Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

The wife smoked coarse further.

'Tirza,' shouted ship's steward now slightly harder, 'an ashtray for your mother. Please.'

He looked at the cone of ash that slowly became bigger, which soon would fall within the scope of his eyes and he could not keep from, he seemed hypnotise, he said: 'It is always very helpful. Otherwise than in the past. Even when they learn was for her graduation she was out to help me.'

Ship's steward talked as in a dream, he dared to speak out, like he had more to himself than against her as if there were no one else in the room was, he alone. As if he were for rehearsals for what he was going to say if the others finally arrived.

When Tirza didn't appear he went itself but to the kitchen and was looking for an ashtray. Where were they? Nobody smoked more in this House. Visit for a ship's steward was rare. Also the worker did not. They drank a glass sometimes, but smoking, no. And if the girlfriends and boys of Tirza smoked, what they rarely did, than they went out to the garden. Or they did the hanging out the window. Tirza did not smoke, but of boys.

He found no ashtray. Ship's steward had the ashtrays properly stowed in the expectation they never needed will have to. That is why he grabbed a dish. It was not correctly, but for now it went. Correct, that was for a ship's steward where all morals amounted to. If he could rely on his defense, than it was that he had been correctly.

When he came back in the room he saw the shaft into the left hand side of the spouse. He 1722–1776 and the dish its asked them whether they needed a wet wipe. 'I have refractory hands,' she said and they laughed. Just as in the past. People change hardly. They find a new environment for their obsessions. There are wrinkles, there are teeth, there break bones, components are replaced by machines, but they did not change.

When she was laughed at she said: 'If you like it, if you want to, and I know that you would like to eat a snack, i but don't bother. Enter the leftovers just me. Sloof you are not out.'

Ship's steward, freeing a vase with roses on the table which was the flowers had Tirza a few days ago. He made place for the wife who meeat a snack. He asked whether the suddenly surfaced again wife had courage inge drunk in a nearby cafe for they adhere to its old house had gone, with its suitcase.

'Cooking is no struggle,' he said soft. 'It should get closer to the action. I have a family. I cooking. That is my task.'

There was already covered for two. He covered the table long for the food was ready. Sometimes he started immediately after he came home from his work. Because he could not wait until Tirza and he would be to that table, because that moment the balance recovered that always would be lost. Tirza and he, to table, eating. The appearance of a family and more than that, an alliance. A holy covenant.

He took a board from a cabinet. He remembered his duties. The oven dish, the oven, there had to be cooked. He was uncomfortable with the board in his hand, as though he did not know whether the visit could only. Or the had to be invited to come to the kitchen. To talk about this and that from a distant past. How you say something? 'you also note to the kitchen?' when he put the board on the table. There was covered for a third person. The wife. Tirza's mother.

With a bite note-food was started. With a lamb chop the family had a ship's steward began. Jörgen had cooked for the woman who later the wife would prove to be. The man was better than the birth cutlet. He thought to the case that in the corridor. The first time that she was with him to eat she had a homemade cake in itself.

'They changed,' said the wife, with its view of a painting that hung on the wall. She had itself hung, she had also painted itself, and ship's steward had never bothered to remove it, although Tirza had a few times asked: 'Must we the rest of our life that fruit bowl look? It is absolutely essential if?'

'Who? Tirza?'

The tea towel was still on his arm.

'Yes, Tirza. She is beautiful.'

'They shall become a woman,' said ship's steward. But when he said, he had immediately regret it. A woman? What was a woman? Well, they had received and something of breasts hips. But when you actually was a woman? What made him a man? The genus part that between his legs bungelde?

He did not know what he had to say about Tirza, what he wanted to say about her. That is why he said: 'she was always nice. As a baby she was badly creased pitch, but that are all babies. Ibi was less badly creased pitch, which again had other defects. If you want to drink something?'

They shook her head. 'I unzip the itself. I am also completely satisfied.'

He stared at her. The satisfied woman who in the past that was never, despite all still lifes that she had painted. But now she was therefore satisfied. Somewhere in the story hid himself the good end, he was there not only.

It was a ship's steward to the kitchen, they would probably only be entertained in the living room. He dish pushed back into the oven. He then moved a bottle of white wine open and he put the egg alarm clock on a half hour. Ship's steward could not cooking without egg alarm clock. Then he explained the cookbook back on a stack of other cookery books.

In the vicinity of the oven he continued. His hands slid perilously on top of the counter as if he was a blind, braille to read. If the food on the table once stood, would it something to within shooting against the visit to say. 'you have traveled a lot?' or 'lives you mother still?' when they walked away with him, her mother was seriously ill.

He thought about its work, Tirza and the trip they went. Botswana was a malaria area, he had read.

The egg alarm went and he brought the oven dish with unmistakable love to the living room. The wife was on the bank to lie down. She had her shoes pulled out. Its eyes were closed. It smelled of cigarette smoke.

'I will also support framework for addressing you,' he said and he set out the food on the table.

They did not. They were all the vast and happy with them, as if they had never been away. As if they were just what currants balls was to get them and on the road was delayed. A file, was not been more, its three-year absence, a file of human flesh.

In the hallway he cried: 'Tirza, food!' He persuaded the cutlery and a glass for the guest and the bottle of wine from the kitchen.

'Where I will sit down?' asked the wife when he had the wine pouring. All glass is exactly the same vol. Each little thing there was a. He lived in his role. The waiter, the house Knecht.

She was a slow of the bank. They walked barefoot to the table.

'Here at the head,' said ship's steward. 'Dear is always the visit. You have beautiful shoes. Italian?'

'French'.

They sat down. Ship's steward scooped up. Again he cried, now harder: 'Tirza, food!'

On the signs was food. But nobody ate. There was on the child waited.

'a gift,' said the wife, while its fork already in hand loved. To the ring finger of her left hand was a jewel that he did not know.

'What?'

'De shoes. A gift.'

'What kind. Here you have also a piece or ten pair of shoes. Did you Know that? I wanted to send them, but i did not know where to.'

He took a piece of bread from the bread basket that already a few hours on the table.

'I thought you they would have given away.'

The bread was dry.

'surrendered to whom? Your shoes you mean?'

'My shoes, yes, I thought that you would be discarded. All my stuff that you would do so. I thought. Still not as crazy thought? I have bought everything new.'

'Why your size? I know nobody with your size. You have a difficult measure. Tirza, food! Everything is exactly as you have it stored in the cabinet. You had to be able to come back to it.'