Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

Ship's steward picked up her with his left hand at her throat. He pinch in her throat. They blew again. He nip her throat close with averted face. He set out a force. 'way to go,' she whispered, 'way to go. I must call the police? As in the past, Jörgen? Should I call them back?'

When pushed it. They fell against the wall next to the bathtub. But they are not required had for a long time to recover. She pulled the shower curtain aside and spoog a few times in the bathtub.

'Now I know the,' said ship's steward slowly, while he hand her in her throat is crimped had opened and closed. As if he was to the physio and dutifully did the exercises that had been assigned to him.

'Now you know what?'

'Now I know why you have come. Because you could not outstanding. You couldn't bear that I was happy. You Liked the intolerable that i had built up a life with Tirza. That i without you just saved. You are lucky always unbearably found. If you have no reason to cry and to cry, you have the feeling that you're not alive. If you face is not behind a veil of tears can hide, do you think the best of the existence wrong to walk. Without tragedy is for you the life nothing. Nothing. A…'

'Call this life?' She pointed to him. They pointed to the washing machine and the towel rack.

He did not reply. He opened the medicine cabinet and looked for stuff that you lubricate the mosquitoes bulten can. They had to have some left of past summer. It was a summer with many mosquitoes. Also had a nuisance to Tirza had. He had bought a mosquito net for her, but they were killed on miraculously through, the mosquitoes.

He found nothing. Iodine, plasters, aspirin. No mosquitoes stuff. For the purpose of Council with the Nagel he hustle and bustle of his thumb in the bump.

'Jörgen,' said the wife.

'Yes,' he said with the nail still in are mosquitos Bult.

'Who do you think really attractive? I am not. I know that. I knew that for a long time. I think it is nice that you can still also have said in so many words. Better say anything. More of your heart no murder pit. But I am curious who you or find attractive. Surely you must find íémand attractive. I wonder whether it might be men. I have to ask you that never, because I was afraid that you would find that to confrontational, that there was nothing of you would remain nothing at all, still less than now. I was afraid that you would feel unmasked, helpless, that you would collapse, to substance would wreck. But now that we are friends, just friends, not more than that, who knows best friends, I thought: I can also inform the men to whom your calls? Boys? Young boys? Blond, in a tight jeans? Or rather a little Indian?'

She came to him again. He did not. His left hand was moving mechanical about the mosquitoes Bult. It had not really helped, the nail in the bump. The itching was at best become less intense.

Just two steps away from him they remained.

'Are you so fortunately now?' she asked. 'Because you finally can be who you are? Undisturbed. Still in the secret of course, imagine, but undisturbed. They come late at night, as Tirza sleep, or in the weekend, if they are staying at a friend? Only, or a few at the same? In the learning? With moustaches? And smooth back hair combed, still wet and shimmering of the gel?'

Also he saw on her face the same emotion that he suffered an hour or five had seen, when they had stood in the vestibule, with its case on wheels. It was an emotion that he knew of her not. Between all high courage by, between all its defensiveness sarcasm appeared occasionally something on her face what it strongly reminiscent of despair. A look, a trait with its mouth. Along the way they looked around him. The sound of its voice. That despair was new and made her unexpected fragile. And also by him. Where they broke, he broke.

'Go away,' he said. 'You're crazy.'

Crazy? That you have previously said to me. Crazy? Because I know it? Because I no longer have something with that crazy game of you? I have many years of silence, so that you could feel better, so you in your own fraud could believe, and quiet could think that everyone, including i, since it is also believed. I was crazy, because I you and your self-deception have left in peace, because I have never said: "Jörgen, it is better for everyone if you admits, just give it, we are no longer living in the nineteenth century. There are worse things." But now I also kindly ask what the situation is, I love, now I ask, from interest, from pure interest, in friendship, who you actually find attractive, loss I suddenly my sense?'

'You're crazy,' he repeated. 'Even more bizarre than in the past. Why should we be pronounced, why can you see things not alone — why you have no respect for the silence? Why is that so threatening for you, so unbearably?'

She pulled her dress over her head. She threw him to disregard such as someone who is in a hurry I am told. Not the haste of the desire, the rush of the habit. The haste of sleep. Now sleep. Fast. As you do if you are a night not have an eye close done in an aircraft that also was delayed. She wore no bra. He turned his gaze.

'Jörgen,' she said soft, 'This is where you are afraid of? Is this what you abhor to me? That I am a woman? Is that what you're odour had? The stench of the woman? You yards away smell, because the more spooked your for something, the better you can smell the, that is the law of the animal kingdom, not? Is this what you do disgusted? You can now say in all honesty, I would like to know. I take no pain. The truth can me no hurt. I think the silence painful. The lies. The collusive fuss.'

'Go away,' he said with curved head. 'Please dont go away. Go to a hotel. This evening. I will give you money.'

'What for?'

'For a hotel.'

They lifted her breasts up a little. She was a smooth brown, they could the topless sunbathing is still not let.

'you see them,' she asked, 'durf see your watch? These are the breast that you have children for suckling. You can see them? They are not going to become stuck or puckered as with other women. Nothing is so harmful to the skin if contract and expand, contract and expand, but my breasts are not shrunk. They have remained as they were. Have you ever really looked at it? Have you missed them? The feeling of revulsion that they aroused for you. That you can still also miss? But thank God there is still one thing bigger than you disgust, it is not, you desire to meet social conventions.'

He ignored her breasts. He looked her in the eyes and when that no longer went, he looked past her.

'I am sorry,' said he eventually. Because he did not know what he had to say. Because they stood before him, touch and unreal at the same time, but especially nude.

A naked wife. On age.

He brought his hand to his head and felt His hair, skull, he had also itching.

'What you regret?'

He was hesitant, he did not know what it exactly unhappy, he knew that he only unhappy.

'DI ate it was not,' said he eventually.

You 'was not?'

'De man to whom you requested.'

'No, that wasn't.'

She showed her breasts.

'but i was also not,' she said after a few seconds. 'I was not the person to whom you requested.'

'No.' He felt the wound on his lip. 'As you can say. If the must. Then we are quits.' He had the idea that the undertail coverts.

'Quits, yes. That is also a way to look at it. Quits. Yet there are knapperds in my life. Feel not guilty, feel not overindebted.' She said the dreamy and business at the same time. They summed up the facts on, now it was them here. The profit and loss account was presented to him.

'Knapperds?'

'Knapperds. One had rasta hair.'

'Is that it? How do you describe it? How the hot?' he thought it was a word for his daughters. Knapperds. And if he would have had to laugh, he had a great laugh. Thank and energetic. Long, itself on the upper leg banging. Mother and daughter looking for knapperds.