with thinking. But that never worked. I always thought things through to the end, to their most extreme consequence.

I looked at my wife in admiration. Anger made her prettier. Especially her eyes—it was a look that put men to shame. Other men.