Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

That is not the end of the day the only job of human rights? You must be what the others in your wishes to see.

He and the children get a table on the edge of the room, with views of what a ship's steward is reminiscent of a steppe. There are no windows, windows are not necessary here. It is all open. Only a roof. For if agree regent.

The menu is simple. Save, a piece springbok fillet, dessert.

'Eat,' he says to the child.

The child is looking to the steppe, although the darkness little to see. The eat slowly and with a degree of reluctance.

But a ship's steward tastes and the red wine from South Africa tastes him even better. He meedrinken leave the child. She takes a few sips, but they do not find wine tasty. Cola, since she keeps of.

'we sit back,' says ship's steward as the springbok filet is eaten. 'we are down, we cannot get away from each other, Kaisa.'

He leans back and plays with a toothpick, he orders a second bottle of red wine. For the child is still a bottle of cola.

He acts as if he is on holiday. He has perhaps that also. Finally he is on holiday.

'They have me deprived of everything,' he says soft, 'first my wife, when my money. Mohammed Atta did you know Atta? Do you know him?'

She shakes her head.

'Yes,' he says, 'Atta. Many are already forgotten him. Incorrectly. He gave me my money taken. More than a million. He also has other things to be done. Other people he has decreased their children. But he has my money confiscated. My freedom.'

He is looking for under the table to his bag, but realizes that he has those in hut eleven has left. Just like his hat.

'My work they seem to have also decreased,' he says. 'In a certain sense also my children. My family. But I have taken the same way as one the weather. Rain, snow, wind, you can do nothing to change that, Kaisa. Invulnerable Resistance is a virtue, that people do not know more. Who nowhere in believes, is immune. He is above the parties, he is at the top itself. He knows no doubt because he accepts everything. Who offended in doubt., You are also invulnerable, Kaisa. You can purchase anything because you have nothing. How you also mentioned, it makes you nothing, because you are nothing. Even if we would terminate your life, you would not hurt. In Fact i you already dead.'

He takes her hand but leave it loose again if the second bottle of wine and Kaisa's cola.

Immediately afterwards he grabs the hand. He caresses her hand. Soft, small and yet not toothless.

Ship's steward sees a tor walk, a large African tor in bright colors. He points to and cooperation are they looking at the gate. As if it were a popular attraction, specially for them there.

'I had,' says ship's steward, 'or better said: I have a worker from Ghana. A friendly woman. Illegal, but friendly. When my wife disappeared, I got a sexual relationship with the applicant ' s work.'

He loves the hand of the child. He has the idea that they can understand him, that they understand everything he says and can NATO remains. Better than others. They know him.

They cannot forgive him. That is the way it seems in any case, it felt, actually for the first time. They will forgive him in silence

'I can talk to you so well,' he says, "I have often said, but I can not say often enough. I can talk to you, Kaisa.'

There is still a remnant of cola in the first bottle. He empty, for he who fill the glass with the contents of the second bottle. No human being is more efficient, but is still a carefully man.

'It was slightly between friends. That between me and the worker. I arranged a lawyer for her, stopped her what. It was pleasant, very pleasant actually,' he says doorframe, searching for words, slower talking loudly than would otherwise, by the wine and also by the child that he understands. 'I took her on the bank, in the living room. Always from the rear. You know, Kaisa…' He leans slightly forward and back he takes her hand in his own. So small, so soft that basis. 'De core of sexuality between adults is the humiliation. In itself it is not so much, sex, not much good for. On the humiliation after. That is what it is all about, this is in fact the only.'

He delivers his head even closer to that of Kaisa. He can smell her breath.

'If its shit of my pik licked, i was all lost ballast, i had no awareness, and therefore no shame — no debt, i was nothing and everything at the same time, I was the beast. The beast that I always wanted to be that I have always been in. The enjoyment is in the humiliation. And the liberation is losing our disease, the healing of the disease, of our aids: humanism. And of everything that is stuck, still again and again, again and again. Do you understand? It is salvation. The redemption is in the humiliation.'

He delivers his mouth to her forehead, he kisses her forehead, on the table.

'You have already been redeemed,' he says. 'You are dead while you breathe, here in Africa. Nothing can be done you. You are the true onkwetsbaren, invulnerable as a machine, a product, a… thing. You are beyond all the future, that is beyond all the despair.'

Ship's steward drinking wine. He shall ensure that they consume. The other guests are already to their cabins. Also the control is going to sleep, but a ship's steward and the child should remain in place as long as they want to continue, they said. No problem. Though it is half the night.

And that is what they do. They make use of their privilege. They sit and they remain tight.

Hand in hand. Occasionally a ship's steward interrupts are words and he kisses her on the main. They allow the cushion to worry as his words: with much sympathy and silence.

Yes, they accept each other, ship's steward and the child.

'As we are,' he says, 'people will be, invulnerable and unreachable. The others will follow. But they don't know, they want to do not yet know, they will continue to be faded ideals. They still have hope and faith and they see that they do by that hope, by that faith reports will be. Reports, Kaisa. Reports.'

He kisses her again, on the table. Not only the forehead, also the cheeks. He picks up her face with both hands. Caution, as you pick up an expensive vase.

'When I was so old as you,' he says, 'No, a bit older, I worked with a project. God was already dead. When the love still. I have the love abolished. It is diluted, the project, dissolved in obligations, a job, a family, a house, a tenant. Children. But I had to mention the otherwise: the death of the compassion should welcome. I am a human Kaisa, without compassion. I do not know what it is, I do not believe it, compassion, I have got rid of me as an unpleasant, but a persistent cough. Not that I think we want to see others suffering, on the contrary. Generally we want others, not suffer, not really in any case. But compassion? What is that? I can rape, Kaisa, it could be, and just before I go you go inside, I would have thought, I could feel — because you seem to feel the, compassion, they say, they know that can — but then I would have thought: I will leave it at that. That is what I can feel comfortable. I got you the clothes of the corporal jerked, I have a couple of times in your face skipped, and I am now thinking, now I, suddenly, as from nothing, compassion. I think: further than this should i not continue. It is good. It is good that it is. You now understand why I want to have nothing to do? I experience the compassion as a personal insult. The insult me. It makes me livid.'

He let her face.

A few minutes does he, he drinks are only wine. And then he calls her name. 'Kaisa,' he calls. And again, hard and stark: 'Kaisa.'

She looks at him, alarmed. But not so shocked that they would like to stand up and drain. They do not want to drain.

'When my wife again for the door was, I left her within,' he says now, but softer, almost in a whisper. 'Mededogen? Let me not laugh. I have left her within because I accept everything. Also her return, even her home. Because I am willing to adapt me to assimilate, No wife, a wife. Tirza, that is a different story. She was sick and i was the disease. That is the story. Other people can say: "I am sick. I must cure" or "I cannot heal, how much I would wish that." But the disease can not do that. That is the difference between the adjective and the noun. The disease must remain disease. I am the noun.'