Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

When he was on and ran up the stairs to the room of his youngest daughter. But halfway up the stairs he conceived, he remained equally and returned to the living room. He went back to sit around the table.

The wife was still. Not as a guest but as someone who was at home here. What they in the strict meaning of the word that was. She was never officially deregistered. The calls for the wife to go out and vote came here still to and ship's steward put them tradition on the small box in the hallway, until the elections were over and he with some melancholy found that the wife is not of its voting rights had made use of them.

'she has a boyfriend?'

'Tirza?'

'Tirza, yes. Of course. Who else?'

'I come sometimes boys against in the bathroom.'

'In the bathroom?'

'In the bathroom, hold it there they are often.'

'What do they do?'

'What people do in the bathroom. They take a shower. I suppose. They go to the toilet. I am not asking: "What are you doing here?" So inhospitable i am not. This is her house. This is also Tirza's house.'

The wife sighed deep and emptying her glass. 'And what you say than against them?'

'Dan i ask them,' said ship's steward, 'al will you may be surprised to learn that: "You want a clean towel?" I am asking them. But who knows do you have any other suggestions you might have better ideas, maybe I should they ask: "meaning in a glass of champagne, young friend? Was the fuck good? Hopefully with condom, but if not, then there is no man over board." You would otherwise have dealt with that, I know, you have always been jealous of the friends of your daughters. But I would therefore simply: "You want a clean towel?" and not more.'

'hold on,' she shouted.

Also it was quiet, said: 'We shout ship's steward against each other.'

'Yes,' she said. 'Dat is stupid. We do it again, and we have no further reason to shout against each other. We really have no reason to do that.'

They walked to the bank, picked up cigarettes from her bag, was a on and went back to the table.

'Is that glasses also French?' ship's steward pointed to the sunglasses with the ridiculously large glass they still as a kind of her band was wearing.

'Italian. The shoes come from France, the glasses from Italy.'

The smoke now also annoyed him but he said nothing.

'Have you set up its against me?' she asked. 'Or was it obvious?'

'It was all by themselves,' said ship's steward. 'I did nothing to do.'

'Jörgen, I have asked you. Has Ibi called?'

Ship's steward sweeps up his hands to finish off his apron. There displacing a few grains.

'Ibi,' he says, gazing to the mother of his children in her dressing gown. 'Ibi. That has to be called. But I have not talked to her. Tirza had her on the line. She is on her way.'

The wife is smiling, though it is not exactly a satisfied smile, she swipes with the back of her hand on his cheek. Remove them something to his nostril depends. He cannot see what it is. A small piece of shrimp, a huidschilfertje, something ondefinieerbaars green, perhaps wasabi.

'You need you shave," she says. 'You looks like a country runner.'

'I do. But first I make this a while.' He points to the raw fish.

She wants to drain. Ship's steward keeps her to her dressing gown. 'Let this celebration Tirza nou on about. Just let it all about Tirza. Keep you get as much as possible in the background.'

She looks at him also der Grijn transmit, as if he has made a joke. One of his old, known jokes. Then run slowly, and he has been working in the sushi with a surrender to him not more surprises. This is his life and this is his rice. I like him, in spite of everything. He likes it more than three years.

That evening, that first night of her return, six days ago, was not Tirza came from its room. After a while he was for the second time went upwards and he had on her door beat, but she did not respond. A minute or five he was to remain there are, without knowing what he had to do so. Hesitant, the various possibilities predominantly, anxious. In this way he stood for her door.

If the order is Tirza he had always been afraid, even before they became ill, all from its birth. A fear that he never had in his eldest daughter, not to the extent in any case, a fear that it no longer has released from the first moment he her in his arms loved: the fear of the loss.

'Tirza,' he had gently but when they called also on his praise not responded, he was down and had a second bottle of white wine opened, also South African. For an hour or eleven was the second bottle so empty if the first.

He and his wife had him silently drunk. There was not much to say. Her return was silent, calm, moving. Precisely because he is so by and by all day. So was the wife is not, as she was still there.

They snoof. 'Have you there something in stopped?' she asked.

'Where?'

'In the oven. I smell something.'

'I have nothing more in stopped, you smell once again things which are not there,' he said sharp.

Ship's steward waited a few more minutes, looked at his watch and said: 'It is late, I do not know where you want to sleep, or you have an address you regularly? In the event of friends?'

'With friends?' She shook her head. Is smiling, just as before. She had her hair to grow, he saw. It was first struck him not. He was not a good look. There were so many things to look at. Her shoes, its suitcase, its raincoat, her ring, its sunglasses, her lips. The hairs were longer than when they had gone, and that its not misstond

'In which friends?'

He had the answer. What friends they still had and what they had discarded, he did not know.

'No, I do not address controlled,' she said so yourself. 'I have nothing regulated.'

They sounded proud, as if they were the worst in Private person could rule. Something they always have liked to do. They had to constantly remind the fate that they existed. As if it could be forgotten.

He brought the dishes and utensils and the two empty bottles to the kitchen and when he is in the house room was, he said: 'If you want, you can continue to sleep.'

He had for a long time there is not need to think about. It was not a choice, rather the opposite: a lack of alternatives.

'Dat is sweet of you,' she said. 'I'm tired. It was a long journey.'

He had half a glass of wine. He went to sit down again. 'Well,' he said.

Ship's steward played with the two corks that were on the table remain there, showed them tops, began working on and said, when one of the corks on the ground was cases: 'Well, that is then settled.'

It was too late to now a hotel for her to find, or a guest house, it would be rude and kil, that too. A hotel for the mother of your children, that went against everything in which a ship's steward believed. He did not kil are rather warm. Glowing.

Love was a word that meant less than in the past — almost all words meant less than in the past — but there were consequences to half a century of life, and more than half a century ship's steward is already lived You showed some people inside, you gave their food and a bed. A sense of responsibility, a deep, everything by urgent sense of responsibility, that had the life left behind him.

He was set to the living together with Tirza. Set on the large empty house where he could quietly pecking without too many others. The absence of a partner was not a curse but, freedom, a harrowing, viewpoint, but still: freedom freedom. He was together with his child. And it was as if it was supposed to be heard, as if it were. They were inseparably, the child and he. Sometimes they already knew what he was going to say even before he had spoken. The guys that he from time to time in the bathroom had found, were nothing than passers-by.