Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

She runs to the kitchen. He is going to follow her. For the worktop and he remains he to clock that tail above the worktop depends. 'They are now above Mali,' he says. 'or Cameroon. How would it?'

'Who?'

'Tirza and Mohammed Atta.'

Together with him tail them a few seconds to the clock.

'or maybe they are above Ghana. Maybe they fly now above the family of your work applicant.'

She smiles and they saves a poor man with whom they have children.

'I am ill?' he whispers in her ear. 'Is that what I am? Is that what the people do not know?'

They release. 'But they know it. It may be their only did not care. As long as they are not subject to it.'

She goes to top. She runs gently, like they could make someone wake up.

'What are they then?' he calls her after. 'If I am ill, what are they then?'

Now he opens but a bottle of wine to the taste in the mouth.

He drinks one and a half glass. And he calls yet again to above: 'What are they then?'

There is no answer.

Seven days after the departure of Tirza asks the wife to ship's steward: 'has actually already phoned them?'

'Who?'

'Who? Of course Tirza.'

He shakes his head.

'They would call when they there was?'

'Dat would they do, but they did not done.'

They sit in the garden. It is hot.

The wife zont topless to the to prevent staining which stick to the sunbathing with bikini.

'Must we are worried?' requires a ship's steward.

'Of course not.' She picks sunscreen and lubricates is in. 'I just wonder whether they had already phoned. Also never called Ibi if they had been traveling. But Tirza. I do not know. I asked the wonder. It seemed to me to be something for her to call. Have you checked your email?' She lubricates thoroughly, as if it is her work.

'I have its called twice,' he says. 'On its mobile. They also has no e-mail is sent. Not for me in any case. We do not ask to you?'

'To me they have never sent an e-mail, Jörgen. And? When you called her?'

'I got her voice mail.'

The wife put the sunglasses.

'Yes, they of course, has no range. What do you think?'

Against the sun he has set up a straw hat. Since he is, He burns kalend quick on his head, even in the shade. It is red and starts to itch.

"I will call someone?' he suggests.

'Who wants to call you?'

'De youth hostel for example, the youth hostel where they are the first days.'

'Jörgen, Tirza is there with her boyfriend, they are in Africa, it is hot. She is on holiday. Keep you a little on the plain. Do you know what those two all the time are doing? They are with the levering.'

'Daarvoor did they not to Africa? They wanted to see something, understand something. Something. And you began to ask: "has already phoned them?" You will here for unrest. Am censuring me.'

'I do not care for unrest. I proposed a neutral question. She has actually already called? This is a neutral question.'

'No, that was not a neutral question. Not just the way you early.'

'Listen, you darlings is a wipkip, you have to accept. It is not so bad.' Its voice will be heard treiterig mockery.

'hold on,' he calls, 'die offensive language you. Stop there. The only wipkip which we have had in the family are you.'

In the kitchen he opens a cold bottle of wine. He likes the bottle against his forehead. A wipkip. How can you mention your daughter a wipkip? What do I have to be someone to do that?

That evening he calls with the youth hostel in Windhoek where Tirza the first days would stay. He has all the information it had about her trip about written in its agenda, as befits a good father.

A woman who speaks English neatly takes. They have never heard of a ship's steward Tirza. They can also find no booking. Not even that. No, a mistake is excluded. Everything is kept. She did not. Not the last few weeks. Perhaps last year. May seem a long time ago. That could be.

'One moment,' he says.

'How would that are actually Choukri last name?' he calls to the wife.

She looks at him surprised at from the bank. 'No idea, I thought you knew that. He was called yet Atta you think. Atta was his name, not? How should I know how that is hot?'

'Thank you, thank you for all your efforts,' he says by the telephone and he hangs up.

He is going to sit on the couch. There buzzes something in his ears. He has once again load of sound is not there.

'Listen, Jörgen, Tirza not running in seven locks at the same time. Bye you not as a lovesick teenager. They dive again. She wants to rest of us. It is simply to another youth hostel. A better, with cleaner showers and less dirty beds. I know a lot.'

'Why should they want peace and quiet of our? I have left her with rest, and you have all her left alone, you have you not to its attention. Rest. Where have you on?'

They cross a cigarette.

'And furthermore you make you also ensure,' he goes further. 'I see to your face. For the first time in your life you start to worry. It is late, but better late than never.'

'I am not worried. That is yet to come. That is still a long way off. I am just curious. I am curious to know how they can. That is all. May I am not more interested in my own daughter? Would you like to its really only for you? Well, I have unkind things about its said but what mother does not do that? I was nicer when i had her age. Spicier. And you know it, Jörgen, you know that I speak the truth.'

"Well," he says, 'Oh, Tirza should also are.'

If the wife, he goes to sleep Tirza's room and he begins to search. He has no idea what he is looking for. A reassurance likely. But there is nothing to be found. Nothing on a reassurance. The video diaries of which he has already read. A calendar with its e-mail address and password, appointments that are crossed out after they have been fulfilled. Photos. Letters of girlfriends and friends. A notebook with short messages of which he is only after a time understands that the smses are that she has written. Sms and of friends, he thinks. 'I miss you. Where are you?' That type of messages. Nicely written down in a booklet with the date and time next to it. Only no sender.

He is going to sit on her bed, he looks around. On the desk a pouch with make-up, for which no place was in the backpack.

Ship's steward is on, opens its wardrobe, the clothes hang on color, he picks up a pair of shoes, tail to the soles as if he were a shoe maker. He will then back onto its bed. It is nicely done. She has the tidy. Its ass lies half under the blanket. Each time they come in. So it seems the if he is here. Each time they come home, if a party, tired and hoarsely, the smell of cigarette and alcohol around them. Downstairs in the kitchen are her friends after a glass of one or other of the drink.

He goes on the bed, press his head in her pillow, puts his arms around her blue donkey and trying to sleep. He finds four hairs on the cushion of Tirza. It will succeed him not to fall asleep.

Early in the morning he goes to his own bedroom. But even there he cannot sleep. He is seated upright in his bed. He looks through the lace curtains how the light.

To wake up the wife. 'What is there?' she panting slightly. 'Jörgen, why you will not sleep?'

'I look at the sun.'

She picks her watch from the bedside table.

'It is still early. Go to sleep. You woke me up.'

'I can't.'

'What not?'

'Slapen.'

'lie down, than val you will sleep.'

She turns around, pulls the blanket over in better.

He continues to sit upright.

'You know that I am not more work? That I no longer have?'

First come there is no reaction. Then she asks: 'Where You Go around each morning?'

'To Schiphol.'

'And what do you do?'

'I walk around. I keep the eyes.'

'You love the eyes? You can walk around?'