Arnon Grunberg

Tirza

A couple is a conspiracy in search of a crime.

Sex is often the closest they can get.

Adam Phillips

Part One — The Rent

1

Jörgen ship's steward is in the kitchen and cuts tuna for the party. With his left hand he holds the raw fish. He uses the knife as he has seen on the course 'Self sushi and sashimi', which he for five years with his wife has followed. Do not apply too much pressure and that is the secret.

The kitchen door is half open. As it is hoped Tirza both. Already a few days analyzes them intensive weather reports, as if the success of its public depends on the weather.

The partiers will be able to take possession of the garden. There will be plants trampled on. Reachout will show up on the wooden stairs that to the living room leads, others are going to hang the 4 garden chairs which has purchased a ship's steward when they have come to live here. And others will penetrate to the small barn where a ship's steward in the past after celebrations often empty beer bottles have been found, glass is half full wine next to the mower, bottles with exotic names around the engine which he saw on Sundays in the spring and autumn the apple tree pruning. A bag of chips that we had forgotten to tear open and that he was on a morning ate without thinking.

Tirza has more often for parties, but this evening is different. Just like life can party fail or succeed. Although Tirza has not said the ship's steward, feels that many of these evening depends. Tirza, his youngest daughter the greatest. Very successful, both inside and out.

The sleeves of Hofmeesters shirt are rolled. In order to protect it against stains he has an apron, that he had ever bought as a gift for Mother's Day. For his do it looks male. Six days he has not shaved. He had no time for. Immediately after the morning he was seized by the thoughts that he had not previously, not to the extent: planning, memories of the children when they could have just creep, ideas to him in the early morning were brilliant. Will he quick shaving. Representative and charming he wants. So will the partiers see him: a man who has lived not for nothing.

He will go around with sushi and sashimi, neatly displayed on a specially in the Japanese shopping purchased plateau. With this or that he will have a chat, between Nose and Lips he will say: 'Try the squid-sashimi.' A itself wegcijferende parent, that he will. The secret of parenting: yourself heroism. Parental love is the sacrifice that is placed in silence. All love is a sacrifice. No one will be slightly to see him. There is also nothing to see him. Some will congratulate him with Tirza's impressive figure list, a single teacher who is invited Tirza will ask him what it is going to do, and he will respond with the plateau in his hand: 'First Time they travel for a while. Namibia. The Republic of South Africa. Botswana. Then she comes back to study.' is an excellent host will he be, a six pairs of eyes at the same time. Not only will the guests of food and drink provided, also the lonely and neglected he will carefully monitor. Those who have no one else to talk to than the own glass or a sushi will by ship's steward to be entertained. The shy partiers he will offer his company. And dancing, there will also be danced.

Ship's steward engages in a bucket is full of lukewarm hot rice, he kneads the rice, and while he is the frame of the kitchen door as if he had never previously worked on this worktop. He sees the flaking paint, a dull place on the wall next to the frame, where once was a shoe that came to his Tirza main had thrown out. They had 'geenstijl'. Or after that it no longer knows for sure. Still lucky that the framework very remained.

He looks at the rice in his hand. The Japanese do it always better. Hofmeesters sushi is form. The surrender with which he kneads surprise him, as he surprised about silliness from its past. The type of silliness that not too much damage is done.

Also he raises a glance at the flaking paint him to his own skin feel. He has a zalfje for, but of is already a coat few days did not come. With the rice in his hand he begins to consider this House, to sell his house, First he takes the idea not seriously, he considers that if on points which will not become reality. Let you freezing after the death and one hundred years later wake up for example. But grows slowly the conviction. The time is ripe for this. How long should he still waiting, and where?

In the past he had such plans rejected straight away. His house was are proud. The apple tree that he himself had planted his third child. The idea house and apple tree of the hand to do if the water him to the lips although he had previously had, but it was not. It was impossible, against natural. Where he had to go with his family? The apple tree could no longer be excavated. He sat in this House, he was on everything. And when friends and acquaintances are not much an intriguing sight on ship's steward knew to say, what happened from time to time, there was always a who said: 'But Jörgen lives in position.'

On position. This was essential for a ship's steward. Had to ambitions in lead. That an address was usually. A certain amount of striving taken possession of him as his street'. As if his identity, everything he was and for which he was, rolled was street name, house number and postal code. Even more than the name ship's steward itself, even more than his professional or the title of Bachelor of Science in which he sometimes for his name was without distorting the truth to do, told us about his post code who he was and who he wanted.

He does not need to attend more on position. That sense that it is no longer necessary, him, while he is a piece of tuna on the rice drap honors, for if a redemption.

He is too old to be released, he told. And if you are too old to be released, you are also too old to attend on position. If the nursing home is only a small decade of you is removed, will this not more to on. He knows people of his age already senile dementia. They have a lot of drunk, though.

Away from this House, away from this area, away from this city, which is everything that he can still think as he searches for the contents of the word "solution". There are people who are waking up in the morning with the idea that there should be a solution to all of this, so it can not continue. Ship's steward is one of them.

The children are the house from or are in the process of the House to go out, his work has repl bleed until a thin occupation furnish details which have nothing more to do with productivity, only waiting. They can go to the east. In the past when he German studied and opinions about expressionist poets proclaimed as if he had known them personally, he was planning to go to live in Berlin and the big book of the expressionist to write poetry. That he can do now. For such a book it is never too late.

He would have been postal code, the impression that his address on some people, miss. The suggestion of managed it sticks. The smell of success. Now his youngest daughter leaves to Africa, he should also but disconnecting its postal code. There is no need for a parent to be attended evening more, no teacher more to be shaken. Who should he still impress?

He must admit that only sentiment and fear of change still bind him to this place. Since a ship's steward at a point in his life is that he ended up in particular need cash and a flight route, a way out, he decides of sentiment and fear not to attract a lot more.

Impetuously the tuna. He cuts So does the sushi master that, Hak, chop, chop. The fish must be the knife welcome it if a friend. He puts a piece of tuna in its mouth. The shrimps are a theeschoteltje to wait for their rice.

This morning he drove to Diemen to do your shopping in the catering wholesale. The raw tuna on his tongue will ship's steward a pleasant sensation. Fresh. Comes to sashimi.

His wife is running the kitchen within in its dressing gown, flip-flops on the feet. She asks: "Has Ibi called?'

Ship's steward is not yet its presence used. She has moved, three years ago now. More than three years ago. The course 'Self sushi and sashimi' had not helped.

But against all expectations in return they came. Six days ago. For an hour or seven in the evening.

Ship's steward stood in the kitchen. He often stood there since his wife had left him, but also all of that time. The cooker was his true work place. The wife had never felt called to work in the kitchen. Her talents, further than lasagna, were more urgent than the education. Something in her life always had heavier than the feeding of weighted her family.

The voordeurbel went, six days ago, and ship's steward called: 'Tirza, do you also open?'

'Papa, I am on the phone,' she shouted back.

Whil Tirza much. This is normal, he has heard of other parents. The phone can become a hobby. Self call he rarely. When the telephone is ringing, Tirza. And if a consummately worker and a excellent papa says the father than: 'You can reach her on her mobile phone. This is the number.'

Ship's steward was that evening an oven dish to prepare. The recipe came from a cookbook. Since the wife left him, has a ship's steward gradually to an impressive collection of cookery books built up. Improvising he found no sign of creativity, but pure laziness. For him it was the recipe sacred. A teaspoon is a teaspoon. He had to remain in the kitchen. The preheated oven was enough. He had the scale there just slid in.

'Tirza, do open,' he cried again. 'I can also not. It will be the neighbor are. But I say later in the evening at him come. Do open, Tirza!'

The neighbor is a young man who actually not so young, but still officially free companion, and that the top floor of the house is for sole occupancy that ship's steward at the end of the 1970s as advantageous to the head has reprimanded. The young man complains regularly, studying for notary, located at ship's steward on various issues often have the same: stench in the bathroom. At least once per week for the door with complaints and lamentations.

Ship's steward promises time and time again have better, two reliable plumbers explained to him that there is little to do is, unless he all pipes will refresh, what a power costs. He has a power not, and if he had already, he would be not to have a peak to spend the new tubes.

In addition to all of the other is also a ship's steward house boss.

