Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

Ship's steward bent down. But first he had looked or nobody saw him. No vague acquaintances, no colleagues. The offer was overwhelming. Only of supply was already you ill.

It took him more than twenty minutes to find two books which appeared intelligent it slightly.

The cashier asked: 'Is a gift?'

'No,' said ship's steward, 'it is for myself.'

When he went quickly back to the publisher. 'A long lunch break, Jörgen,' said the receptionist. He loved the bag with the two books firmly and snickered inept.

That evening he nest located on the bank of the two books are pencils and a pencil sharpener, because he loved the pencils like sharp.

Tirza entered the room and asked: 'What are you reading?'

'Nothing,' he said and put his hand on the books. 'Nothing major. Rubbish.'

'Papa,' she asked, 'You will find the not very that mama there is so little is that?'

She had her nightdress already, the color made him nauseous. He was the thing on a day secretly ablaze.

'I am only interested in,' he replied, playing around with the sharpener. 'I do not like crowds. Noise. Too many people.'

'But do you think it is not strange that they so little is?'

'We have good agreements with each other, Tirza. It is, I am pressure. Now you need to go to sleep.' He streelde about its cheek.

'Have you actually had a woman?' she asked.

And how much he also loved her, the question forward him. The question was put to him become more sophisticated than in its age paste, so much nastier was that question than its character, so much more insidious than the solar queen that she was and that they would always are.

'MAMA is my wife, Tirza. That You know as well as I do. Now you need to top, I read you tomorrow for further.'

They bow down and bite in its nose. As they did when they are also very close to her father wanted. A relic from its earliest youth. She was started him in the nose to bite. According to a ship's steward because they searched the breast, but it was not very logical, because where his nose also seemed, not on a nipple. And although they all fourteen was, climbed they are still governed by her father on her lap and bite it in its nose.

"You have no woman, papa,' she whispered. 'I am the only woman who you have.'

When they still have a bite times in its nose and controlling them upwards. He stayed behind on the bank, he doubted whether he behind her had to go to her to speak against. He doubted that as long as he could continue to sit but better.

Ibi was in a cafe with friends, the wife painted in her studio and received since its almost exclusively male models, Jörgen ship's steward was sitting in the living room and emphasized the one after the other paragraph in the informative book about the disease of his youngest daughter and in her bedroom next to the cello Tirza was preparing itself very talented starving to death.

So did the family ship's steward at the beginning of the new millennium.

From the bedroom balcony where he already had a pedigree, ship's steward the light in the barn. And again. And again. And from.

Someone plays there with the light. Only then he recalls that he Ester without h in the barn has left behind and that he had a glass of orange juice has promised.

A promise is a promise. Soon he goes to the kitchen. He may not so guests was negligible, even though they close up in the barn.

Tirza stands for the sink. Also he thinks that they give in.

'What do you do?' he asks.

'I eat a tomato.' She bends over the sink because of the drool.

'There are so many tasty snacks. There is everything.' It sounds desperate and accusing it at the same time.

'I had meaning in a tomato.' She takes another bite, the juice drips along its chin. Ship's steward gives her a piece of cloth.

'You shirt,' he says, 'it's a bit skewed, I see your bra strap.'

He wants the right, but Tirza says: 'hear so. How do you find him?'

He gives a glass of white wine in, still the Italian gewürztraminer. Each time the Italian gewürztraminer.

'Who?'

'Choukri. What do you think of it?'

The tomato is now eaten.

'Would you also what?' requires a ship's steward. He likes the bottle up. 'This is your favorite wine.'

She shakes her head. 'Later. What did you think of it?'

Ship's steward looks to the ceiling. The must be gewit really necessary. It counts with the naked eye three large brown spots. But the money is. The hedge fund has taken the legs. Everything in Hofmeesters Environment takes the legs. Only in the much-needed invests it now and according to a ship's steward are white ceilings not urgently needed.

'What can i say? I found him rather hesitant. Do not open, not social, difficult to contact. But that is a first impression of course.'

'Of course he is shy, PAP, you would also be shy in such a situation, and identify with it you also shy, that is not exactly an ideal combination.'

'I am not shy.'

He fills his glass with Italian gewürztraminer and drink in one breath of empty, then immediately.

"You're shy,' says them lovingly but emphatically. On this subject they tolerate no contradiction. 'I know nobody who so shy as you.'

'I am discreet, Tirza,' he says. 'Discreet, that is something different than shy, I will not go through to the boyfriend of my daughter. I remain in the background.'

'Pap, you are extremely shy, you know that too. As we were on vacation, than you pushed us the restaurant within to look at how the looked inside. And you stayed outside. You know that not more? You do not remember whether? And when we got to the lower school would put a piece of theater and all parents after proud to the dressing room, plugged you just about behind me. But what did you think of it?'

He claps his hands. Why does he know not. He looks at the label on the bottle.

'DIFFICULT. If you want to know to be honest. Difficult. I could no height from him. It made me think to someone. No, he reminds me of someone thinking.'

'An actor? He seems to be an actor, not? A French actor? You will find it more fun than the few last?'

'De previous?'

'De few last.'

'there were few last? I thought that was not taken seriously.'

Occasionally the music fragments of calling from the living room to him by. He feels he must bins. What sardines There are still many sardines. What is a man without job? Nothing. The buckets of sardines, that is his task tonight.

'It was also not seriously. But they were still there. I have proposed them to your dad, you have seen them all.'

'I have seen boys, here in this House, that is true, now and then I have seen boys, in the last few years, also boys who have continued to sleep, but no favoritism. You said that it had not necessarily mean anything.'

'No, that was also so. It was just for fun, but it was certainly boyfriends.'

He had not understand something. What was there a lot of what he had not understood, and yet he would not want to define itself as naive. Shy nor naive. If something else, but what?

'Tirza,' he says, and seeks his hands to her as toddlers do when they want to be lifted.

Cautious, perhaps. Jörgen ship's steward, a prudent man.

'Tirza,' he repeats, still with arms outstretched, 'Have you got the than not having regard to?'

'What?'

'Your boyfriend. That man. To whom he seems. It is you not noticed?'

She shakes her head. 'a French actor i said, don't you think? An actor?'

He let his arms to lower.

'No, no, no French actor. No actor. No actor in the usual sense of the word. Mohammed Atta. Same face, same eyes, same jaw. Same her.'

She shakes her head again.

'Papa," she says.

And the father, leaning against the worktop, reiterates that two words, Mohammed Atta, as though it were only now starting to penetrate him what he sees, what he thinks, what he feels.