Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

So they were also silently opposite each other and then said the psychologist: 'Oh, are you, Mr ship's steward, eetziektes will almost only for the white middle class, nowhere else. It is typically a disease of the white middle class.'

It sounded like that everything had to declare as If now everything should be clear.

And while the psychologist got up early, ship's steward will wonder what the man had to say.

'It may be,' he asked, while his note book in his pocket and his jacket attracted the stopped, 'date the there has something to do with that they high-high gifted?'

'Who says? Who says that she is that?'

Ship's steward shook with his hands and arms. The question stricken him. 'Everyone,' said he eventually, 'Everyone has always said, everyone says it.'

'Mmm,' said the psychologist. 'Mmm.'

And it was the consult ended.

A strange man, found a ship's steward. Not unfriendly, at most evasive. When he made his bike lock open and thought about the call, he got the idea that he was that the illness of the white middle class: he, Jörgen ship's steward, in Private person.

And later that day he saw themselves reflected in a shop window and then it was him. This was the disease of the white middle class, this was Jörgen ship's steward.

This realisation was new and also overwhelming, but could not ensure that a ship's steward did something else than he had made the weeks before. He bought more books about eating disorders and that he studied in the evening, with the pencil in the stop, and the sharpener within easy reach. If there was a solution which would be found in books. Where else?

How much he also aankruiste aanstreepte and and from his main taught, Tirza emaciated, its weight dropped, approached a critical limit. There was talk of forced feeding. Hospitalisation, nursing.

And when the wife on an evening just before midnight came home, was a ship's steward at the dining table, surrounded by books all went on the same subject. He looked to her, the mother of Tirza, and he said: 'We are working to make our child death.' Without her coat to do so she went to the dining table. They took a cigarette. When she was standing on and gave itself a drink in.

Tirza's disease not only Tirza destroyed itself, with her illness began the destruction of the family ship's steward, and the more the members of the family should oppose it, the faster it seemed to continue.

The drink put them on the table. She went down again. Also her hat had not disposed of. A Wooly Hat.

'We?' asked the wife. 'We? You say that? We? No, not us. You.' She took her index finger to ship's steward.

He putted the book close that he was reading.

'I? And why I get when I ask you? I do something. What do you think? What have you done?'

The wife inhaleerde.

'You,' she said, 'You have that child poisoned. At no time did you have the left alone. No time had the rest. If it were not to celloles, then it should be called to swimming lessons, if it were not to swimming lesson, than it had to be read out from i know what book from the Russian Library, had to be read out the not, then it should be in order to buy wine. You have destroyed her as you tried Ibi break, but Ibi was too strong for you, thank goodness. Tirza not. For Tirza is everything you say where, Tirza idolized you and you let you know that only too happy to close, you will find the wonderful to finally for someone a false goddess.'

Ship's steward picked up a pencil and began to grinding. 'What You Say,' he said when he was done, 'is as far from the truth. It is such a nasty lie. It is oergemeen. I am concerned about her, because you have neglected her. Someone had to its concern, someone had to its collection of swimming lessons. Someone had to bring her to celloles.'

'But nobody had to force her to swim, forced to do this, force to do that, no one had to say all day how high-high gifted them is. How do you think you would react if you want the whole day would hear? You would therefore not be a little crazy? Would you then also not turning? You have destroyed that child, you and anyone else. You have of her to try to make a colleague, and a friend and also your wife, yes, also your wife. Everything you do in the real world could not find have you tried to get her, and the only thing you can accuse me is that I have to happen, that I have done nothing in any case not enough I have made to you, but I also have a life, I am also but a man, I also have the right to a little bit of luck. Yes, I am also only human, Jörgen.'

He mass by his sleep and when he said: 'If you once said: "I am also but a man", if I need to hear one more time that you also but are a human, than stall out i you.'

'Doing it,' she said, 'stall me.'

He stayed on his sleep rubbing and finally he said, quieter than therefor: 'I do not have the whole day said how gifted she is, I have tried to stimulate her. That is not a crime. Yes, I have of its account, i love her, I may have a special relationship with her than with Ibi, but also that it is not a crime. And I do nothing. Because what I get back is enough, more than enough. How they will come to me laughs, what they tell me her company. If I have done something wrong, I do not know what.'

He broke one of his pencils by middle, it took him a lot of effort and that effort led him from his anger.

'Is that everything you can say?'he asked. 'I have made its broken? Is that everything about our marriage, who is the fault of Tirza's disease?'

They doofde its cigarette. 'Yes,' she said it is what it is about. I am sorry, you are never a father for Tirza. A friend perhaps, a lover, but a father is no lover, Jörgen.'

He stood up. 'What an assumption you?' he asked. 'You are too cold cold and touching her does not mean that someone touching her a criminal. People have need heat. Then they live. Thereof they live. The heat is not a criminal offense. The lack of it is the crime.'

They stood up.

'Where are you going next?' he asked.

'To my studio.'

'What are you going to do there?'

'Slapen.'

'Dear is no bed.'

'There is a bank.'

He came to follow her. In the vestibule he pressed his wife against the wall and nip with one hand its throat close.

'How dare you this against me to say?' he siste. 'How dare you to say what you have said? How dare you? You who do not know about what it means to have a mother, you which no parent evening, you who cares about anything, how dare to say that I am no father? You do not need to keep me, that you do not do I know this for a long time, but you can at least respect, appreciation for what i do here.'

She ran red to, but he did not loose. They miniseries him, but he was not.

It was only when his hand pain began to do, showed her he.

He remained in the vestibule and they ran to the kitchen. He heard her cough, he heard how they ran the tap. Even more coughing, he heard her call.

After five minutes they came from the kitchen.

'What have you done?' he asked.

'I have called the police.'

When she went out the door.

First he remained in the vestibule, then he went back to the living room, he explained the books about Tirza's disease in three equal stacks on the dining table and emptying the ashtray.

He played a time with the two halves of the broken pencil. He neuriede.

When the quarter for had become a, he went to the top to sleep. Gently he opened the door of Tirza's room, he wanted to know if they slept. She had her eyes open.

Ship's steward went on her bed. He could not look to her. If it up to him by realized what he saw there, he had the tendency to hang himself. He was furious because he could not deny the feeling to have failed, and he hated the wife, he hated everyone he recalled that fail.

He took Tirza's hand and looked at the furniture in the room. As he continued to sit. Until he said: 'it cannot go on this way, Tirza. This must stop.'