He heard Tirza swear, he heard her walk toward the front door. Then it was quiet and he concentrated on the oven dish in the belief that the tenant on the pavement with unsolicited advice, barely veiled threats.

The Rent protection, renowned lawyers, the housing committees. With which he has not threatened? Everything has a ship's steward in his life as a landlord had already on the floor, but they have not been given him under. The Predator ship's steward has fights back against the authorities, against the tenants, against the law, who are often only seems to be to take him to graze. The Predator ship's steward is tough.

One minute later, more will not have been Tirza came the kitchen within walk. He found that they looked there appeared, bewildered. But probably he had there later at invented and saw them there always so. Without that he was noticed, was the distress ever appeared on her face and never left.

'It is mama,' she said.

Intuitive he purportedly collected the dish from the oven and turned the gas. He stared endeavor. Cod and potatoes. Simple but nice. He knew that this would take a long time. This was not a breath of fresh air in the bathroom of the lessee. This was for the change is not the sewer, but the mother of his children.

Although no pay rent wives, but just as the lessee, with whom the landlord per definition of war is on foot, complain. The complaint which has the wife with the tenant in common, the accusation. The threat. The sucking. And behind all this is the underlying dependence as a disease.

House Construction Committees, inspectors of the rent protection, lawyers: he had brushed aside and with a sham, but the woman who was hiding behind the forgotten word 'mama', the mother of his children, had never stop talking. She was more dangerous than the rent protection, cunning than the inspector of agricultural and home monitoring.

With the tea towel with which he the dish from the oven had lifted in his hand still he walked to the front door. What amazed him that they had come precisely this evening. At meal times.

The first months of its disappearance, in the first year he had actually taken into account almost every day with her return. Sometimes he had from his work to house called to see if they would record. She had the keys and he had still not change the locks. He could not believe that they never would come back. He could not imagine that they were prepared to exchange this address for an address that is as much as was less, as much as much banaler insignificant. A houseboat, they had told him.

But after some time he had to admit that his assessment was found to be false: they didn't return. They did not even bother to contact him or her to retrieve remaining stuff. She was road and they stayed away. He learned life with its silence, as he had lived with her presence.

With his eldest daughter, Ibi, had the wife initially sporadically contact. They met each other in the city, in a cafe where people who do not want to be seen meet. But later also that not more. About those meetings was not much to hear a ship's steward and called is not to at Ibi, which actually called Isabelle, but which from its birth was called by everyone Ibi. No, what Ibi still discussed with her mother, remained secret.

Tirza wanted nothing more with her mother, and with him, the father of her children, had the wife since her departure no word changed. Not even by letter or e-mail. Ship's steward knew that they were still alive, that after the houseboat abroad was gone, but much further his knowledge not 1722–1776 With the rest of the world began the black hole. And that much regretted it.

As the silence lasted longer, took the regret. The time heals not all wounds, he discovered, the time tears open wounds, ensures poisonings and inflammation. The death is perhaps an end to all the pain, the time that after.

Ship's steward had its course to be able to call or send a ansichtkaartje can, but he did neither. He had his pride, he waited in silence until they could see its mistake. A childhood love on a houseboat, that was a mistake. It could not be any other way. The houseboat itself was finally a mistake. He lived peacefully, pending the insight about his wife.

First he did that go on living with two children. But after a half year did the oldest what they had seen doing her Mother: she went out of the house.

When in the evening the call went, he caught the first months still on the idea: that is they, my wife, they is back. But gradually was an expectation become a ritual, a habit without content, and together with the expectation disappeared hope. The mother of his children had moved. That was a fact and facts are so called because they are mostly immutable.

But now she was standing there in full regalia, Fact or no fact. In the hallway. With the same case as to which they had gone. A red suitcase on wheels. She was the calm door ran her departure was not a tragedy, not her departure.

The sight of the wife made him more than he would have believed when he was in the kitchen the oven dish on the worktop. Why? I thought a ship's steward. Why tonight? What would have happened? He understood this visit, and he was not someone who wanted to understand the things. The irrational abhor he as others vermin.

His desire for rational considerations which lead to thoughtful practices continued to perfect unsatisfied. Unwanted thoughts about him fell. He was, he had to admit, already become nervous when his daughter the word that he hoped that no longer existed in this House. Mama.

What was God for atheists was mama for the family ship's steward. Nobody spoke about the mother who had taken the legs. Nobody had the infamous word. Nobody said: 'When mom still lived with us…' Even on older evenings, which he visited with a certain fanaticism, was not referred to the woman who is the mother of his children was. Did him as a single father and in such a way that its surroundings veinsde thoroughly that ship's steward ever since his birth was never something else than this. That he was so intended as a toddler. Designed to be single father. And it had to be said: he was grown in his role.

There was no mama. It disappeared for the existence of the word. He was there now, mother and father in a. The only, therefore the real, the left, and with him everything would be better.

When he stood opposite her, noticed Jörgen that he was wound ship's steward. Not in the sexual sense of the word, but excited as you are excited an exam, even if you know that you have learned. Anything could happen. That was what the adrenaline told him that was what the concentration with which he looked at her influisterde him: a lot can go wrong.

He monsterde her, her head first and when her suitcase. Also he felt for him incomprehensible challenge its against itself and to press its minutes long against located on printed. Everything he did was with his right hand leaning against the wall, quasi-casually. The tea towel bungelde in his left hand. Ship's steward was a man with a life-long to an attitude had sought and there, now that life almost was over, had still not found. Not an attitude is a tea towel.

The only thing he could think was: the always happens if you are not expecting. As if it were just so it happens, because you might not expect.

How long he had not been looking forward to? That they would be in front of the door. She was left in the past, but she was always come back. After a few days, after a few weeks, for more than two months had never lasted for its bevliegingen. And on a day they came than back home. Without embarrassment, without a word of regret, haughty, a tad aggressive, but she was there, for his door. The last time this happened so not the last time was different than all those times. The last time it was definitively.

And now that he is not expected more, now he did not need to expect because the children were large enough to be able to without her, and he was old enough to for a young widower to continue, she had landed at him as if it were the beld commonplace. What it was perhaps also. It remained the mother of his children. She had lived here for many years, first with him, when only with him and the girls. Perhaps she wanted to also check how the with its pots and pans, admire apple tree, which indeed had grown.

He looked at the woman who had claimed that he had her life spoiled, not only spoiled, Kan. He hadn't let her life. If a magician he had her life weggegoocheld, blow three times and road. She wanted the back, that life of her. That is why she left. As the ladies and gentlemen of the rent protection was they went out of the house, calm but not without resentment. He had still nageroepen: 'I will call a taxi?' But they had said: 'I do with the tram.' He had the door closed and he was in the living room to sit down with the evening newspaper in his lap.

'I thought: I come in and have a look how you feel,' she said and they region what hairs from her face. Its movements, the way they stood there, confident, confident that this was the ideal moment to check how the there with her family for was that they all nights no better had been able to choose, a bland smile around her mouth, a pair of sunglasses on her head, that everything should claim the contrary to its voice heard that they also was nervous. So nervous as he is. Maybe it was three times along the house seized for them had to call to action. It was probably they already weeks ago returned to Amsterdam and she had him when he looks begluurd work, when he went with groceries sjouwde, when in the evening he Tirza guided to her bicycle, if they are out of the house was to visit her boyfriend. And how he than treuzelde and remained standing first to look Tirza wegfietste and then for his street and the park, that had the wife.

A man of his home. That he was on that kind of evenings. No, a man in age of his home. In the bathroom mirror he had to get to know the sensation to something to look at what is over. And that was a relief. What decamped to its existence to him was that it was behind him. If he was looking for long enough, he would in his past life.

This was the wife cannot know. They had everything can know, took a ship's steward. And that is why it was rather surprising him all the more that they had done this evening what they should have done earlier or for always should have: bell on the pavement with its red suitcase on wheels.

What they wanted from him he understood not. Sex would be not. A years ago she was never has been. That he is so yummy had to learn how to cook she could not know. That was something of after her departure. What was there on this point of his life still of him to? Where they came back, not for him. Not for whom he was now. For whom he had been in the past? But what he was what they had been in place, was not reproducible. How you look at it, they returned or turned came too late.

