Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

A little closer he brought his face at the mirror. Yes, his skin was less tight than in the past, less smooth. There lubberde something. A double chin developed. Previously, in that word was more than just their own history and thus blocked its, and those of Ibi, and those of Tirza not to forget. In a word that was the life clogged.

'But Jörgen,' she said, 'denk you that I never knew before? Do you think that I would never have seen? And have never felt? Do you think that I have never noticed how you looked, as you already looked? The revulsion which you looked. The panic.'

He did not reply. He focused on his mirror image. His gaze slid across the bathroom, on the marble, the bathtub, the towel basket that at the same time also a heating was so you in the morning in the winter warm towels. Everything is arranged, everything is clean. All of it as it was supposed to be.

'But you,' she said, 'You have not seen. Nothing. All those years. Blind were you. I wanted you just as you wanted me. But that you saw not. I found your old. But you felt it is not. You had to pressure. I do not know that, but you had to pressure.'

'Old?'

'too old.'

'too old? What do you mean? When is someone too old?'

'Old, Jörgen. Just old. Too old for me. My girlfriends asked: "What do you do with those ouwe berkien?" Listless i found you, not only in bed, also outside. So awful listless, on the pathetic, as if your inertia you made particularly so behave in the same way you. And if you're not listless was that few times you not was lethargic… than were you… oh well. And do you know why I left off? Because the men to whom I fell, the men who I say, exciting, exciting, to whom I was in love, sometimes weeks, months, all had something in common. They would not be good for my children, if they already wanted to raise children, but that was not even the biggest problem. The problem was that they had never been so for them would ensure, I thought, if you were to do that.'

He walked to the toilet, ruptured a toilet-paper, snoot his nose and threw the piece of paper in the toilet. He looked forward, how the in the water. When he travelled by. The noise of the pulling a weird way on the voltage, it seemed that he took a second as unbearable to break had experienced.

'That bothered us not?' he said, gazing in the pot. 'too old. Where did you take over? How many years there is actually between us? Do you therefore come to? Because you forgot something i had to say, at one time?' He snickered. The idea was absurd, be absurd, like some of the complaints of the lessee. Exactly as absurd as too old to continue to be dismissed.

'We care enough. And it is becoming more and more. The age difference is becoming ever greater. Mark you don't? It is not exactly how much we care about. It is something mentaals. It has nothing to do with years, with the date of birth in your passport. You are just old and you are already very long. You have ceased to be exciting. In so far as it ever was. Exciting, says that word you something?'

He took the roof is released from the enchantment that the toilet bowl had exercised on him. He turned to his wife. 'You're right,' he said. 'There was no lust between us. But lust is not the biggest, the most beautiful, the most important, the only. For example, i found the smell that spread repulsive. But I have never seen anything of said, because it is not a question of smell. If it still to smell, after two children, there is something wrong. Not? You would still about smells whine?'

'What smell?' she asked and she came a step closer. 'What did you smell?'

He put his finger from, hustle and bustle which is also on her breast bone. A eight gesture.

'You know. You know that very well. Your fragrance. The smell that you distribute. Always, twenty-four hours a day.' He ran from its road in the direction of the washing machine. Backing up against the washing machine he continued, casual and pensive, arms akimbo. A pose was it. As peaceful as he stood there he was not. He was tense. Each rejection, everything which he recognized chased it out rejection In the life he had recognized the rejection. Therefore also had the life he hunted.

'Where You're talking about? Fragrance! Do you think that you can afford? Because you have saved a few years without me? Do you think that you now suddenly someone? Better than I do? Stronger?'

The preheated towel basket was a gift. He had to install them at the same time the course 'Self sushi and sashimi' had been followed. A ideetje of the relationship therapist. Go together to do something. Go together to make something. Give one another occasionally a gift. Be made for each other.

'You may be younger than I,' he said, 'what actually is true. You may find me old and slow and have always found, on the pathetic, what a rather subjective observation is moreover…'

'An old draft horse.'

'Let me express an opinion. You may find that everything and proclaim the smell that spread was not to harden.'

He began his right hand massage as he sometimes did when he had spent a day with writing letters and e-mails.

'Can you describe this odor?' she asked. 'Can you more precise? Do you mean odour? Is that what you say, that I am the off season? We are talking about odour?'

They stood for him. He could not reverse, because behind him there was the washing machine. He could the individual pores on its skin distinguished, the black of her eyebrow pencil. Perhaps she equal, he had its gewalgd. But it was no reason for the disgust separation, disgust was the epitome of intimacy. The final point of intimacy. Where the inevitable came out. The familiarity of the revulsion, the invariability of the melancholy that they called. The desire once more of the other to be disgusted. And thus also a bit of yourself.

'not per se, odours. Odour, which is the sewer. The tenant complains about odour. Not every unpleasant smell deserves surtitles stench. Orphan nuanced.'

'I off season, is that what you say? Is that what you are trying to say?'

'No, no,' he said, 'You not listen, just as before. Unpleasant smell is not unpleasant odours, smell is unpleasant smell, and I am sure I am not the first who has pointed out that do not naive. Do not be so innocent.'

'Where did that smell come from? I ask you?'

He looked to her, right in her face, briefly but it was enough. In its main were remarkable things, in its main found shorts. The lightning hit from time to time. He was the forgotten, he had the displaced.

'Why do you want to know? I have not said that it does not matter? I would like to end this conversation.'

They took his arm, the arm that itched as something in his absence was inserted.

'I want to know,' she said. 'I have the right to know.' The word 'recht' sounded hard and effectively. As if they were indeed had 2 grants employees on something they claim came out now. Its share of the spoils.

'From your mouth,' he said. 'especially if you been drinking wine. But you drank each day wine, so that made very little. Than was that smell soon so predominant that from your toes seemed to and from your hair, from your whole body. It was unbearable. And repulsive. If i strange to you have looked, must have the located.'

Squeezing gently, almost tenderly, in his arm and asked: 'you can smell him now? That smell? You can smell it? He is again?'

He shook his head, confused and irritated. Hunted he felt, through its presence, by its questions, by its proximity. A few hours ago he was started to make the oven dish, really happy, but without be aware. Lucky you shoot until afterwards to within. Ach, when I was happy, stupid that I do not have better attention.

'I am colds,' he said, 'furthermore you have just cleaned your teeth. I smell my own toothpaste. That too is no fun.'

'Come on,' she said. 'smell.' She brought her mouth near his nose. They blew. He felt the warmth of its asem on his face. Once again they blew. Close she was now. He was able to see everything. But he looked not more.