Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

'They find me also not nice.'

'Dat alright. Believe me. There are people who you are and there are people who you less.'

'They will find you nice, Mr ship's steward?'

She looks at him. Mischievous, challenging.

'Who?'

'De people?'

'If they know me well, yes. Usually,' says ship's steward as realistic as possible. It is a fact. The people find him. A certain low profile is perhaps together with nice found. We look at the cross by him. If someone is really too find unkind much trouble.

Her eyes start to unexpectedly sparkle. 'Is there cake in their mouths?' she asks.

'Where?'

'On the feast? Is there cake in their mouths? Have you also organized?'

They will open its mouth and she acts as if it is in their mouths.

'bite," she says, 'bite and even a bite.' than she starts to laugh uncontrollable crying sets in.

'There is no cake in their mouths,' says ship's steward. 'Sgames you have to organise itself but,' but it is barely above her laughter.

They will laugh. Hard and unflappable. Between by nibbles them in the air. Frightening, ship's steward this spectacle. Unpleasant. He picks up her at the shoulders, shakes her back and forth. 'hold on,' he calls, 'keep on with that hysterical fuss.'

Only after a minute shaking called up to him by that Ester not more laugh, but is trying to cry. Maybe it is a time to cry. He has not understand something.

He looks for his handkerchief. Better a dirty than none at all.

So lovingly possible press his damp handkerchief in her hand.

'quiet but,' he says, 'quiet but it is all so very not.'

'What?'

The wooed you is delayed. They also no longer nibbles an imaginary piece of cake in the air.

'Whatever it is that your troubles. It is not as bad. Well, you have failed, you eat no fish, nobody you will find nice, but about forty years, if you about my age you think, I made me pressure to do nothing. The worst was still to come.'

They rubs on her face with its dirty handkerchief, than she gives it back.

'Why do you like you know?'

'Not everything.' He folds the handkerchief. 'I do not know everything. Soothe now but. Do but also very quiet. It is not so bad. It is…'

He makes his meaning not, he knows he is once again not what he wanted to say.

She has red eyes of the cry, the takes pride of its not. Something to her was already a tragedy when they stood on the sidewalk, without gift. Even without red eyes she gleamed already from what he could not express, but what is now finally appointed: people find its not nice and they in turn can find the people not nice.

She picks him in the sleeves of his required. 'Meneer ship's steward," she says, "Is it true what you said?'

'What?'

'Dat you love have abolished?'

He needs to smile at the reminder. Almost a tender reminder is the.

'Ah,' he says, 'When? I was still a half-child. I had to what. God was already dead. The progress is also. The civilization. Democracy also. As a young man you have a project. A plan. A faith. I said the love death on my fifteenth, or my sixteenth. It was anyway summer. And I purchased her.'

He smiles again, even if it is only because he is not so long to itself has thought as fifteen years that it is almost as if he thinks to another.

'and how it was when you have watched her?' She still are sleeves.

He thinks after.

'autonomous,' he says, 'independently. The truth, I fear.'

'De truth?'

'I fear,' says ship's steward, 'I fear, I said. I fear.' that is that calm, bright sadness that he reminds of his walks through the middle mountains when his daughter in the clinic was to cure. So calmly, so light, and yet sadness. Strange. The had nothing hysterical, nothing of what you often see on TV, women who are the hairs pluck, men who powerless their fists balls.

"And when?'

'What do you mean, and when?' he wants to beveled, but he doesn't dare.

"And when, then? What have you even more abolished?'

'I have nothing abolished. What I told you before. It was a mistake. After God and the progress should love turn, but i have failed. I am my own learning infidelity.'

He should actually laugh at these words. He can hardly talk about himself without laughing. He does not know how to do it yourself, explain that to the other, comment on your deeds. A man is what he does and ship's steward is mainly what he has not done so. Its silence is an act. His career, the authors who he has left unattended.

"Now,' he says, 'Now I am old, and I must return to the party. It is all a long time ago and not really worthy of debate. I am also the most forgotten. Large words were it all. I remember that. To forget how small you are. I must sardines buckets.'

They pull harder to his sleeves.

'And if you had the same handing?' she asks.

'Dan,' he says — and now he is the one who must be sighing, because it does not make sense in this conversation, not now, not tonight, he is too much, he has meaning in Italian gewürztraminer — 'dan it was a worthless equal, an equal which nobody had something, nobody has something, you can not old can be an equal that better could not have existed. I must back. Let me loose.'

'I have its also abolished," she says, but still keeps them it. She pulls his sleeves.

'Dat does not matter.' He speaks so airy possible. 'Dat people will continue to do so. It is a club, a club of people who have abolished its, sometimes they recognize each other, sometimes not. I must…'

Ship's steward makes its meaning. He picks up her face carefully with two hands. Moist hands, the heat and the voltage. Of Gewürztraminer is a ship's steward extra sweating. He expresses his foot on its, he kisses. Long has he has not really nice gezoend, very long.

It does you good. It is, how weird that may sound a liberation. This kiss. Maybe the wife equal. The beast is not dead. The had only had blocked, thoroughly to Hofmeesters leash seized. Where was the all those years? In the cellar has the Netherlands?

While its remains kissing, it picks up his head and he feels how her tongue still moving faster, yes, they kisses him, they Kisses back and he finally experiencing something what suspiciously to happiness, he seems to think only: help. Screaming for help omklemt internally he the face of klasgenote Tirza's.

But he kisses by. He no longer knows what he is doing. His hands gliding under its blouse, find her bra, his hands with which he so faithful the weed has become weeding, too heavy branches has cut down, the grass has seeded and mowed. It does not. They let everything.

He pushes her bra up, with the fingers of his right hand and rubs her nipples, something to rough maybe, but what here is still rough? This is what you have to keep after the abolition of the love of a fiasco. An autonomous and sloppy suppressed require that is between all the conventions and agreements wobbles if a hose.

He pushes his hand in her jeans, he pinches. Then he with difficulty, and actually rather clumsy, the knot of her jeans and then also the knots of her briefs.

His hands from her. 'Ester,' he says. A word which suddenly a body stuck and what for body, a word of meat. 'Ester,' he repeats.

He is a man without memory without awareness of place and time. A man who is only what should have been no longer, the rebellious residues of stubborn desire. Nothing of what he was, of what he thought, still exists. What lives in him is a shabby remnants of desire that ever came something must be deficit

He she crouches down next and in one rebellious jolting it draws its nail and pants down. Fanatic, that is the word, rapt.

Forget the sardines, the sushi, sashimi, even Mohammed Atta. The Third World War, the hedge fund, they do not have a chance.

He stands on puts his left hand on her shoulder. With his right hand he bevoelt her sex part. Rough, again, but surely somewhere also tenderly, the echo of tenderness. And he thinks that it is wet, they is damp. He feels that he still influential, he knows: I disconnect its humid, I wind her. She wants to me. They asked me to be debited, but too early, the world has depreciated me too early. I may have lost everything, but Jörgen ship's steward still exists.