He took his hand from the wall. He looked at the hand. The work in the garden had left its traces. Still he searched the correct posture. He wanted a man who is a chat with the postman, interested but also somewhat absent, as it is now once as you with postmen talk.

People go away with a reason, thats for sure. And they come back with a reason. You do not accidentally after three years for the door. If this was a brainwave, what was the rest of your life?

He had simply ask what they wanted from him. Also he considered to say: 'Is the urgent? There must be something in the oven.'

She had the front door not closed. Ship's steward looked past her, to the street.

'How do you come here?' he asked. He did a step forwards, he drove by her, he smoke her, he was still a few steps, when he was outside. He looked to the left, he looked to the right. The street was empty. As if he were still a lover expected that neatly remained outside while they wait the bunch of inspected. A nice man with blue eyes. Youthful. The type for those who desire is an inconvenience which others him daily harassment. He knew that type, visited him in his dreams, lard characterised the history of his life: the other man who remained invisible but yet always there was every second of the day.

Far away from the corner played a child with a tennis ball. No lover. No childhood love. An evening in the early summer. As there are so many evenings. The promised to be warm, hot, humid and stuffy, good for the sun worshippers. Ship's steward was not a sun worshipper.

'Met the taxi,' she said.

Then he went back inside and closed the door. He picked up a promotional leaflet. What did they need? What came claim them? The children were too old. Which were of no more. Who had friends about who they seriously spoke and even more serious thought. Friends with whom they could imagine the rest of their lives to wear. He had already been discussions about engagements captured, not even irony. With Rings and al. The marriage was working on an offensive. An indestructible institute was it. No war could ertegenop. The atomic bomb, which perhaps.

But the eyes of the wife to the spoke he made the reservation. They looked at him very friendly, almost soft. She looked not angry or distant, they claim was perhaps nothing. She was, he could not pretend that he had not seen the, emotion.

They saw its past he thought. And she thought: Jesus, I have lived all these years? This is the man with whom I have over two decades spent at intervals, yet? This was my life? They saw something unmistakably of her was and what they nevertheless could not at home.

This again called for a ship's steward the desire to and giggle. To laugh hard and long to liberate themselves from a voltage on which he is no Council knew. Inconvenience in first protrudes easy snigger, later in silence, later again in sex, and then comes the silence returned. The smile which would overcome everything, including the past, remained Off. Not even a smile appeared on his face.

He remembered, now the mother of his daughters after years of resistance against him, was the birth of Tirza. Waiting in the hospital. There was no private room free. A piece or ten women had decided that night all at the same time to give birth. Early in the morning was he went home. He could not. He was fled for the blood and home he had brought the crib in readiness, waiting for a call from the hospital.

'You of Far?' he asked.

'of the station.'

The neighborhood was heaping criticism of her departure. Months long. They could not get enough. It was progressive, had a hate imperialism, but the ability to speak shame not deprive dropped. From pride he had as far as possible for its included as the gossip him at the butcher, the greengrocer or simply on the street. 'It was also not,' he used to say. 'For the children this is much better.' ship's steward had done as if it were all completely to the wish was to expire. With mild irony he had the disappearance of his wife reasoned. And if people asked him whether or not it was difficult for the girls, he said smiling: 'A large part of her dressing room is still in my cabinet, so they will be in the next few days will be emerging in the lives of her children.'

But that emerge was therefore not came, despite the dressing room. To that evening, six days ago.

They looked still reasonably good, he found. Less heavy done. Tanner, though, as if they were regularly under the couch was.

'Get inconvenient?' she asked the question without audible spot.

He looked back to her case. Also the suitcase looked fairly. After all those years.

'I am to cooking, but really inconvenient you can not call it. I mean, what is wrong?'

She took a step in his direction, as if they wanted him hug. It was a manual pressure, a firm.

'I wondered how you went,' she said. 'And' In Tirza the mention of that name appeared a small and sad smile on her face. And when he was the name of his youngest daughter heard he shrank also collapse, as though it were a whip hard with him on the spine had beaten up.

Tirza, how would Tirza?

That was the emotion that he had seen. They had gone, but they had obviously missed something. There was a piece in her life. On a day she no longer see her daughters grow up. The puberty for her youngest daughter knew they mainly from hear say and perhaps not even that.

And now they stand eye to eye with which had stood daughter, urged the consequence of her life through to her.

His hand was released.

Ship's steward wiped hand as inconspicuous to his pants. The sweat of the other stuffy him. It was him too intimate. How onkwetsbaarder the other seemed, the easier it was to be a predator. If he had learned something in his existence as a landlord, was it that the tenant does not man could be because of people you were weak. You admitted, you said: 'I leave this repair, but I leave that to repair, a new bed, no problem. A new cabinet, why not?' ship's steward leased his upper floor furnished. The furniture enabled him the tenant if desired without too much legal red tape to remove. For this reason alone if the tenant does not man, because then came the sentiment in your back to top if the hiccups, and you could find the tenant does not remove more rücksichtslos. The weakness, he abhor the weakness. He hated the weakness.

The sweat of the wife was vulnerable sweat. That is why it had to be wiped off. He looked back as if he was expecting that Tirza would, but Tirza was not there. She was on top of her room to call. Or she was in the kitchen, she loved be quiet and listened to the call. If a consummately spionne. He remembered again the days, the hours of her birth had preceded it. Crazy that those natal him was so much better than that of its memorable oldest daughter. He even remembered the face of the gynecologist. A man he later a good bottle of wine had brought a bottle of certainly thirty guilders, with Tirza on the arm. 'It is they,' he had said. And he had the man a shaggy haired baby shown with brown unstitched, as there are so many shaggy haired baby. Tirza was badly creased pitch came in the world and it took a long time for the wrinkles disappeared. The gynecologist had adopted the wine and the father congratulations. Thereafter he had still said: 'Heavy childbirth is often something beautiful on, something very special.' The gynecologist had looked closer as a professional secrecy told us about.

'It goes well,' said ship's steward. About his arm bungelde the tea towel, in his left hand he kept the advertising brochure that he has a couple of times double-folded and when eight-free in his pocket.

'It goes well,' he repeated. 'Tirza is successful. Two nines. Consider necessary. A single seven. Nothing less than a seven. Next week gives them a feast.'

He told the proud, but when he was finished speaking he remarked how absurd it was this to Tirza's mother to tell us. This was so why near the shame of her had spoken, and probably of him. You may not be strange for your children. They are for you, you not for them.

Now he is not a promotional leaflet more in his hand, he had to withdraw his lower lip, what he did more often if he did not understand something, if he is not somewhere came out.

'What is good,' she said. 'Die nines. But I had not expected otherwise. For what?'

'For Which what?'

'For which she has received that nines?'

'For Latin. And for history. Did you know that or not? Have you heard nothing? Nothing at all?'

Its ignorance astonished that annoyed him, it is even a little. Someone had decided to come back, how temporary, had discreet can inform themselves about the latest state of affairs concerning her daughters and man. It was a whim, this return, as many in her life.

'Of whom I had the be heard? Of Ibi? I have already spoken times are no longer. They never call.'

He saw that they can go to the manual looked to his lower lip sat. He knew that they were annoyed at this old nerve pull and he was there.

They never call. The wife was of the opinion that her children had to call her. And not vice versa. It was her.

'If I not noisy,' she said, 'we will go inside?'

They were indeed ever more easier in the hallway.

'Come on,' he said. 'I have just in the oven stopped. I mean… The is no longer in the oven, but it was there in.'

They looked at him. She had the hinge cover of the suitcase already in her hand to him to roll in the room but when she let it go and said: 'I understand what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. You are as, well, as always. You are unchanged.'

We had the Christians and other believers does not take into account. That the weather with the killing in paradise sometimes in a most uncomfortable adventure might result. Politeness calls in the sky. A manual pressure which should have been a hug.

He helped her silently from her coat, a light blue raincoat that he did not know. It was not a cheap jacket, that he immediately recognized. They did not cheap stuff. He hung the jacket carefully.

Slowly calmed it. Ship's steward had everything under control again. This was how life went. People have disappeared. And sometimes these people returned, one evening in the early summer. Just at the moment that the oven dish in the oven had done, but that they could not know. If you looked back, disappeared the careful planning, inspirations were visible, coincidences emerged, wherever you looked reigned the combination of circumstances.

