Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

How to live after your reports? You can look into the people, or not? Maybe it is better to look to the ground, in the hope that they will not be able to see you as long as you do not see them.

In a McDonald's, he bought a vanilla ice cream, that he is sitting on a pavement opat, next to a group of young people. A few seconds they looked at him and wonderment and ridicule, with their backpacks full of school books in addition to themselves, when they decided to ignore it. The old man with his ice cream. They let him in peace. They let him go.

He had Tirza still. Not everything was dropped him. They had left him something. Tirza. They had left him the most beautiful, the best, the dearest. They had left him the solar queen.

Then he stood on and although he still was reports, walked to the station without solely to look to the ground. Because there was still Tirza, somewhere she waited on him in another world where no hedge funds existed in another country, in another existence.

But in the train back to house could the thought of the solar queen does not prevent him because he is ashamed by the world economy was reports. A terrible shame he was made, comprehensive was she and they resulted in one single idea: I can no longer come under the eyes.

He was a man who looked to the ground as he walked the streets, a man to his shoes when He stared just a supermarket with a trolley his hometown, a man who the cans of others avoided as if he was afraid that his history to his face was to read. The history as a putrid wound. A mark.

Home plugged it the leaflets about the hedge funds in a la. It felt as if he were not only those folders, but his entire life there buried.

'They are very popular,' says the economy teacher. 'You must agree to look forward, though. Viewing, every day to the pension funds invest their money somewhere in. And if the market is stagnating, than is there to seek alternatives. So is the hedge fund. But it really is once again talking about its peak. Why would you know this, I ask you?'

Ship's steward grabs him gently with his linen required, almost in passing as if he were a stain has seen that he, as befits a good host, wants to brush it off when dry.

Tonight is different. Tonight he looks human. Tonight is forgotten everything. Tonight is he who formerly he was, but better, an improved version of the old ship's steward, because this is the feast of the solar queen.

'You must agree to look snobbish,' says ship's steward. 'As a weapon that is loaded.'

'I had the not yet viewed, but as you can see that.'

A Smile, a sip of beer. Still a smile. The economy teacher is truly charming, on the endearing.

Ship's steward release it, he picks up the shaker of improvised bar and begins to shake impetuously. Tirza's friends must now but also more of his cocktails. On the feast of your youngest daughter you let out. Cheerful. Full of good courage. Hopeful. On the feast of your youngest daughter you yourself are a bit of the party spirit. It converts the shaker on the worktop and serves a half glass of wine. It rejects his glass against the bottle of beer from the economy teacher. 'They is something special,' he says. 'They…' he is also not more from his words.

The thought of his daughter quickly overwhelm him, leave nothing of him about reduces him to an appendix of such subsidiary. An insignificant and excess appendix.

'Tirza? Yes. I have a special relationship with her. With more students in its class, it is a special class, but especially with Tirza. So cheerful, as open. And it is always wait and see what comes next year.'

The economy teacher does one step in the direction of the door. He is seen in the kitchen. In sushi yet has no draft. And cocktails is he also not particularly. He will return to the place where the real celebration takes place, the beating heart of the living room.

'They sometimes disappear snobbish, hedge funds?' is called a ship's steward after him. 'they cease to exist. As if they have never been Hofmeesters.' voting is schor. He remembers his excitement after the call at the bank. Decades of rent and gains disappeared. Where is the money he would still like to know. He will not need it back, also with this loss that he is reconciled. He does not know better than that it is not there, but he would like to know who are money now. Capital is not destroyed? It disappears from only the one pocket and thrown into another. He would like to see a face. A photo of the man who made his money now has a photo of the house where all the saved rent of him now live. As he always has been curious to the childhood love of the spouse. A perhaps unhealthy curiosity to the person who has overcome him.

'SOMS disappear hedge funds,' says Hans while he is already in the corridor. 'It is just the nature.'

Then he walks away, as he came in the kitchen. Careless, the bottle of beer in his hand. Luck. Ship's steward looks after him.

He washes his face, dries out with kitchen paper, call Tirza one more time but will once again its voice mail, and then enter the living room to place orders, gossip.

Between the making of a few cocktails by quickly he drinks a glass of wine. He must also relax, such as Hans. Let everything but on him. He can. He has reached the age where nothing more from the balance.

He went back to the party, he finds that he is much better than earlier in the evening. The white wine makes him relax, almost light-hearted. Just and he is frivolous.

In the living room is now danced. The lights above the dining table are turned off and there are what chairs aside.

Three girls, a boy and his wife dancing.

The wife dances with the boy. He knows the boy, he is here a few times on the floor but a ship's steward can not on its name. He only know that it is a name with one syllable. Sometimes he has that even if he reads: what status calls not up to him by, but the syllables he sees. It counts them, one, two, three, four. The syllables jumping for his eyes up and down as the wife now for his eyes with the boy jumps. Dancing is called. You surrender, not onsierlijk, when you consider that her body is in a piece of textile which human yardsticks never should have been pressed.

She could always dancing, and she did it. They still does not bad. Only if you see pictures of her of a five or six years ago, how old they has become. Only when you see the photos to find you.

Even more than to the mother of his children, is that to which a ship's steward to watch is: a woman, plane for the withering, which with a boy of eighteen dance as if there can be no lasting. If her youth will always continue.

And I regret it. He caught on itself, vexation sorry is virtually disappeared, the irritation is weakened. It is so much easier in the enemy to see the stronger. And then it appears that the enemy just as weak as you, perhaps even weaker. Even though reports. A wilted enemy is not an enemy more.

The story, the myth where you get all those years around your identity, shows no longer weefde valid. The mother of my children who by went with her childhood love. The mother of my children who thought that she was the painter. That story is not more. Because that childhood love is there not more. And the mother of your children there is suddenly. In light clothing, but absurdist does not detract from the fact that she is again.

That is what he sees when he to the dance floor looks. Its own history disguised as self-deception. The flour of the eternal youth. That flower does it think of a hedge fund. Promises, glossy paper, spectacular results. A dream of a hedge fund. A dream of a woman. The fragile happiness within easy reach.

The wife lays her hands on the shoulders of the boy. God, how would he? He has eaten here, even twice. A polite boy, a little quiet, though, go there was little on him. He even wanted to help clearing.