Arnon Grunberg - Tirza

'Yes,' says ship's steward, 'I want to Top.'

'Take some water with you,' says Elago.

Ship's steward clamps the briefcase under his arm. The hat he let in the jeep behind.

'Would you not leave them here? Your bag?'

'Oh, I take it with you,' says ship's steward. 'He is not heavy.'

He climbs out of the jeep, he takes a bottle of water in receipt of Elago and he begins to run.

'Are you sure?' is called Elago him after. 'Die bag you can also leave them here. There will be nothing happen.'

Ship's steward acts as if he does not hear him.

First is the sand is still firmly but gradual drop it there ever deeper in road, to his knees.

If he is to turn around he sees Kaisa behind him arrive.

Nowhere another man or animal to admit. Only sand in different colors.

They are still not very high but the jeep seems so small and insignificant.

Kaisa climbs faster than he. She is as with him.

'You need to remain Elago,' he calls. 'Keep at Elago. He will apply to you.'

He continues. His arms hurt, are breathing is heavy. His sandals are just get in the way. He does so.

After twenty minutes they are out of sight of Elago disappeared.

He is going to sit. Kaisa remains standing. His body is exhausted, his mouth dry.

'Now go back, Kaisa,' he says, 'I only go further. I am going to disappear.' It takes him no bother to say. He has so often thought about he has so often polite in his mind, this time. He stands on her, coastal forehead, gives her the bottle of water that still is half full.

He can walk, also goes firmly by the dune downwards, then back up. He runs on the ridge of the dune, where the sands of two sides was blown up. There is no view, only more sandy, more dunes.

Ship's steward throws his sandals road. He has no longer required. Sometimes he falls, than he goes a few meters on hands and feet on the sand. Yes, this is disappearing. So do you do it. That is the way it looks.

The Sun spiked in his eyes, but he feels that the heat is reduced.

If he is to turn around he sees Kaisa but a few meters away from him. She is it nail open.

He swears he. 'Go away,' he cries. He waves his arms, he waves with his bag, to make it clear that they should be given back to the car. Away from here, away from him.

But they will only be closer. Faster and faster, as a beast that the desert is accustomed, she runs through the sand. She gives itself is not the time to get away to lower. It seems a dance which it carries out, a dance without public.

He then turns around and begins to walk away from Kaisa.

But she is faster, she gets it in. She picks him by his leg.

He wants to beveled, with the result that he falls. 'Go away,' he calls, 'Kaisa, you see is not what i am in fact doing? You don't see it? He is on his belly. Everywhere is sand, in his ears, in its nose, in his mouth, in his briefcase.

The child sits down next to him. They purr him about his hair.

'Kaisa,' he whispers, 'I have surely you said that I should disappear? Let me.'

He is going to sit upright. He picks up the hands of the child. 'You will find me sick?' he asks. 'Is that what you think? But if I am ill, what is healthy, what is normal?'

He is.

'I am a product of civilisation,' he calls, 'I am what happens when you release the civilisation of the beast. That I am. I never want something other than civilised.'

The wind splutters the sound of his voice.

He runs further, He staggers, but he continues. The child does not. She picks up his hand. She pulls him in the other direction. They fight, it seems.

Than he lifts, with his last forces, the child a few seconds in the air. He has made his briefcase for this last effort on the ground must have.

'Look,' he says, 'look how nice it is here. Nowhere to admit a man Only sand. That is nice. A world without people, beauty. Darkness is man, nothing other than that, the epicenter of darkness, and the only light that comes from him, is the light of the beast.' He put the child back on the ground.

'I need to stay here,' he says against the girl, 'there is no place for me, I have my place specified in the world of the people. I have placed outside of that world. I belong to the world of the sand. The sandy must take pity about me.'

Ship's steward keeps the briefcase against his forehead to his eyes to protect against the light. The sun is still below.

Then he sit down again, he takes the bottle of the child and drank a gulp.

'Formerly,' he says, 'stonden they settled on Sunday morning at my door, Jehovah's Witnesses. I did always open. Even though my wife was against it. But I found that you had to be polite, even if they were in front of the door to save your soul. And then they said things like: "God if you are looking for." things like that. But the sandy has sought me, you feel that not, how the sandy me are looking for? That was really what the Jehovah's Witnesses meant. I do not know. The sand is looking for me. And always searched for. It could be.'

He opens the briefcase. Dust escapes from.

'Look,' he says, 'I'm just sit somewhere, it does not matter where, somewhere here, one dune seems on the other, and then I open my bag. Everything I need is in it. My Four pencils, the manuscript that I was reading, Tirza's booklet, its agenda, Tirza's iPod, the charger. I will do everything displaying, around me, and wait. I keep good memories of those four pencils. And to the Solar Tirza Queen. And on the bag. A gift of my wife. So I will sit down with that stuff, I will be very quiet. Sometimes I look at the pencils, then back to Tirza's booklet, and then to the bag. I suggest to me. Sand will come and compassion with me. And you should slowly go back. Not too fast, because I do not want to be found. "God are you looking for," they said that Jehovah's Witnesses. I did not want to be found, not by God, not by the people. Now you know everything. Now you must go back. This keeps our game on, Kaisa. I walk a bit further by, and you go back.'

He is. His briefcase under his arm. But Kaisa grabs his hand and they do not leave them on to that hand and at the time of the ship's steward stronger than they are threatening to, at the moment that he is likely in extricating themselves, bites them in his hand.

'Au!' he calls. 'Are you completely mad?'

The noise travels here not far. Even the beasts can not hear him. He hears itself hardly.

Now if its, in the confusion, pulling it downwards.

He falls in the sand, and she climbs on him.

They hold it and eventually he keeps its also found.

A GUST OF WIND sprays them with grains of sand, the grains in his nose. He sniff, he muzzle.

Finally vibrates ship's steward, finally shudders he, and finally there are tears. Not because he intends to disappear, not because he has sorry of missed opportunities — as virtually everything is a missed opportunity, we need the individual missed opportunities not more regrettable — not because he the solar queen more fog than it is willing to give, but because he feels, because he somewhere sure, that he is not able to tearing of the child. That he is too weak to break cracks and so that he will not disappear. Not yet. Not as he had hoped, not as he had seen, not as he himself had thought.

He is on, he does a few steps, but he is not in the direction in which he had been chosen. The child pulls him. He runs back, back to the car, return to life where he no longer go wild.

'Kaisa,' he says, 'What is this, what does this have to mean?' But it is a rhetorical question. He expects no answer and there is also no answer.

Halfway through the dune continue them both. They drink the last water out of the bottle. And also must ship's steward laugh. 'look to us,' he says, 'you see us?'

She looks at him but they not laugh. She grabs his hand and pushes him further from the dune, as if they were the donkey and he the carriage.