Just now that he is calm and tranquillity itself, it seemed they to hesitate.

'Or is there someone?' she asked. 'Have you someone?'

Ship's steward heard his youngest daughter come to walk from the kitchen. As he had thought they had meegeluisterd. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence, but an intelligent child also means that the parents always on their guard against. With an intelligent child you never know who in the ootje. Tirza threw her father a devastating look and walked up the stairs. Along her mother, along the blue raincoat of her mother who so gaudy to the coathanger depended.

'I have someone?' asked ship's steward when his daughter the door of her room had closed noisy. He had to laugh. 'I have someone? Not really. No. I live here with Tirza. It is of course to be somebody but not like you mean it.' ship's steward smiled still. There he could not stop, he felt embarrassed. 'Come on,' he said when he was finally to scorn. He went to her for to the living room. He remained at the bank, but they did not sit. They turned around to as if they were all agree wanted to look good. As if there was someone else, a strange, in this room where they had lived for so long, where they had been evenings, with him, only and with guests, where they had given celebrations, where they cribs and boxes had put down, where her daughters had crawled over the ground, where they occasionally had painted still lifes.

'There is not very much has changed,' she said. 'You don't. As has been said. Basically unchanged. You have everything behind paints?'

'De bookcase is new. As you can see. The chair there too. Tirza has chosen. There is something changed.' her question he ignored deliberately. Who is not a question purports to have heard, may also not fresh sermons. If house boss he heard the most questions are not. This forgetfulness was an excuse that he could years ahead.

They did not look at the seat that had investigated, nor Tirza to the bookcase. They started just stand in front of him, they studied the ship's steward. Like a painting in a museum that you only know from postcards and catalogs and now you right opposite the original condition, trying to understand why the sudden a tad disappointing. Not much, a tad.

'You have the bunch of not let paints,' she said after a few seconds. 'I see it, everything yellows slowly. You will maintain the not good, inside. A house you should also be maintained inside. But for yourself you have good.'

They sounded satisfied. But at the same time also surprised. What she had expected? A alcoholics? A patient? Trembling hands, a poorly seated dentures? A WRECK with bright moments? In that bright moments had nothing better to do than to leave everything to paint, the parquet to paint and sewage pipes to refresh?

That he is without its had manifestly exceeded rescued its expectations, but its also disappointing. As the lack of paint on walls its disappointed.

There was more than a fortuitous agreement between the lessee and the wife. Both found them always a plafonnetje that necessary in the paint had to be always something to they encountered in the House what was time for a replacement. They had no idea of money. They could not imagine what workmen today for an hour jobs asked. It was always there was a complaint, in the case of the wife a complaint that disguised as love.

She did a step backwards. 'Are you happy to see me?' she asked.

The question came over him. The question about most did it.

'Happy,' said ship's steward. He looked at his watch. 'Yes, I am happy, but I am also to cooking. If I had known that you were coming i had more. You had to call you. The number has remained the same. But…' He had to take a break, not because of the emotion, but because he had to think of what he actually wanted to say. 'It is good to see you. You're curious, but in any case i.'

The astonished ship's steward that the words he expected to give decisions at the back with this woman is not about his lips came, they were not even challenged in him. Now that he could not rule they finally, he was they forget. He wanted to charming. Strong. The cane was not only unbroken, it was not even bent.

'curious as to what?'

'To you,' he said. 'How the with you. What you do. How you live in. How did you perished.'

'How I live? Why have you never called? In those three years. I told you hear. In scents and colors. I had not kept secret. If you had taken the trouble to call.'

That was typical. They disappeared and she expected that her chasing ran to gather information about its ups and downs and to ask them if they still needed anything.

'Dat seemed to me not good,' said ship's steward. In order to call 'yours. I wanted me not to be imposed upon us. If you have a lot of hungry, can I still a egg packs. I also had your new number not.'

'I am not here for the food,' she said and she took place on the bank to which they had been for many years. Ship's steward again let him. Tirza had the learning sorted out. Together with Tirza he sought much.

'something else than an egg perhaps?'

'Jörgen, I have not hungry.' she said it is not, it proposed the with emphasis.

'You do not need to have hunger to eat. I am working on my oven dish. That is famous. Tirza's girlfriends love it. We do not eat because we are hungry, we eat since the meal time.' He said it as a teacher who a book tries to prices which he knows that the pupils there is nonetheless a hate will have.

That view was to prevent its familiar, the tone of the corrector, the tone of someone who has furnished the other sins errors. 'I not,' she said. 'I do not eat more because it is time to eat. I obey not more to absurd sentences. I eat because I wanted to. I am not here for your oven dish.'

When she stuck a cigarette. Her purse was new. A tad too hip and too young for its age. With all decorations. Ship's steward thought on the basis bags from the friends of Tirza. Early in the morning, after celebrations, they stood in the kitchen with their bags, with beads out pieces of glass, everything could serve as decorations today. Ship's steward sorry if he came in the kitchen in his pajamas and Tirza found with her friends in boisterous condition, smelly to smoke and sometimes also to stagnate and food. Soon he donated than a glass of milk in or picked up a apple of the fruit bowl and fled back to his bedroom, or in fine weather in the summer to the barn, where he next to the rake and the machine sit back and wait for the saw went until the girls to bed or had gone home. Tirza was popular. A single time he had strange boys found in the bathroom, boys who he did not know and which also not on him were proposed, but who had stayed overnight. Boys to whom a ship's steward had to ask: 'Would you like a towel?' Because Tirza slept. Once they have slept, they slept through anything. The boys were always wake earlier than his daughter. They do not really refreshed smoking, which he figures who from time to time in the bathroom found. What the boys of Tirza had in common was their smell. But now she had a fixed friend and or that smelled had a ship's steward have not been able to establish. He feared the worst.

'you smoke,' he said, with his look still in her hand bag.

He sounded concerned. What Rather irritated him. What he said was too personally. If her cigarettes it slightly bemused. Its lungs were her case. Her body. Her body was no longer his responsibility.

'Stoort the?'

'Not really,' he said. 'My not. I question whether it Tirza an ashtray. I have the ashtrays stowed.'

He turned to the hallway and called: 'Tirza, you can an ashtray for mama?'

Ship's steward remained Tirza wait, but did not respond. She was probably in her room to call. Real passion you never let loose. They also discussed everything with her friends, down to the last detail. She had ever told him during the food. 'About me?' he had asked. 'You Talk also about me?' 'natural', she had responded. "You're yet my father. Why should I not talk about you?'

The wife smoked coarse further.

'Tirza,' shouted ship's steward now slightly harder, 'an ashtray for your mother. Please.'

He looked at the cone of ash that slowly became bigger, which soon would fall within the scope of his eyes and he could not keep from, he seemed hypnotise, he said: 'It is always very helpful. Otherwise than in the past. Even when they learn was for her graduation she was out to help me.'

Ship's steward talked as in a dream, he dared to speak out, like he had more to himself than against her as if there were no one else in the room was, he alone. As if he were for rehearsals for what he was going to say if the others finally arrived.

When Tirza didn't appear he went itself but to the kitchen and was looking for an ashtray. Where were they? Nobody smoked more in this House. Visit for a ship's steward was rare. Also the worker did not. They drank a glass sometimes, but smoking, no. And if the girlfriends and boys of Tirza smoked, what they rarely did, than they went out to the garden. Or they did the hanging out the window. Tirza did not smoke, but of boys.

He found no ashtray. Ship's steward had the ashtrays properly stowed in the expectation they never needed will have to. That is why he grabbed a dish. It was not correctly, but for now it went. Correct, that was for a ship's steward where all morals amounted to. If he could rely on his defense, than it was that he had been correctly.

When he came back in the room he saw the shaft into the left hand side of the spouse. He 1722–1776 and the dish its asked them whether they needed a wet wipe. 'I have refractory hands,' she said and they laughed. Just as in the past. People change hardly. They find a new environment for their obsessions. There are wrinkles, there are teeth, there break bones, components are replaced by machines, but they did not change.

When she was laughed at she said: 'If you like it, if you want to, and I know that you would like to eat a snack, i but don't bother. Enter the leftovers just me. Sloof you are not out.'

