Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

And He stared at her as if they were the hedge fund was. As they sat for him as a mannequin there was one moment no doubt: the lady of the bank was a hedge fund of human flesh.

'we will simply have to do it?' she asked as if they still hesitant, but it was as much as was clear, a pro forma question. 'Everything?'

'Everything,' said ship's steward.

The name of the fund to which he now insert power went was exotic and yet reliable, as if it was always there, for decades had led a secret life. And this charming thing only now manifested to him, as a God that he still had unexpectedly chosen to inform him about his existence.

She wrote something on a paper that ship's steward good temper, almost generous with its own fountain pen signed and when she asked: 'Even what coffee?'

'like'.

'What biscuits there?'

'Tasty,' said ship's steward.

When the biscuits arrived there is a ship's steward grabbed the dish, with so much enthusiasm that in its hands crumbled. He looked at the crumbs, he looked to the teacher.

But the lady of the bank wasn't seeing it, and he continued to whom he was, the man who came to bring the rent. Not for him, for his daughters. For their future. For a better future. The affordable happiness.

In March of the following year he was gone back to the bank, with the rent of the last few months. With the hedge fund was excellent. Spectacular, it was the word. Yes, the financial independence was now really within easy reach.

One year later, at the end of March, he travelled back to the bank. Everything was the same, everything went as always, the same train journey, the same office, the same computer, the same advisor, whether she wore now no tight, black suit, but a gray skirt with a white bloesje. Everything was there, including its blond, lush her, and also the coffee lady and the biscuits, they were all there. Only the hedge fund was no longer there. That was in amused. Disappeared. Road.

'How can that?' asked ship's steward.

There followed a long and technically story that he did not understand because he could not listen. He could not concentrate. The damp palm of his hand shaky crumbs of sand numerous biscuit.

He could not help but think: I am reports. But he did not know who or what it had produced reports. Not the lady on the other side of the table with its red lips and its white blouse. A woman he would like a time had wanted to cushion, but the lust he had under control. His lust was a enslave showboating sheep that was in a small but loyal audience. Not the tenants who had not paid neatly the bank, who could do anything about it, as far as he understood from the words of the friendly smiling mrs. They thought it was a real pity, and almost he believed her too. She was just so sad if he fell again and again and the word 'world economy'. That sounded like world Judaism, but then more innocent and therefore even more horrific.

He, Jörgen ship's steward, which the tax and the tenants had been outwit, who had earned his daughters a degree of financial independence to deliver many others which only he could be jealous who had worked because he lived in the belief that only the work was a drug against grief and suffering, he was defeated by the world economy. Was down. The world economy had him on the knees forced. In the world economy had he found the enemy too strong for him, too strong for the predator. Finally a real enemy. But it was an enemy without face and without a name. One who could take no story. The world economy was an enemy that would not break the silence. He would not be warm of this enemy. He could never embracing the world economy to its gently to bite death. The world economy had no face.

'We have had a difficult time,' said the lady with its sad face, and yet he saw that they are not really sad was rather pleased and happy. 'First the Internet bubble, when the 11th September. There are good punch cases, and some players on the market have of that do not fold can recover.'

'De 11th September, what does that have to do with anything?'

He remembered that day as the day that the Wall fell. How against his daughter said: 'Remember this well, this is history.' And so he had also looked at. As to history.

'Ah,' she said, 'Meneer ship's steward, everything has everything to do with today. You know what they say: if they are in one part of the world, cough, hits the other part of the world. But how is it with your daughters? You had two daughters?'

The history threatened to be personally now. The Anonymous world economy got a face, a body, a name. Mohammed Atta, who had a ship's steward are money taken, the financial independence, freedom for his children who was so close, so terribly near. Mohammed Atta was behind it, Atta had beheaded Hofmeesters hedge fund.

'What you asked?'

'How your daughters?'

'Excellent,' he said. 'Why have you not also called me?'

'We could not reach you.'

Slowly approached the end of the conversation. There was still an outstanding on his account, something of two months rent, and he threw the eight months rent he had.

The lady of the bank early still: 'Would you like to invest?' But he said: 'Let's get it on a savings account.'

They gave each other a hand. 'Until over a year than back,' she said.

When he was outside. Spring. Sun. People who for the first time without jacket on street walked. The happy with which that went hand in hand.

So ends the financial independence, he thought. As everything ends. In an hour the done. You will receive an extra biscuit. A regretful gaze. The sympathy that in ten minutes should be handled, because the labor costs are high.

He walked through a shopping street, viewed the faces of the other people and wondered whether they also by the world economy were defeated. Or by Mohammed Atta. Or by both at the same time. They could recognize each other, the report ones? Or they remained anonymous at all times? The winners and losers brotherly next to each other, together strolling through an expensive shopping street. For always on the stroll. No one knew where the chaff from the wheat divorced.

For a shoe store he continued. He studied the ladies shoes. There was a lot of brown on, this spring. He did not brown shoes. Also not brown suits.

He wondered why he now had nothing more. Why everything from him was decreased. A good reason why he could not think of. What purpose was to serve? The game was played there actually? And who played with him?

When he went to the shop within, he applied a few black boots, but during the fit urged up to him by that he could no longer afford this. That he is now even but little could afford. Also, a fraction of a second, he had the disputing the shoe salesperson to ontkleden and on the spot, with her to penetrate to, if only because the control him had anything to offer. Lust is the highest form of indifference. He looked to her. 'I will still be some other boots to show?' she asked. 'or perhaps what low shoes? That is good as well as the earlier summer.'

Who commits a crime is never more only. Wherever he goes, the crime goes with him. But he did not dare, the security guard at the door had him in the holes, and he fled from the shop. He was in such a hurry that his briefcase in the left shoe shop. The salesperson came chasing him.

He looked in the bag. In addition to two manuscripts, four pencils and a banana were leaflets on hedge funds and other investment funds. Colored leaflets, printed on glossy paper, he knew what printing cost. In the busy shopping street he sheet by the leaflets, with the briefcase under his arm. People clashed against him. He stood in the way, but remained standing. He saw the graphs, the figures, the language in which the future was described, a rosy, carefree future.

When did he take everything will be back. Reports are fear was no longer a dream, a vision for warm summer evenings. It was there. The defeat had without notice on the horizon.