Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

'Doe this well not," she says.

'What?'

'what you are doing.'

'What do I do next?' requires a ship's steward. 'What do I do?'

Tirza goes to him. They discloses him. 'Please,' them in his ear whispers, 'don't. Gun for me that my happiness.'

'But I do not begrudge you your happiness, I do not begrudge you more by luck than anyone else, I wish you all the luck in the world, only: he is your happiness not, he is your accident. Mohammed Atta is your accident.'

Tirza let her father do not disconnect. 'He is my boyfriend. That idea you must get used to it, PAP. Please. That is surely you succeed? Do not you think that you will succeed? That will surely you will succeed?'

Her hair tingling sensation against his forehead, he feels her breath, which vague to peppermint smells. He cannot be allowed to continue, not on its party. There could be any moment someone coming in.

'Listen Tirza, I do not begrudge you the best, most beautiful and sweetest boyfriend of the world, but Mohammed Atta is neither the best nor the most beautiful and certainly not the dearest. He is just about the worst candidate who i can imagine.'

'hold on him to as Mohammed Atta. It is called Choukri and he is my boyfriend.'

Ship's steward is loose from its embrace, He turns around, he looks for the cork screw another bottle of Italian gewürztraminer note to open.

'Everyone sees what else,' he says while he was looking for. 'We are talking about a reality but what do we mean by that, do you know the? You can see in which man your boyfriend. I see in him Atta and I know what Atta wants, I know to which he is, I know what his plans are.' He has the Corkscrew found, finally. He is talking about but by, it makes him not more out against whom. It must be said. It should look like. The truth, the terrible truth.

'I am concerned,' he says, 'I do not want my daughter with Atta treats. Even the most unstable, the most progressive father would say: "My daughter may deal with everyone, a Negro, a junk for my part, a Vietnamese can also still be at, but no terrorist."'

They stores with her hand on the worktop. 'You are going too far,' calls on them. 'It is no fun. Hold on, papa hold.'

He opens the bottle. He has succeeded in producing an open and honest conversation with his daughter. He will treat themselves to a glass of wine to calm down.

'Hold. What should I stop?'

My boyfriend to as a terrorist. That to begin.'

'How should I call it? A freedom fighter? A antiglobalist? An anarchist? An enemy combatant? The victim of a fallacy? An unfortunate?'

'He is interested not for politics. Choukri makes music and I hold of him.'

'What do you love about?'

'What do you know about that, Papa? What do you mean by that? Who do you have in mind?'

He puts his glass down. He rubs his lips dry. 'You,' he says after a while. 'I have to keep yours.'

They look at each other. He hopes that they are now going to mention it, but has nothing. And he understands that it is inevitable that there is nothing more to do, that his life is about, without ever has begun. It is for it began. One thought that it would have to do smile. If you think about it is the insane, and what is a better response to madness than the smile? But the smile does not.

'I thought,' says he eventually itself but, 'in any case I heard that you no longer do so, that the passé, about. Your generation has invented something else.'

'Who told you that?'

'someone here on the party.'

'O. I also still have to meet. I LOVE Choukri.'

Now he smiles. Now if it.

'He used you.'

'I wish him. That is keeping. Mutual use. Respectful use.'

It sounds like something they often said, what they hear others has, what she has read somewhere.

'I have an eye for the people,' says ship's steward. 'I have lived for longer than you, believe me: use is no account of and keep is no use and he is Mohammed Atta. If not the Mohammed Atta of the 11th september, than his successor, His descendant, reincarnation, his rebirth, his alternate…'

They set aside with her hand that he must stop, they interrupts him. 'Dan i of Mohammed Atta. That is the way it is. This is also something you will get used to it.'

He looks at her full understanding and rubs his lips once dry.

She runs to him. 'Papa, please," she says, 'create me this evening is not for the crying.'

He picks up its both hands. 'I do not meet the cry, I try to avert a danger. I would like you never make the crying. Not right now. Never at all.'

'But there is no danger. You think it only.'

'O Yes, it is there. I feel it, I smell the, I see the.'

He let her hands and they purr him about his cheek, his chin.

'bucket continues what sardines for us," she says. I think 'fine. If you have a large variety of the buckets are. This reminds me of the past.'

'I do, Tirza. I shall go deeper into the sardines. In the future. But now… Now I must warn you. Now I need to protect you.'

She shakes her head. 'Not protect, dad. Please, do not protect.'

She goes back to the party. He looks at her after, his glass in the hand. She has changed. It cannot be denied. The wife has the same. But it is not the one on the other day. After her illness is started. During the disease al. All he saw it not. There are so many things which he has not seen. He remembers the books he had purchased for his youngest daughter to cure. But when it became clear that Hofmeesters study of eating disorders and related matters his daughter not helped, was to two psychologists simultaneously Tirza sent. The second wanted to talk with her parents, and as often happens in such cases ship's steward went there alone.

The psychologist was a strict man, but not unfriendly, found a ship's steward. Business, what he had not expected of a responder.

'What are the causes?" wanted to ship's steward know. He was, he had decided not only come here to answer questions, he wanted them. He even had a note book in the inner are required to write stopped what he was going to hear. And that he picked out now.

'There is not one cause, there are always many causes. And the causes are at this moment it is not the most urgent. All is not well with your daughter.'

'But…' ship's steward sat in the armchair and he was looking for words, to hope he sought. He was told that it would turn out all right and that he had not yet heard. 'What we do error? What do I do wrong?'

He had the pencil in the stop.

'It is not about errors. Although within each family, also yours, things for change and improvement.'

Ship's steward looked at his shoes and then to that of the psychologist.

'Where is it doing?' asked ship's steward. 'You have talked to her, what is going on in there to her? What moves its?'

And while he that early shook his head as if he wanted to make it clear that he did not understand what they were doing, that no one could understand that. It was outside of the concept, and hence outside Hofmeesters world.

'Well,' said the man, 'that is not so easy to say, they is control over to get her life to regain control. Her illness is in fact a means. I think that you are to be proposals, control.'

'Control?'

'Yes,' said the psychologist. 'Control'.

'Control' repeated ship's steward, as if it were a word in a foreign language was the interpretation which he did not know, and so it felt also. He did not know more what 'control' meant. He wrote the word in his note book, without that he would understand why, and he underlined the a few times.

'And what should I do? What can i do?' he asked when he was finished with writing and stress.

'to support her.'

I 'al.'

'Maybe not enough.'

Not enough, that was a possibility that ship's steward had not yet considered. He had previously thought: too much, but it was so: not enough.