Ship's steward, freeing a vase with roses on the table which was the flowers had Tirza a few days ago. He made place for the wife who meeat a snack. He asked whether the suddenly surfaced again wife had courage inge drunk in a nearby cafe for they adhere to its old house had gone, with its suitcase.

'Cooking is no struggle,' he said soft. 'It should get closer to the action. I have a family. I cooking. That is my task.'

There was already covered for two. He covered the table long for the food was ready. Sometimes he started immediately after he came home from his work. Because he could not wait until Tirza and he would be to that table, because that moment the balance recovered that always would be lost. Tirza and he, to table, eating. The appearance of a family and more than that, an alliance. A holy covenant.

He took a board from a cabinet. He remembered his duties. The oven dish, the oven, there had to be cooked. He was uncomfortable with the board in his hand, as though he did not know whether the visit could only. Or the had to be invited to come to the kitchen. To talk about this and that from a distant past. How you say something? 'you also note to the kitchen?' when he put the board on the table. There was covered for a third person. The wife. Tirza's mother.

With a bite note-food was started. With a lamb chop the family had a ship's steward began. Jörgen had cooked for the woman who later the wife would prove to be. The man was better than the birth cutlet. He thought to the case that in the corridor. The first time that she was with him to eat she had a homemade cake in itself.

'They changed,' said the wife, with its view of a painting that hung on the wall. She had itself hung, she had also painted itself, and ship's steward had never bothered to remove it, although Tirza had a few times asked: 'Must we the rest of our life that fruit bowl look? It is absolutely essential if?'

'Who? Tirza?'

The tea towel was still on his arm.

'Yes, Tirza. She is beautiful.'

'They shall become a woman,' said ship's steward. But when he said, he had immediately regret it. A woman? What was a woman? Well, they had received and something of breasts hips. But when you actually was a woman? What made him a man? The genus part that between his legs bungelde?

He did not know what he had to say about Tirza, what he wanted to say about her. That is why he said: 'she was always nice. As a baby she was badly creased pitch, but that are all babies. Ibi was less badly creased pitch, which again had other defects. If you want to drink something?'

They shook her head. 'I unzip the itself. I am also completely satisfied.'

He stared at her. The satisfied woman who in the past that was never, despite all still lifes that she had painted. But now she was therefore satisfied. Somewhere in the story hid himself the good end, he was there not only.

It was a ship's steward to the kitchen, they would probably only be entertained in the living room. He dish pushed back into the oven. He then moved a bottle of white wine open and he put the egg alarm clock on a half hour. Ship's steward could not cooking without egg alarm clock. Then he explained the cookbook back on a stack of other cookery books.

In the vicinity of the oven he continued. His hands slid perilously on top of the counter as if he was a blind, braille to read. If the food on the table once stood, would it something to within shooting against the visit to say. 'you have traveled a lot?' or 'lives you mother still?' when they walked away with him, her mother was seriously ill.

He thought about its work, Tirza and the trip they went. Botswana was a malaria area, he had read.

The egg alarm went and he brought the oven dish with unmistakable love to the living room. The wife was on the bank to lie down. She had her shoes pulled out. Its eyes were closed. It smelled of cigarette smoke.

'I will also support framework for addressing you,' he said and he set out the food on the table.

They did not. They were all the vast and happy with them, as if they had never been away. As if they were just what currants balls was to get them and on the road was delayed. A file, was not been more, its three-year absence, a file of human flesh.

In the hallway he cried: 'Tirza, food!' He persuaded the cutlery and a glass for the guest and the bottle of wine from the kitchen.

'Where I will sit down?' asked the wife when he had the wine pouring. All glass is exactly the same vol. Each little thing there was a. He lived in his role. The waiter, the house Knecht.

She was a slow of the bank. They walked barefoot to the table.

'Here at the head,' said ship's steward. 'Dear is always the visit. You have beautiful shoes. Italian?'

'French'.

They sat down. Ship's steward scooped up. Again he cried, now harder: 'Tirza, food!'

On the signs was food. But nobody ate. There was on the child waited.

'a gift,' said the wife, while its fork already in hand loved. To the ring finger of her left hand was a jewel that he did not know.

'What?'

'De shoes. A gift.'

'What kind. Here you have also a piece or ten pair of shoes. Did you Know that? I wanted to send them, but i did not know where to.'

He took a piece of bread from the bread basket that already a few hours on the table.

'I thought you they would have given away.'

The bread was dry.

'surrendered to whom? Your shoes you mean?'

'My shoes, yes, I thought that you would be discarded. All my stuff that you would do so. I thought. Still not as crazy thought? I have bought everything new.'

'Why your size? I know nobody with your size. You have a difficult measure. Tirza, food! Everything is exactly as you have it stored in the cabinet. You had to be able to come back to it.'

They looked at him, inquiring, as if they wanted to know whether he is a joke.

'My feet are a jewelry, I am told,' said the wife after a short pause. They laughed friendly. She did her best, as far as was clear. But he also. That was there become of them: two people who did their best. Who knows they were always been that.

'Have you viewed them? I have my jewelry well maintained.'

She went a bit on his seat and stretched her feet along the table. The nails were pink dyed. The tip of the toes Hofmeesters reached upper leg.

He anxiety.

With the dry piece of bread in his hand and threw a glance at the bare feet and the naked lower legs of the spouse. The toes that his pants touch anything. When he crossed the dry piece of bread in his mouth and began to chew.

'You have nothing to say, after all these years?'

"Something To Say?'

"Something an intriguing sight. Do you like me to see again?'

'On your feet do you mean? Something an intriguing sight?' The bread was very dry, but he had no meaning to stand and the side to be toasted.

'You know how important certain things for me. You would have something to say hartelijks, after all that time. You will still feel.' She moved her toes a few times and ship's steward threw another view on her feet.

Cordiality, that was so there you expected when you wife again after three years on the pavement.

'Your feet are unchanged,' he said.

'Is that all?'

'I think so.'

'They are a jewelry, Jörgen. My feet. Many have looked at them. It is often said to me.'

When she made her legs back under the table.

Ship's steward stared at the flowers. It was an expensive forest. Perhaps thirty euro. Of those who had received Tirza who? She did not have a name. They rarely mentioned names of boys. At the table they spoke about everyday things. The news, the food, the weather, her friends, the school exams, a single time came to her trip around the world. But political calls avoided them. About Africa were different they believe.

'I think…' started a ship's steward. Because he did not know what he thought, he took a break and at that time he heard the stairs and get rid Tirza he decided that it was no longer necessary to make its meaning. That was the Tirza an intriguing sight and hartelijks something to say, if there if necessary hartelijks something had to be said, what was doubtful, but if it should, if necessary, than it was on her to do it.

'Gadverdamme, what stinks the Tirza here,' shouted. She wore a white bloesje, she was dressed. Otherwise they are not verkleedde for the food. Unless there was visiting. And if there was visiting over the past years, than was the Tirza's visit. Only the worker came from Ghana for ship's steward, but they could visit in the strict sense of the word are not mentioned.

The daughter Went and sat. Ship's steward took his glass and said: 'Let we drink, Tirza, on the unexpected visit of your mother. Let us make drinks that all of us here, almost all together again, sit as a… well, if a family. And that we are healthy.'

The daughter had its glass already raised, but put it down and said: 'Daarop drinking i not. And here it stinks, Papa you can smell that not? She has just sit Paffen. There must be no smoking.' Tirza Also could, if they wanted to speak, as a teacher. Its Dean had once said: 'They is a born leader, they shall take the initiative. They will always comes first and then drag the others.'

There was a silence. Ship's steward arm of the nerves still a piece of dry bread in his mouth.

'We drink…' started a ship's steward.

'No,' said Tirza. 'I do here not participate. To this rubbish.'

They prakte with its fork hard safe in the oven dish of her father.

'Well,' said ship's steward, 'on the life than. On your list of marks, ok, Tirza? On your final exam. On your future. On you.' before someone could make further objections, nam ship's steward quick the first sip. The wine was not cold enough but it went just. On such a night as this was much.

Hofmeesters casseroles were better in the past have been successful but as long as there was eaten everything went well. It was under control, the evening, the company, the family.

