Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

'It was your idea,' said the wife soft, 'die floor to rent. I would not have had the.'

It felt like Hofmeesters foot muscles were paralyzed. As if he was stunned by a dentist and still could not speak.

'would not have? But how we had to be able to live here than ever? Would not have. For you,' he cried, 'for you i have done so. For your future. And, take those Tirza lolly from your mouth.'

He looked his wife and daughters to but they seem not to understand him. 'would not,' I muttered he. 'would not.' He could only shake his head due to the lack of understanding shown.

'Jörgen,' said the wife, 'Ibi is a large girl. Ibi is a woman. It is not the way to treat her friends to.'

'But that is her boyfriend not,' shouted ship's steward. The tenant is '. You understand that not? You understand nothing? And she is still a woman. She is not mature. She is a child, a child. It is my fault. I had never been to above must send the rent for.'

He looked his own family, searching for something of understanding, but he saw nothing what seemed. He spoke a different language. He came from another country. He was a different man than the rest of his family, a become Fremdkörper. in this family. A remnant, but of what? From the moment of conception. The fact that his wife had twice fertilised. He was the remainder. An unnecessary remainder, such as a umbilical cord. And only one thing made to that end is not necessary: the money.

'You're really not normal,' said Ibi. 'Denk you that I am the only in my class i with an older boyfriend?'

He looked at the wife, but they seemed to find this normally. All-day confessies along you go if the weather. Everything it was surprising they normally. Everything he rejected, it was also good to understand and does not present a problem. He was old-fashioned, a stand-in-the-road. Indeed, an unnecessary hangover from a different time.

'MAAR,' said ship's steward, and he heard the despair in his voice, 'dat is not your friend. That is the tenant. That can be a friend are not. That is the tenant.'

'Papa,' said Tirza.

He looked to her. She was small for her age. They belonged to the smallest of the class, but the family doctor had said that the growth spurt. That they are not worried about having to worry.

'Papa,' said Tirza again.

'Yes,' he said and he realized that he for his own family stood as before a court of law. 'Doe lolly leave anyway. You can find the not even tasty. It is pure chemical rubbish. And there is other candy that you really nice place.'

'I have also a boyfriend. He is seated in the lady in the class. Stine'

Ship's steward wiped on his forehead. Sweat in his hands and sweat in his neck, sweat everywhere. That was perhaps also with the respiratory distress and with that uneasy feeling in the chest, arms, legs. The own body was an inconvenience. An instrument that was inadequate, and that he should be discarded if it were not for the fact that there is no replacement was. That was the age, which began today on the stairs.

'Dat is very nice,' he said. The ceremonies during the evening you must eat everything about tell, about lady Stine.'

'Not About lady Stine. About my boyfriend.'

'Yes, that is what I mean, dear Tirza, that I mean it. About your boyfriend.'

When it was quiet, and also Hofmeesters strayed off and that it was thought that everything has been resolved. This evening that they were talking about and lady Stine about the boyfriend. As each evening they would sit around the table. Maybe a little taciturn. Ibi looked often grumpy, but that belonged to the puberty. They would sit around the table, he would sit there. This was his family, these were his family members. He belonged to these people that he would soon to realize, as Tirza table about lady Stine told us, or about her boyfriend.

Just when he almost convinced that everything had was that everything went as it always was he heard the wife ask 'How are you this good now?'

He Regaining his back. If he thought about it or sank into in daydream, he often took a slightly curved posture.

'Good? Where have you on?'

And Tirza said with its high, sweet voice: 'Yes papa, how are you going to make this good now?'

He travelled to his lower lip. He had the idea that he has no side on could be, and that in his own home.

'But Tirza,' he said, as if they were the only thing was that it had made that question. 'I do nothing to make good. The tenant must something. Because he is a dirty man. He is a dirty architect. He is a dirty tenant. He is so dirty that he can no longer. I put it to the house.'

I also 'Dan,' shouted Ibi. 'Dan i now. So I take my stuff. I am still tonight disappeared.'

They stood up, they walked to the gift table.

'You see not what you do?' asked the wife, and they talked now not more quiet and calm. 'You see not what you do? Do you understand something of your daughter?'

'I understand very much of my daughter,' he said. 'I understand that she is attacked. No, that she is raped, and that they are in the war. That we must see a doctor. To the police. I understand that. They may be pregnant.'

'No,' shouted Ibi. 'Let him stop. Let it cease.'

They picked up the watch that they had obtained. She loved it in her hand.

'stop that? To stop, Ibi? Are you me in my house the law? Are you tell me what I can and cannot do that?'

'I am not pregnant' shouted Ibi. 'I am on the pill, geenstijl.' She threw the watch for located on the ground and with its right foot stampte they insisted as if they were too large a spin wild death stairs. They remained until the beast death pitching was. 'and that I do not need more,' she shouted. 'I do nothing of you. I need never something of you.'

Ship's steward wiping his nose, even though there is nothing to wipe fell. Too old, he was too old to children and actually started against his will. But when he was young, there were the expressionist poets who at the same time as child and pet in his life figured.

'Why do I know nothing?' he asked soft. 'Why nobody tells me something? Why do I always as last?'

'Because you never ask,' said the wife. 'You ask nothing. Besta you really? Do you live here with us?'

So that is the he thought, I never ask something. But how do you certain things? And when? In the dessert? Or on sunday afternoon, if it rains?

'There must you say,' said he could quietly, 'You almost every night when a a finicky bitch the house from rent. I do everything, and with pleasure, not, I go to the parent evenings, i stay at home for the children, but you are not there, you just need to be there not because you are artist. Yes, dear children, you mother is an artist. Nobody wants to buy its work, and between us and silence: it is not to be seen, but not that makes her, she paints by.' He raised his voice. 'And then complains that she said to me that I do not know that my eldest daughter on the pill. How did I that need to know? I must ask for the four weeks confuse the bathroom and see if I left in the medicine cabinet the pill of my daughter? Or should I each evening on the food questions: "Who of you is on the pill, dear children? A show of hands. Which of you has had a sexually transmitted disease, dear children? A show of hands. Who of you is today on the school square in the arse fucked, dear children? Hands." Is that what it means to be father? According to you? And then I begin there today. I did not believe that this should be the case. I had no idea that I was expected. No idea.'

Ibi was there. The wife was on and picked up the remnants of the watch on, they looked as if they wanted to investigate forward or the still could not be repaired. And Tirza looked with its large, brown eyes. Curious. But also tense. She looked like they understood.

Nobody responded to his diatribe. They Galilee to him as if he was an alien. Not anxious, rather curious and surprised, but with the remote that is an inevitable if a man is an alien.