Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

'Geenstijl,' she said.

He kept his hand on his foot as if he sneezing, but the nies was not. He travelled to his lower lip. Vague he felt an emerging headache.

Never before had they called him geenstijl. It was a word which he had to consider a word which he no Council knew. They had never been kicked him. Geenstijl was worse than shovels. That is why he ignored the. He did as if he had heard nothing. He wanted to hear it, he did not know how he had to respond to. There were more daughters who their father called geenstijl. He had his father never called geenstijl. Unthinkable.

Ship's steward said only: 'Ibi, soothe. You are now securely. You are back home.'

The only answer to his request for calm was that they stood up. They ran to the door. Ship's steward was her for. Old he was, as he had climbed the stairs he suffers from respiratory distress, but this was here for him a question of survival and when you are busy to survive, you can forget all respiratory distress. He blocked the door.

'Where do you want to go?' he asked.

'upwards,' she shouted.

'To your room?'

'upwards,'. Repeated 'To him. To Andreas.'

'Why?'

'I want to top,' she said one more time now quieter. 'Plain. Therefore. It is absolutely none of you. I am no longer a child. I may go where I want. You are my boss.'

Simply 'Why is no reason. You have nothing to search. Here you live. To me, at your parents, from your sister living you. Here you have to find something.'

'You're my boss krijste not,'. 'hold on the boss about me to play, only because you have no one else can play the boss.'

That was. The pain was already in place before he could really think of what they referred to in those terms. All truth did pain, but still more, each year a little more.

'I don't play the boss about you, I can tell you that you only friendly also not to top Can.'

'My panties is there still krijste,'. I would like 'what that will upwards.'

'What is still there?'

'My panties, idiot. My panties. My panties. Do you understand the now?'

They screamed as he its long time, perhaps had never hear you scream.

And something made a ship's steward ziedend again. The way in which they said it, the way they looked at him, the word 'stab', a terrible word. 'Pants" was bad enough but 'Tab'. A slippery word, a word that made him uncomfortable almost crazy. In his own house, opposite his own daughter.

He was furious as above, in the house of the lessee. The anger torn and destroyed him and that made him still woedender. The word 'Tab', the fact that wooed you his eldest daughter so suddenly, so easily came to an end. The emerging headache.

That is why he did something which he had never done, not by his daughters.

He gave Ibi a slap. A hard. He could not save soft. If he did, it was hard.

They remained standing.

They krijste not. They cried not. They looked at him. Speechless.

It was quiet and it was quiet. It was as though he was finished with the counting of the rent and they now afwachtte what he would give her. Its share.

This seemed at the time that they both weather father and daughter were. The time full of interpretation, the ritual. But he said nothing, he had already something.

In Ibi's eyes he saw no gratitude, no joy over its share, no confidential wink about the secret operation which they had together each month, only contempt. An overriding contempt.

When he heard foot steps on the stairs. He turned around to and saw his wife hastily to accentuate the stairs with Tirza behind. The small Tirza.

They were in the meantime come home. The between time. How long he was actually above? How long had it all time? He had no idea. A few minutes and no more.

'What is going on here?' asked the wife. 'What is that noise? And what do you see out!'

How did he take out? He put his shirt in his pants, wiped the sweat of his brow. He looked as always, felt.

Ship's steward looked at Tirza. They had a red lolly in her mouth. Always as they are to that girlfriend, Emilie was called, they had been a lollipop in her mouth. Ship's steward disgusted of lolly's. They were poor. Bad for the teeth, bad for the stomach, bad for the child.

'What is going on here, Jörgen?' asked the wife again.

'De stalamp is broken,' said he finally, after he has a couple of times around itself had a look as if he is ensure that he wanted in his own home.

'What stalamp?'

'Die of the lessee. You first had bought for us.'

'Is that the problem?'

He was sleeping. He brought the envelope of the one hand to the other.

'The problem?' he tried to remember what the problem was and how he could make the best, in a few words. 'No, that is not the problem.'

When looked at the wife to her daughter. 'Ibi,' she said, 'what is going on here? What is the problem?'

Ibi remained silent. Glares at her father. Contempt, compassion and anger, that was what he saw. His eldest daughter of man. When he just turned back to the wife.

'The problem,' said ship's steward soft, 'is the tenant. The tenant must go. He makes us broken.'

Ibi did a step forward. Not for her mother to her father. 'No,' she said, 'Andreas is not the problem. You are not the problem, dad. And that you are already very long.'

Instinctively he raised his hand.

He kicked his children do not. He did but not his children. Net only. A minute or so ago. An exception. A slippertje.

He left his hand pockets. This time he controlled, he had everything under control. He had to control itself. Then came the rest. The handling of current affairs, spraying the garden during dry periods, the caps of the trees, the collection of the rent, life itself. Check yourself, since it all started.

'Doing it but,' said Ibi. 'You can my love for Andreas still not save me.'

That name, the terrible, cursed name.

He looked to his wife, but he did not see a glimpse of understanding. No sign of understanding.

Love for Andreas. At another time he is laughing hard he would have laughed and yet a tad concerned. What did his daughter of love? 'such great words,' he would say, 'orphan very carefully.'

'Can someone tell me now what is going on here?' asked the wife. They sounded irritated. As if he were a strange for its was a boy on the street that her daughter had attacked, and now they wanted to find out what exactly happened before she considers Velde.

He ran without answer to the kitchen, crossed the envelope in his pocket and washed his hands. First one times, then a second time and then washed his face, in the hope that the dormant would eliminate headache. He dried ends with a tea towel. He found no towel.

When he walked into the room again, were the wife and his daughters on the bank, with its three people, and they looked at him. They said nothing. The only sound that should be heard it was smak reaching sound of Tirza to its lolly sucked. A gaping hole was it.

The newspaper was slid to the ground. He folded it up and laid him on the coffee table.

Why they said nothing? What they wanted from him? What he had to do then? Nothing? The sidelines and secretly leave?

He did an extra knot of his shirt open, as if it was what the breath benam him, to close clothing.

'Tirza,' he said, 'throw that lolly road. Lollipops are bad for your teeth.'

There was no reply. The mother was not at. The mother only said: 'Let that child in peace. You have already seen enough damage tonight.'

The respiratory distress was decreased. What is in the place was it was a stiff feeling in the whole body. Perhaps he had to the physiotherapist. Or more tennis. Pain, that was the, his body was pain.

'Damage?' asked ship's steward. 'Damage? Where did you take over? Damage? You know what was going on above? Do you really know what in your own house is in progress?'