After a few snack persuaded the wife the sunglass of her head and she asked: 'And Tirza, how are you? I told you that I you father personable found.'

Tirza peuterde a trickle comes out of its cheese knife. There was also cheese through, it was a recipe from a French cookbook. Tirza said: 'as if you so half-heartedly that what care.'

'Yes, that can me cares,' said the wife. 'Dat cannot even very much care. I have often thought to you. You are really personable.'

'?'

'Even more exciting. Than you already was. You were always personable, but you are now really, how will I have to say in full bloom.'

And Tirza replied: 'O, funny.' She at with long teeth. If a child at them. Ostentatious reluctantly. She played with the food.

'Funny?' asked the wife. 'What is funny?'

'Funny that you remember that I had also previously was personable. Funny that you can care less what the with me. I have noticed that the last few years. Say: Nothing.'

After this little incident at men silently. But the nervousness had taken possession of a ship's steward, even more than just now, when he had stood in the vestibule and to the case of his wife had a look. That is why he is still only a couple stuffed his willie pieces of dry bread in his mouth. He worked for the complete contents of the bread basket. It had to be. Discarded was sin.

When her board was practically empty, asked the wife: 'What is this for wine?'

'South African,' said ship's steward. 'Tirza and I have discovered the South African wine.'

'Discovered?' She snickered. 'What do you mean, discovered? What have you discovered exactly?'

'On Saturday afternoon organizes the liquor store just around the corner tastings. This will continue and i ve been Tirza. Not, Tirza?'

The mother of Tirza studied the label and said: 'Oh, you are just two turtledubs. On Saturday afternoon together to the wine tasting. What romantic. Who would have thought? You again as well with each other might find?'

'Papa,' said Tirza.

But the father did or he had heard nothing. He said: 'Tirza is particularly interested in South Africa, in the whole region there. Tirza is really interested in the whole of Africa. I say it so well? In the whole of Africa? Tirza would prefer by public transport from the southernmost tip of South Africa to Morocco, but that I have prohibited. Of course there is also little public transport. Public transport in Cameroon, what we must also contain proposals? The death. I have read that they are not even hearses, that they are simply the dead in the bus need to be taken to the cemetery. Under the arm.'

He laughed. The idea that you dead family members under your arm in the bus to the cemetery had to take, death a lot less threatening. If you but it did as if there are not as many on the basis there was also not so much on the basis. He got a shovel against his leg. That was for him the character to the crumbs from the bread basket to collect and to stop his mouth. Food was mercy.

'Dus you want with the public transport by Africa?' The mother of Tirza did her best, but it did not. She had the best of intentions, always had, but she was fully occupied by itself.

Tirza did not reply. They miniseries again against the leg of her father. Perhaps that was also a reply.

'I have said to her,' said ship's steward, 'dat public transport in Africa…' is a shovel.

'Tirza,' said ship's steward when his mouth was empty, 'Here I can do anything about it. Here I can happen to really do anything about it. For the change.'

Tirza shook her head only. They continued to shake of the head, if a toddler who actually should be sleeping and that of the fatigue has become dreinerig.

'It is not a question of whether you will be able to do something about this, papa,' she said, 'What is important is that I am not against can. I am not against. Do you want to stop? Please keep in mind.'

They emphasized the need for every syllable.

Ship's steward looked to her. The half of its portion oven dish was left untouched on its board. With the other half was played only. He understood very little of the people. Sometimes even got his own children it incomprehensible for. Trusted, but strangely. Just like the guys that ship's steward from time to time in the morning in the bathroom had found, also seem strange yet familiar. As if they were the whole night in that bathroom on him were waiting. On him and a towel. The friends of his daughter, for whom he was not more than a glorified supernumerary, while he would still like to be, he wanted to lie to itself no longer, something else that we have that.

'Where should I stop?'

'Met to do so. With this call. With this ridiculous call. You must stop, otherwise against me to do than otherwise. You must stop this drama, dad. Just because that man sit here.'

When they 'human' said, was its voting harder, they shouted almost.

'Doe i than would otherwise?' asked ship's steward. He tried both his wife and his daughter at the same time to keep in the holes. Just as if they were going to tackle them if he would lose the eye. 'I am talking different? I eat different? Or am I suddenly stopped slurpen?' He smiled for its joke, but he was the only.

'You guzzles not, but you are talking about more than different, papa, yes. Otherwise I am especially talking and you bend or you ask: "What does her father?" And then we wash. And you say also almost nothing. You are listening to what I say. And that is not very. Sometimes I ask: "What have you experienced today?" And you say: "Not much." I think the fine. That is who you are. You can not do otherwise. And that is still more than what they can. Only this call, this is absolutely ridiculous call, I can not against.'

Ship's steward felt the scale of the oven dish. That was still hot.

'SOMS I am talking with you, Tirza. So now you know. You know that very well. And I read you often from the newspaper. The funny pieces. Also you know that.'

'It does not matter, dad. On your way I love you. On your way you are very sweet. And that your funny pieces from the newspaper articulates while we eat, I find nice too. I think they are not always funny but okay. You can find them funny. And that is the most important. But may I ask you what, now we are talking now that we not funny pieces from the newspaper to read, may I ask you something?'

'Yes, of course,' said ship's steward. 'Everything, Tirza. Everything you want.'

'Why have you that people will not kicked out the door?'

Just as he had the tendency to withdraw his lower lip, but he oppressed that need. Ship's steward donated still what wine on, first, when the wife Tirza and then itself. He tried the wife a glimpse of understanding, but she smiled bland snacks without him really to note. Then he said: 'You are kicking women not out the door, Tirza, and certainly no women with whom you have two children conceived. That man is your mother. I have therefore introduced in place of her to kick out the door. That seems to me to be a good reason. She is your mother. It was. It will always be.'

Tirza's mother pulled a face that here a other parent was discussed. Another mother with another child.

'Met trouble,' she said, while they played with her sunglasses 'met trouble, Jörgen, you have two children. O, talk you could well, talk, talk, talk. It seemed sometimes just an erotic hear in our game bed. But in order to make children you must do something, Jörgen. Not do something, better to do so. You must use your instrument in the correct hole stop.'

Hofmeesters thoughts were also hooks to that erotic hear game. He had itself regarded as a silent, discreet man, but on others he was apparently not so.

'she has been left in the lurch,' said Tirza and they stressed the fork to the woman who not so long ago its feet on a ship's steward had shown. There was still some oven dish to the fork and which was now on the table cloth. 'They had perhaps reason for you to leave in the insert, papa, since she had probably all sorts of good reasons for this, but they had no reason, absolutely no reason to me to abandon its voting did over'. Ship's steward felt panic rising. A terrible panic.

'Not with your fork, Tirza,' said the father. 'Not to do so. There may be accidents happen.'

And he region on his hair, as though that would help, as if the call in a different direction would push, innocent. The summers which previously were better. School. Africa if necessary. Public transport anywhere in the world.

Tirza's voice sounded increasingly fierce. Ship's steward knew what it meant. There would be wept. Tears, there he could not against. His own weakness made him nauseous. Which of his children made him furious.

Soon he looked to the wife who quiet of its wine drank and there was still like it its not really. He had to save the lot, and now, nobody else would do. No one else could do so.

'You must not say that,' said ship's steward. 'They did not left in the lurch. She has done to personal development.'

The wife was sleeping. They explained its support framework. 'You can safely say that I would not be your uithield, Jörgen Tirza knows as well as I do that know the whole neighborhood. That you do not have to mention self-development. These loony euphemisms of you always. It was not a self-development. I loved it here. Nobody had the holding out here. No one who is normal.'

'Well,' said ship's steward, 'self-development. We will provisionally on account. Is that not a reasonable compromise? Sometimes it is self-development is the same as the somewhere not warmest days. There is not much of a difference between the A and the other.'

'Papa,' shouted Tirza, 'do not so stupid. Do not be so today.'

'I want to eat at rest,' shouted ship's steward, 'Tirza, that is the only thing that I would like to. In rest food. I have this oven dish in the rest position. I would like him to eat in the rest position. And that is going to be successful. As I am that for three years is successful.'

The daughter did with her left hand on table. A fork fell on the ground. 'I do not wish to have that man to sit around the table,' she shouted. 'I want that man never see more. Never more.'

