Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

'I also said, that they are in the desert. And that there is no range. I have promised to give to you that you should ask Choukri to call his mother. It seems to be urgent.'

The child picks up his hand, the apparently wants by walk.

'Jörgen, do you still here? It seems as though you are omitted.'

Atta must call his mother, he thinks. Atta must go home.

'I am still. Yes, I will pass this.'

'I have purchased a book with pictures of the Kalahari. And of the Namib desert. What would people search in such void? What would do this Tirza the whole day?'

"Look,' says ship's steward, 'Watch. You are watching, you go to the desert.'

The child is now really his hand. It is impatient.

Now they are a wreck, develops the wife suddenly the maternal feelings. A book with pictures of Namibia. Previously they had better things to do.

'I really have to hang up,' he says, 'mensuring i will go to the desert. I call you back in a few days a week or so. Do not worry if it takes longer.'

'Jörgen, how should we go?'

'That?'

'Met us."

'We have about.'

We need to 'maybe try again. With each other. Because we have no choice. Because we old.'

'Maybe.'

'I voted against the lady said that they no longer need to go, I disconnect the house now clean. I have nothing to do.'

He hangs up. The child is tired. The last part of the road to the hotel HE MUST BEAR ITS. In his small room in Hotel Eberwein he closes the curtains. He shall submit to the child in bed, and is itself in addition to lie. It is four hours in the afternoon in Namibia.

Anything after Van Zessen is he woke up. The child sleeps still. It is carefully and clothe located on. He picks up his briefcase and his hat and without noise out of the room.

The twilight has already largely used. Initially it will walk aimlessly by Swakopmund. For a shop window of a travel agency he remains are watching a poster which tours to the desert is promoted. By Jeep, or per airplane. There is something for everyone.

He looks at the desert on the poster. He are staring to the people in the background, as if one of them could be Tirza.

In a textile supermarket purchases a Training pants and a t-shirt for Kaisa. And four briefs which he thinks her.

In the row for the cash register that he is the only white. The concerned him less and less.

Back at Hotel Eberwein take Kaisa crying in bed. One sobbing nugget of misery with all sheets and pillows around her. He takes the child in his arms.

'Not afraid,' he says, 'I do not go away. I really do not go away. I can not going anywhere.'

He let her the t-shirt, the training pants and the briefs.

'You must surely agree something fresh to attract,' he says. 'Not that i dirty of you Ben, but it never hurts to look again to attract something fresh.'

He is going to sit on the only seat in the room. The child has stopped crying.

'how many there are actually of you?' he asks, while its new clothes. 'how many children as you are in this country?'

It is sitting on the bed and tail him.

'Have you are in contact with each other? The children who sell company?'

They remain naughtily drawing pictures him.

He hangs his clothes in the bathroom and running the hot water valve of the shower open, in the hope that the steam the wrinkles in the clothes will delete.

They do not eat that evening. They lie in bed and watch TV. For ten hours, ship's steward the child her nightdress: the summer dress which the wife has purchased for Tirza.

In the middle of the night is the ship's steward awake. The girl is about cross. She has her feet on his belly. He shall carefully hair so that its feet do not more on his belly need to lie. It takes him certainly a hour for he falls back to sleep.

To seven and a half of them. When they arrive in the breakfast room, is Mrs Eberwein still working to build the buffet.

"You are there early," she says. 'Coffee? Tea?'

'coffee dates, and chocolate milk for the child.'

The breakfast is meaner than in hotel Heinitzburg and Okapuka Ranch and for some reason they seem both less trek to have.

At the checkout says Mrs Eberwein: 'It is a nice girl. Your cousin. A very nice girl.'

She gives him an invoice, which ship's steward fold twice and in his inner pocket stops.

He already wants to drain away, but Mrs Eberwein says: 'There are many children without parents.'

Ship's steward has his hat. His suitcase is already in the back of the Toyota. Only if he has briefcase always, clipped under his arm.

He should say something back. But what? What is there to say about children without parents?

'Aids,' sist Mrs Eberwein, 'because they cannot. The blacks.'

He looks serious to the woman with the many wrinkles on the face. He knows what she sees, or rather to see what she thinks.

'Look Out," she says. 'seem children. But they commandeer. O, I understand the best. If I had nothing I would also commandeer. It is in their blood. Always blame others of its own misery.'

There is a scale with sweets. Ship's steward picks up a and stops in his mouth. Then he runs without further to say something with the child behind him to the Toyota.

'We go to Tirza,' he says when they sit in the vehicle, 'we go to the desert.' He folds a map of Namibia open which he has obtained from the rental company. 'Sossusvlei,' he says, 'wanted them back. The dunes.' He puts his hands on the steering wheel. He has no idea what he feels they must submit proposals. The dunes. He wonders where he goes.

To Whale Bay is the road paved. Then begins a sandy road. Initially dares ship's steward not more than forty, fifty kilometers per hour to drive. Gradually the tempo runs on to eighty, almost 90.

At the sound of stones that against the car splashing is he become accustomed.

The radio does not work any more. Also are phone has no range. It is nothing more. It is only with Kaisa.

Occasionally he raises a look on her. She has a bottle of water between her legs clipped. If he asks, she gives him the bottle. In this way he can drink without stopping.

Although he thinks that he is driven, does he takes longer than he had thought. It is already in the afternoon as he arrives in Solitaire. A dot on the map as big as a small town. In fact no more than a motel and a petrol station.

He buys and refueled two pieces of apple pie. The child eat her piece fully. She is hungry.

'Well,' says ship's steward, as if it were a performance.

The Toyota is located under the dust and sand. The girl attracts with its index finger stripes over the bonnet.

'Let us sit down,' he says, 'just relax.'

In addition to the pump are what chairs and tables. They look old, lost by the weather, the time, the use. There is also something a bit more on a really seems café. But they do not have the time. You will ship's steward. They must continue.

He iron with a handkerchief on his head, and then also that of the child. Although they are not sweat.

There is a tree, away a water tower. Then nothing. Sand, stone, what shrubs. A fence around the one plot of the other to separate. But what does plot here?

They remain silent.

'Have you understood what I am in fact doing?' he asks after a time. 'Have you already by?'

She points to the dusty Toyota.

'No, no,' he says. 'Not the Toyota, or perhaps. I am disappearing. That is what I am doing.' The word 'rdwijnen' set to reassure him. It is so much gentler and more innocent than die. It is dying, but without violence.

He must have fallen asleep, because he wakes up from the child that on his cheek touch. The sun is already bearing. His hat fell on the floor.

He rubs his eyes, picks up the hat.

'Yes,' he says, 'we continue.'

They are doing there are two hour to get the Sossusvlei Lodge. Huts in strange colors, in the middle of the desert, that is the Sossusvlei Lodge. But there is no more space.