Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

He went to her foot end, the book in his hand, but he did not open. And he does not streelde to calm down, as on other evenings.

He was there and asked: 'Has Tolstoy you nothing to offer?'

'Dear is not,' shouted Tirza, from under the blankets. 'nobody of my age is aloud. Ibi also says that the ridiculous. Ibi says that you love, dad. She says she can prove it.'

He is looking for her hand under the blanket and after some searching he found that. He took the hand of his youngest daughter and showed him not more. Somewhere he felt a pain, a presumption, more was not a light suspicion, and he decided there is no attention to this. He just said: 'Ibi is in puberty, Tirza, so they are a bit rebellious. She is on a difficult age. I am not fond. I am your father.'

When it was quiet. They apparently waited until he would go where they had remained yesterday, page three hundred and ten of Anna Karenina, but he did not continue, he was due to speak.

He looked, with her hand still in his, to the ceiling, to posters on the wall. To the books he had given her, and that they in alphabetical order in her bookcase.

'I was present at Mrs Brunt.'

'De trut,' sounded from under the blanket.

'You will find its not nice?'

'Ah, nice, she seems nice but they simply like a trut. Everyone knows that at school. If you get to know her, you see it.'

Ship's steward waited, he waited for himself, he waited until he knew what he had to say, but it was not. On her desk was a notepad. He had the temptation to open it and read. Perhaps this was all in what he had to know.

In a corner of the room was her cello. The music stand.

'Tirza, is there anything I do not know, but what I should know?' is something…' He had to take the road, he schraapte saliva his throat, but the tickle he felt not disappeared. 'Is there anything I should have asked, but what I for one reason or another have not requested?'

She came half way under the blanket away.

'No,' she said, 'nothing'.

In his hand he kept her hand and in the other he kept Anna Karenina and he pinch in Anna Karenina and he thought: I can't, as this is what fatherhood means, I can not I shall stop, then I have to an alternate search. Someone who can do so. As this is going to be me not succeed.

'You know you sure?'

They nodded. 'Yes, certainly. Why? Has someone told you something? Why imagine this kind of questions? Otherwise do you never do.'

He explained the book on the bed. With his finger he tapped gently on its upper lip. 'There are people,' he said almost whispering, 'die think you a eating disorder.'

She went to sit up straight. 'A what?'

'I know that it is nonsense, I know that you just a small eater, I mean…' and ship's steward remained but with his finger on its upper lip tapping gently. "The True food is knowledge, that is the only and the real food, you know, I know, but I found that i had to discuss with you. That…'

'What?'

'Well yes. I started to think about it. I have given some thought. You are of course also very, how will I say, Tirza, you're lean. Not? May I say?'

'You mean I no breasts?'

'No, no, that is not what i mean. Which come. That are on the go. They have delay. Perhaps that is the. You must use your proposals that they sit in the train, your breasts, and that they are a bit delayed because somewhere a change was wrong, but they come, believe me, no, no, I am talking about your belly, the surroundings of your abdomen; women, girls, have a stomach, a belly, and you not, you have nothing, Tirza, nothing at all.'

He did not now more on its upper lip, but on his forehead, soft and rhythmic and he thought: I can't, I go to broken.

She went on her bed.

'You will find the not nice?' she asked.

She did her nightdress up. A gift of the wife did not want Tirza Tirza pajamas more, wanted a nightdress.

The wife had bought one. Bright pink, candy pink. A terrible color was the ship's steward, the worst kind of pink that there was, the color of the rendez-vous house. But Tirza found the beautiful. She was too old for pajamas. She had said.

'You will find the not nice?' repeated them. With her nightdress up, her belly to her father returned, she waited for an answer.

Ship's steward tried not to look. He concentrated on the music stand in the corner of the room. There was sheet music. It was recently played here.

'I think you very nice,' said ship's steward, 'Tirza, you are the most beautiful girl that i know, but you are too lean. People come to me and complain how lean you are, we have to do something about it. We need more to eat, we must go better food. More regular.'

'Papa, look at me.' They interrupted him with hard voting, as they sometimes could interrupt him if he read out. A few times she found the beautiful. Don Quixote had they partially beautiful found, the hunters stories of Turgenev had talked to her imagination.

'Look,' she said. 'Look.'

And he looked.

She was on her bed. On the blanket. The ridiculous pink nightdress that her mother had purchased in a ridiculously expensive shopping kept them up. Ship's steward stared at its navel. A yellow pants sat underneath, a yellow dots. White dots.

'I am not a girl,' she said. 'I am a woman.'

She showed the nightdress. They explained its hands on the place where her breasts.

'I am a woman with tits,' said Tirza.

They explained to her hands on her belly.

'I am a woman with a belly.'

Her hands went to its upper legs.

'I am a woman with long legs. I am a woman, papa.'

Ship's steward stood up. 'You're very talented, Tirza, high-high gifted, but you are not a woman, that you should still be, and that you will also be, you are a girl, and you have to eat.' When he went to the corner of the room and moved the music stand a few centimeters.

And it insisted on her bed, she was there but they had Tirza, nightdress ripped up again. 'say that I am a woman, papa,' she said.

He remained standing. His hand on the music stand. 'Tirza,' he said.

'say that I am a woman,' she shouted. 'Say it, papa.'

The book was still in bed. The book from which he should have read aloud. 'You're…'

He walked back to the bed, he went for her.

They took him in his hair. That she could easy now on the bed was. She pulled him to his hair. 'krijste say it,' 'papa, they say it, dare to say so. Tirza, you are a woman.'

He showed himself to his hair. It made him. He picked up the book on the bed.

'I am a woman,' krijste them. 'Say it, say it, papa.'

Harder took them to him on his hair, but he felt not he stood there as in trance as if he saw something else and heard something else.

'Say it,', 'Tirza krijste them, you're my wife. Say it, papa, say it.'

They not only krijste more, tears ran over her cheeks. They fall on the bed, her face hustle and bustle in the Laeken Declaration.

'Tirza,' he said, 'You're my daughter.' Now he shouted too. 'You're my daughter, Tirza, my daughter do you and my daughter you will continue.'

Then he ran down the stairs. But he heard her to shout: 'You have no woman, dad. I am the only woman who you have. The only.'

In the living room he went on the sofa and he rocked his upper body back and forth. Just as he had wanted to cry, Tirza but failed him and he could not understand why the failed.

The Monday out during his lunch break, he went to book trade Scheltema. Between the departments philosophy and psychology he found at last a sales star that time had for him.

'I find books about eating disorders,' he said as discrete as possible.

'What?'

'eating disorders,' he repeated, now slightly harder.

'What exactly are you looking for? Novels?'

'Information'.

They took him to a cabinet.

'This row,' she said. 'All eetziektes. And also this row. And it is also still what.'