Tirza stood up. 'I hate,' she was screaming. 'It would have been better if you had come here. It would have been better if you had never here. I would like that you were dead.'

It ran from the top.

Ship's steward wiped his mouth a few times, freeing the bottle of wine a few centimeters and asked: 'Would you like a desert?'

The wife stared in its glass and removed a piece of cork that ended up therein. 'As she was always,' she said quietly.

'There is still some of yesterday,' he said. 'I have made tiramisu. I always do on Wednesday. I can offer you. Or fruit?'

'They may not forgive.'

'I can also fruit salad.'

'They may not forgive itself. Can you forgive yourself, Jörgen, can you yourself actually forgive?' It and put the sunglasses back on, if a her band.

'Fruit Salad? I will make that for you? It is so happened.'

The wife was sleeping.

'Well,' she said, 'let's talk about something else. If you want that necessarily. How are the glass washer?'

'What glass washer?'

'Die man who once a month the windows did, that old man. How is it?'

'O THAT,' said ship's steward, 'Yes, it is dead.'

He continued to be seated and picked to its lower lip.

'You have to learn how to cook,' said the wife. 'There must said.'

'Dank you,' said ship's steward.

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.'

2

'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.

It would also get used are, a guest. Although it was a guest the wife. He emptying are glass, picked up the cork on and went to the top. He walked along the red suitcase on wheels, which still jaunty in the corridor. What would it be? He wondered. Along the blue raincoat, and then along the room of Tirza, he saw that they had taken off. Only when he was in his bedroom has arrived, he realized that the wife him at an appropriate distance was followed.

She went to sit on the bed. On their side. The side where they had previously located. And where now books and newspapers layers. They picked up the books and newspapers and explained to them on the ground. Also the substance that under the books and newspapers on the sheet was, wiping them on the ground. Thus was the double bed is a real double bed.

She took her head in her hands and left it when again. Not only were her hair longer, they had also been given a different color. The color that they had ever had. Long ago. They explained to her sunglasses on the bedside table.

Ship's steward did his necktie af and hung over a chair.

'The mattress,' she said. 'That is still the same?' She dented the with her hands in, they tested the and he looked at the necktie, one of the gifts that he had obtained his employer had been faithful for two decades. A really nice necktie. Tasteful. The secretary had picked him personally in the Bijenkorf. It was also so much easier employers faithful to individuals.

'The mattress is as far as I know is still the same.'

'It is no longer good,' she said. 'And it was no longer good. You can not centuries on the same mattress.'

He took the scene in located on, they are sitting on the bed, commenting on the mattress. As if they were at home here, like it had never had disappeared. It was almost to laugh.

'You will sleep híér?' he asked and looked at his books and newspapers which months, no years, as a woman with him in the bed had located. In his life was the meat has become word.

'You have invited me.'

'But here?' He pointed to the bed, the mirror, the night tables.

'Where else? In Ibi's old room?'

'This is not a little strange?'

'Strange? Why would the odd? Sleep here than someone?' she asked. 'I lie on a place where someone else? I take a piece of the bed in that not for me is that?'

'Not really,' said ship's steward after a hesitation of a few seconds. 'nobody will be sleeping. I mean, I sleep here. And my newspapers.'

'Well than.'

He did his shirt and they were sitting on the bed her bare feet.

'But it remains strange," he said, more against themselves than against her. 'Everything to you is strange.'

They turned to him, so that they could see him, standing at the window, with the shirt in his hands. She said: 'You're as white, even whiter than in the past. It seems as though you still whiter. You may never in the sun? Women do not hold of white meat.'

He hung the shirt carefully on the seat, he went to sit down and did his shoes and socks. The socks were in the shoes stopped. Also the socks he had received from his employer, a publisher, employed after two decades. Two decades, now there were already more than three. They loved him to give useful gifts. Something you could attract. And what you could pull out again. He said: ('est you moved, i had no complaints. Not on my white meat. Not about lack of sun. For anything. The symptoms have disappeared. Only the tenant logs still from time to time.'

When he is not expected more, when he was a second forgotten that it was there, they whispered: 'As white that it is almost scary. You meat.'

Her voice, which was also not changed. Something in that voice had long been him against. From the moment the special, the exceptional in its ceased to be exceptional and only was a source of irritation.

Her dress had bright colors. A summer dress. They are mainly used to have black worn. Jeans, many jeans, that too. Until he had one night to say: 'You are not a teenager more. It is time that we discussed for another uniform.'

'As If you are sick,' she said. 'As If you die. Are you dead? Is that it? Jörgen, you will go to death?'

He walked to the bathroom, he did the light on and they followed him. On her bare feet. Her shoes were still at the bottom, in addition to the bank. Via the mirror over the sink looked at him. She was to be changed. Wrinkles where no first wrinkles, had been its face was thicker, or thinner. Now, in the bright light of the bathroom he saw it. In that minimal changes were blocked three years. Little is so terrifying, and calls therefore also so much hatred on, if the older women. It summarizes the expiration together, it has made to wreak havoc on all feast.

Ship's steward kuchte, moved a pot hand cream.

'My toilettas is downstairs in my suitcase,' she said. 'I have no meaning to tackle it. I have no force more. I am so tired. Have you got a toothbrush for me?'

On the sink layers two toothbrushes. She looked forward.

'De green is of Tirza,' said ship's steward.

They picked up the blue toothbrush, Put toothpaste on and began her teeth, which they themselves looked at in the mirror.

With dismay saw a ship's steward how his toothbrush in her mouth was gone. How to brush in her mouth was moved back and forth. Slightly irritated him that, did something him disgusted, the idea that are now toothbrush in her mouth sat was unbearable. He wanted to declare: 'keep it on, dirty pig, keep this immediately on', and the toothbrush from her mouth snatches, but he said: 'I can drop down a new address for you. That is perhaps fresher.'

'Doe no trouble,' she replied with a mouth full of foam. 'It is fine.'

'What are you saying?'

'Doe no trouble,' repeated them. 'I said. It is soft enough so.'

He waited until she was ready to clean its teeth. They took a long time. When did he carefully the toothbrush. It remained in addition to the washbasin, spend staring at ease, but. As if they had been yesterday and past week, a month ago. And he remained but coils. He Tempest the toothbrush as if that thing could contaminate it with something. A thought. A faith. A disease.

Its legs were thicker, saw a ship's steward now. Gently will not be as swollen aesthetic as before, less the unreachable. But he too was changed. He had two jaw operations. You could see it, he saw, she had to have seen, but they had kept silent about it, as they had been almost anything. And just as they had no questions asked. Why?

When he thought to Tirza. Still a few weeks she was here. A few weeks, more it was not. Then she went on a trip, on a sort of world tour, with her friend that he had not yet had met, but that he would meet, on her party, its big celebration. He had already asked: 'is perhaps one of those guys that i ever early in the morning in the bathroom have come?' she had him smiling at me and said: 'Oh well, PAP, that were onenightstands.'

He had smiled and they all tell us: 'Aha.' The world of the onenightstands and that of his daughter he had never directly linked with each other, and now that they are so casually did was he brought his piece. Not really shocked, or maybe a tad concerned. There was something for him ongemakkelijks to the combination of those words: daughter and onenightstand. Ongemakkelijks something. No more. 'I have the boys with a clean towel offered,' he said, but that he could not conceal the inconvenience and apparently Tirza saw that, because she said: 'Papa, don't worry. I really knows what I do, I am not fond.'

'No, no,' he had said, 'natural', and he had turned to continue with what he was doing, though it was he himself long forgotten what that was exactly.

While he began to brush their teeth, standing next to the wife, he had to that call with Tirza thinking, to the guys who were here, often in the semi-dark, fearing as they were to the lights. As if they knew that they were illegal in his bathroom, the bathroom of Jörgen ship's steward.

'You need have no fear,' she said. He turned around a quarter of a turn to so that he could view her better, he persuaded the toothbrush from his mouth. Where she had to take over? When he just turned back to the washbasin, arc is prone, spoog the foam pad and washed ashore his mouth. August came and than would have disappeared Tirza. He would only, but occasionally shocked by the lessee who had discovered a new breakdown. The next stage in his life, the Tirzaloze would start phase.

