Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

He did not have a talent for friendship, as others no talent for signs or foreign languages. That is precisely why he had to want to play a musical instrument. Instead of talking with them, he had music for the people want. You are talking about to thoughts about. Ship's steward has mainly thoughts which do not need to be conveyed, which are of a secret nature and must be kept secret in the interest of both parties.

Tirza previously played cello. She was very talented, but she had the cello are discarded. Sometimes only after the departure of the wife, if the silence him in the evening threatened to make love, if he no longer uithield, how he also had done his best — twenty buttons walk through the garden, itself aloud from Dostoyevsky's diary of a writer — than he climbed the stairs and knocked at Tirza.

'Are you already finished with your homework?' he asked than. When they said 'yes', he proposed: 'Would you like to come down in order to play on the cello?' But he said that only if she was ready with her homework. School went for everything, school went above the cello.

'a particular girl, your daughter. Sensitive, gifted, quick.' The economy teacher is doorframe with the beer in his hand, as if it were his regret. The goodbye, the fact that Tirza succeeded his own career. The man sweeps up his mouth. 'Of sushi you should not eat too much,' he says.

Ship's steward nods. He opens his mouth. He took the decision to say something. We now need to happen. He is going to speak.

'Very sensitive they,' he says. 'And very gifted, that she was as a kid. When they were no other half was understood them all. Understood them.'

They also is 'Mooi.'

They also is 'Mooi,' agrees ship's steward.

'adult'.

Ship's steward nods for the umpteenth time.

'They are going to make a trip around the world, I heard?'

'No trip around the world. They are going to travel a while. Africa. Botswana, South Africa, Namibia. Perhaps Zaire. She is always been interested in that continent. Do you still have a beer?' ship's steward now leans itself also to the counter. From the living room by a vague urge to the kitchen. Our opinion unanimously. What the wife also all says, ship's steward does not need to hear. It relaxs and must think to Schiphol, the departures hall where he five days per week walk through it. As an aircraft is built to fly, so he is built for the loneliness. Only occasionally he touches the other, when an airplane is the ground. To then quickly, with engine misfiring, take off again. A plane that is too long to stay on the ground, does not loose any more. Each day an emergency landing. Each hour of an emergency landing. His life one large emergency landing.

'Yes, tasty,' says the economy teacher. He puts his empty bottle in the sink.

'A GLASS?'

The guy shakes his head. 'However, make sure that it has its own needles with you if they go to Botswana and Zaire.' He takes a beer bottle of ship's steward and secure it immediately to his mouth.

Ship's steward looks. Weather he will feel dizzy.

'Its own needles?'

'Its own syringes and needles. If you go to Africa, you must bring your own syringes and needles. You never know when you are in hospital.'

The father of Tirza can imagine that pupils secretly or less secretly on the economy teacher in love. He radiates what needs to everyone. Trust, not just in the future, in everything. In life itself. In the goodness of everything alive. An intense confidence he radiates from.

'Are you there than in the past?'

'Africa?" asks the man. 'Never'. Yes, Egypt, Hurghada, the Canary Islands. But you can mention that Africa? I know people in real Africa and which had their own syringes and needles. If you are going to Cape Town, you have no syringes, but is still Cape Town Africa?'

There is a silence. With Cape Town seems to have come to an end the call.

'MAG I ask you what?' ship's steward let the worktop. He folds his arms akimbo. 'a strange question perhaps.'

'Sure,' says the man. 'Of course you may ask what. Also strange questions. I am more accustomed to.' He smiles and takes a big sip of beer.

Weather feels a ship's steward the dizziness. Now even worse. The dizziness is the symptom of a false idea. Thoughts that there should have been not but which do not have to expel that is the hell.

'What is a hedge fund exactly?'

Had just the economy teacher still good temper and inviting laughed. Everything we ask him. He is there. To give answers, also on the unanswered questions can. But this had apparently not he expected.

'A hedge fund?'

'A hedge fund,' reiterates ship's steward. He had asked: 'What is happening with the sex life of the Crocodile?', than the silence bedrukkender had not.

'Yes, how can I explain that?' says the economy teacher after a few seconds. 'It is a kind of investment fund. An investment fund that also makes a profit or can make it as the markets do not increase. The hedge funds are generally not public recorded.' He would also like to say something, but he did not know what. He smiles, for the first time now also itself a tad helpless. Get lost in a conversation that he had never wanted to speak on his free evening.

When a ship's steward some five years ago was abroad with in his briefcase for buisness seven months to rent, had the advisor at the bank with whom he discussed hedge funds. No, he had with her about hedge funds. Hedge funds were completely.

He had read something about it, he had heard about it. The hedge fund were noisy around as a large, but particularly attractive secret.

The explanatory notes to the hedge fund was not quite up to him by squat, but you had to be in this kind of case to rely on your intuition. His intuition had never left in the lurch, at least not if bank matters did.

'An investment in a hedge fund starts with a million,' said the ms of the bank.

A million, that was pretty much everything ship's steward had. He had spared diligently, o, he had more than just the rent to his account at this bank transferred. A erfenisje here, the proceeds of a sailing boat sold there are also regular holiday allowance. Everything went to the investment account to the daughters to give access to the worlds that had never enter ship's steward itself. 'Are you sure your investments do not want to spread a little?' asked the advisor still. A young woman with blond hair, in a sleek, black suit. Lush hair. She was new. He had worked with a man. A man had him of investment advice. A man with brown hair. What was still at least about it. Everywhere balding spots. Ship's steward saw many, and the more he saw the less he dared to say. The more he saw the more thoughts in him that never opborrelden share with the world could be. He was blind, it would him for that reason that have been raised.

'You must have confidence,' said ship's steward. 'a little risk.' The thought of the financial independence that is becoming increasingly came and which would ensure that children are not pushed around would be, as well as the sleek, black suit of the advisor voted hopeful. ship's steward On the courageous. O, there was hope, you had to only keep your eyes open minded. The results which the hedge fund had recorded in the past were spectacular. It could not be said. That was up to him by reduced. Spectacular. A word that stood as a house. A word that it vague reminded the House of sex, prohibited sex in a lift or a toilet.

'I must warn you, the costs are high.'

'but the results have been spectacular.'

'De results are spectacular,' judging the wife of the bank. She spoke the word 'spectacularly' as if it was a rare delicacy. 'And it is a particularly popular hedge fund.'

They looked at him, he found, beaming.

'I want it,' said ship's steward with dry mouth, 'I want that hedge fund.'