Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

Tirza, that name to shake up seems to him, takes him to his positives. Tirza. It is true, he has all those years for her. And for its lived, by its lived with her lived, in addition to its lived, under its. He feels the need to scream, to help to scream but there is no one who will hear him.

'I want you to take over the knee,' he says.

They are smiling and also he can imagine how they stood for others, in better times. For her childhood love for example, on the houseboat, patronising and unreachable. The oscillation of the houseboat, pleasure boats that pass by, shouting and singing of the persons on board. The summer. And then the dead seed.

Ship's steward goes to bed are there are side of the bed. He looks at the balcony doors. From the garden of the neighbors child vote sound

'It is what we are about is," she says and she runs to him. 'It is not much eh? But my beast is flexible, my beast drives me sometimes insane, so is the unaccountability of and also your beast is there still, Jörgen. It is there and it was all time waited on me. You do not have to say. I know. It was all time waited for me.'

She goes with her belly in his lap. Still he hears child votes, but now also howl. Someone has been dropped. They often fall, the children of the neighbors, they are young and impetuous.

His left hand rests on the nail skirt of his eldest daughter, on the buttocks of the wife who to a living boat went. That is the story, the myth of his life.

'As tacky,' she whispers. 'so terribly tacky, is that you are only for can be ashamed.'

Ship's steward caresses her buttocks thought Loos, like a cat caresses which is on your lap to lie down.

'I am mischievous,' she whispers. 'I have always been a naughty only. I am your imagination. Nothing more than that. I am the fantasy that you can touch, Jörgen. That is why I came back. Because I am your imagination. Say it. To say that I am your imagination.'

'Yes,' he says, 'You are my fantasy, you are the fantasy that i can touch.'

He pulls the skirt which is not of his wife is up slightly. With the power of someone in agony is, he shows his right hand on her buttocks come down and nearly at the same time he says: 'They have me supernumerary declared.'

But they do not understand.

Once again he saves her on the buttocks, with the same terror, and he says: 'I am declared supernumerary. I will now ask you supernumerary.'

Still orders them. She controls of his lap. She pulls the skirt of her daughter downwards. As if chastity suddenly plays a role.

'what you call it?" she says. 'I can't. What are you saying?'

'nothing'.

'Sorry," she says, and they caresses on his hair.

'What is there?'

He is seated on bed, as he just sat. They can take place in his lap. The game can continue as it has never been delayed. As if the all those years work has been done.

'Sorry," she says.

'Which sorry? You have done nothing.'

'It is not.'

'What?'

"It.'

'Why not? What does not?'

'The Fuck.'

It stands on the bed, pull the sheet right. Although it is still just as right before he was on the bed plate snam.

'It was a mistake," she says. 'I made a mistake. I am sorry. We are friends. Yet? I wish it was, I wish I could, but I cannot do it. I can not with your FUCK. Not more. I am sorry.'

She gives him a kiss in his neck. 'nothing I can do," she says, 'but I find your repugnant. I was the forgotten, i was the forgotten altogether, but suddenly I knew the weather. Suddenly I remembered everything. When you give me numb. Hierzo.' She shows where he has touched.

Ship's steward condition. 'The does not,' he says. 'I had you already warned in advance.'

'I am sorry,' whispers they, 'dat i not to have been able to help you. I had helped you love.'

They are opposite each other. They retrieves its hands by her hair. They will open the balcony doors. The air outside is still hot.

'nobody need to help me,' says ship's steward. 'I don't need help.'

She looks out over the gardens of Amsterdam South and he is there in his underpants in his bedroom and he wonders what he is doing, who controls it, what demons he obeys.

'come," she says. 'Give me a kiss, I know that you are not angry.'

She runs quickly toward him. Just as quickly She grabs his head and they kiss. Ten to twenty seconds. They kiss as before. No, worse than in the past. They kiss as if the death is already in possession of them. And also that few seconds that the kiss takes, it will be used. Somewhere in the past is the life clogged, and suddenly there is resistance, as if the ship's steward in mind that has been there as if a ship's steward must never forget what he misses.

Then he pushes her gently. 'enough' says ship's steward. 'I have to me with the feast.'

She looks like him lovingly as previously, in the very beginning, the cursed beginning. Then she asks: 'maybe you would have a nagelvijltje for me? I would like my nails also do.'

At this point the voordeurbel.

He tail to his wife, listening to the sounds in his own house, a door being opened, another door by the ride close falls — the garden doors below are open — but nothing else. Silence. Nobody opens the door for the first guest.

Panic about it.

That is why he pulls his trousers and rent as soon as he can down the stairs.

'Jörgen,' calls on the wife. But he now has no time for her. He has other things on his head. The celebration is started. Finally.

With a jerk — by the haste and injures the nervousness he his finger — he opens the door. And since they state. The first guest. He knows her face, well even, that is not the problem. But he also knows no longer how they would.

He puts his finger. He points to her. 'Geography,' he says. 'Geography. Is it not?'

The woman in front of him, is actually quite a young woman, end thirty will they are, at most, shakes her head.

'Field Camp," she says. 'Field Camp is the name. Biology.'

Only then called to ship's steward by how he condition. Pointing to a strange woman, a teacher of his youngest daughter with a bleeding index finger. He pulls back his hand.

'Of course. Please forgive me.' He claps his hands. 'Biology. How could I forget that? Biology. Lady Field Of course Camp. We have often met. The last time…'

She looks down and He follows her gaze. It is at that moment that he sees his bare feet and almost at the same time his naked belly.

'O God,' he says.

'What?'

'I must be excused.'

'What for?' would miss Veldkamp know.

'This.' He points on his belly. His bare chest.

'Nevertheless not at'

'I was showering and then I heard the call and my daughters are…' He coughs. 'My daughters are nowhere to be found.'

"I will otherwise still a cube thin skirt? I think that is not at all very. It is delicious. I have now once the nasty habit always to come too early. I am much too early?'

'You are not at all too early. You are right on time.'

He picks up her right hand and drags lady Field Camp in his house. With his left foot he closes the front door.

Only after a few meters calls it up to him by that it is inappropriate to the teachers of your children in your house to drag. For the door to the living room he let its abrupt and says: 'I must apologize again me.'

'which now?' would miss Veldkamp know.

'DI ate so hard safe with you omspring.'

'O, but that does not matter.' She smiles and somewhat ironic, measured 'I think it is nice if there now and then a little hard safe with me is handled.'

He looks at her skeptical though. Not only is it a half-naked, that is already unpleasant enough, he has the feeling in the grind setting to be taken.

'I am myself not,' he says. 'It is the heat, the celebration, the goodbye. Tirza goes to Africa, as you know.'