'You need have no fear,' she said again.

He took a towel and wiping his mouth. There was a painful spot on his lip, he had probably out bitten.

'What for?'

'For when I next to you Lig.'

He folded the towel. A white. That is not fully cleaned well had become the was in. There were still a blood smears.

'Why should I fear? For what?'

'To me.'

'For You?' He had to chuckle.

'Where is the soap?' she asked. 'I want my washing hands.'

'There is only liquid soap. Tirza uses only liquid soap, if they already have soap used. She says that soap is not good for the skin, that you will be much better with only some water can wash, only what lukewarm water.' He opened a cupboard and gave her the bottle.

She did her ring. He looked forward and early also wonder where her wedding ring. When washed her hands.

'If i just next to your sunbathing,' she said, while her hands under running water loved, 'You do not have to feel uncomfortable.'

He looked in the mirror to its breasts, his shoulders, upper arms. Indeed white meat. Raw. More so than in the past. A little dried out, also that. He had received a crèmepje for, against the flakes. Old meat. Old Men, he had on his work noticed, often thought that they still were attractive for young women, but the only thing was attractive for those women was their position and their dominant, their money. A tragedy took place between them, a misunderstanding that he has often had observed. A hormonal misunderstanding.

'I mean,' she said at you should think of anything, I mean, sorry that there are so uncomfortable comes out, but that it had nothing to do with us.'

Also a ship's steward waste now his hands.

'Dat what has nothing to do with us?'

'I here. My presence.'

'I have never expected it to mean something,' he said. 'You are here, you have a bed required. A man must sleep. Every child knows that. I have no meaning to Granted, I have taken everything as it came. I take everything as it comes.'

'Yes, I know all of this, a man must sleep, but I just referred to that you have no sexual attraction to me. That you do not need to be afraid of. That you do not need to do what you do not want to do. God, why let you explain to me so? Why can you help me not a little?'

Thoroughly washed ship's steward his hands. As if he were the whole day with his hands in the earth. As if he had worked in the garden. He had not forgotten tomorrow morning from the box under the sink in the kitchen, where he toothbrushes saved, a and get to the bathroom. To each his own toothbrush. The beginning of happiness was the correct allocation of the property.

'I do in principle no sense in which I am. But it is not always on meaning. Let me put it this way: you do things not because you fancy, you do them because they must do.' He krabde to his right arm. An insect had put it there. Perhaps when he last night a time with expose upper body had stood in the garden to his apple tree to look ahead to his tomatoes and pumpkins. Pumpkins were just weeds. If you did well, than dispersed the pumpkins is expanding rapidly. It was a beautiful night, the first beautiful night of the season. Not yet warm, but all nice. The promise of heat.

'I am not talking about work,' she said. 'I am not talking about the household or about dementia parents for whom you must make sure. I am talking about sex. It is not a question of need, that is a question of meaning. I said: "You have nothing to do what you do not fancy' in order to avoid that you would think that I am here in the hope that we will start doing something, that we again have something because I hope not, and I would like to make that not. I have no meaning in. I do not want more. I just wanted to see how you did. With you and with Tirza.'

'I understand you are not. I cannot understand this. You Raas Kalt. And it is late. Let us go to sleep.'

'I mean that we do not need to have sex, we will not do more to.' She talked as if they had to explain to a child that slowly from concept is, a children with learning difficulties.

'That is pleasant,' he said and he dried his hands. 'It would complicate things.'

'De boel?'

'Dit household. Everything is going well here. Everything is arranged. There is a worker. A new. She is coming from Ghana. There is a dad. Does not come from Ghana. There is a child. There is money there is food, there is love, it surprises you perhaps but there is love. And the last weeks that Tirza here is i no complications, no fuss, no voltages of up and up until they are intolerable. Tirza's figures are since your departure jumped. I am not saying that there is a relationship, but it is a coincidence. Do you not? Coincidence?'

He explained the blue toothbrush carefully in addition to the green, as he did every evening.

'I will not get in the way,' she said. 'To me will not be up.'

He leaned with both hands on the sink. Although it was not very hot in the bathroom, he felt the sweat under his arms.

'Why have you got?' he asked and his look of its averted. 'What do you want? What is there to discuss yet?'

'Dat i just said. I would like nothing. Look at how it goes with you. That is what I wanted. And I would like to discuss anything at all.'

They took his oorlelletje, the lelletje of his left ear, and nip in it. He stared at the washing machine. Which had initially been in the kitchen, but because they have stood in the way she had moved to the bathroom. It was one of the last things the wife had taken on its behalf, for her departure.

'Stoort the you I am there?' she asked. 'STOOR I? Will I continue?'

He rubbed his hands against each other in order to feel or the skin rough and dry and he asked whether you on his hands could see how old he was. He had read it. The fight against age had moved from the face to the hands.

'I don't,' he said. 'Or bother you. If you want to know to be honest, I do not know. Perhaps it would have been better if you had not been concluded, but there you are. That is good. And you want to continue to sleep. That too is a good thing.'

She had still been lelletje between her fingers. 'Ah Jörgen,' she said. 'My Jörgen.' She showed his oorlelletje. 'You Know? I never felt attracted to you. Never. Not even in the beginning. You know what it is, attraction? I mean, says that word for something? Except than theoretical.'

He rejected his face. He felt the stubble and he brought his face slightly closer to the mirror, not much, a few centimeters.

'Attraction, what for appeal? Where have you on?'

'The beast,' she said at is attraction. The beast. What you can not think, because the there is. As it is. Anything you can excuse. Anything you can smooth brushing. Something that is stronger than yourself. That is attraction. That is what people sometimes falls when they see another. It can also die, usually dies, you see the other still, but you do not take more true if a child with a sex. If a child with a usable slaughtered.'

He studied himself in the mirror and when also it, through the rear-view mirror.

"I feel no attraction for you,' he said soft, because he was suddenly afraid to wake Tirza. He continued to examine themselves while he whispered: 'If that is what you want to know if that is what you mean. I find your not exciting. Also never found. You may have the for other men. But not for me. I found your particularly representative. I was with you for the day without me to be ashamed, generally, exceptions, why I gave you selected. Because in my career at my house and a woman heard. And I thought you that would be. That You are the woman who was my career would complement each other.'

A little closer he brought his face at the mirror. Yes, his skin was less tight than in the past, less smooth. There lubberde something. A double chin developed. Previously, in that word was more than just their own history and thus blocked its, and those of Ibi, and those of Tirza not to forget. In a word that was the life clogged.

'But Jörgen,' she said, 'denk you that I never knew before? Do you think that I would never have seen? And have never felt? Do you think that I have never noticed how you looked, as you already looked? The revulsion which you looked. The panic.'

He did not reply. He focused on his mirror image. His gaze slid across the bathroom, on the marble, the bathtub, the towel basket that at the same time also a heating was so you in the morning in the winter warm towels. Everything is arranged, everything is clean. All of it as it was supposed to be.

'But you,' she said, 'You have not seen. Nothing. All those years. Blind were you. I wanted you just as you wanted me. But that you saw not. I found your old. But you felt it is not. You had to pressure. I do not know that, but you had to pressure.'

'Old?'

'too old.'

'too old? What do you mean? When is someone too old?'

'Old, Jörgen. Just old. Too old for me. My girlfriends asked: "What do you do with those ouwe berkien?" Listless i found you, not only in bed, also outside. So awful listless, on the pathetic, as if your inertia you made particularly so behave in the same way you. And if you're not listless was that few times you not was lethargic… than were you… oh well. And do you know why I left off? Because the men to whom I fell, the men who I say, exciting, exciting, to whom I was in love, sometimes weeks, months, all had something in common. They would not be good for my children, if they already wanted to raise children, but that was not even the biggest problem. The problem was that they had never been so for them would ensure, I thought, if you were to do that.'

He walked to the toilet, ruptured a toilet-paper, snoot his nose and threw the piece of paper in the toilet. He looked forward, how the in the water. When he travelled by. The noise of the pulling a weird way on the voltage, it seemed that he took a second as unbearable to break had experienced.

'That bothered us not?' he said, gazing in the pot. 'too old. Where did you take over? How many years there is actually between us? Do you therefore come to? Because you forgot something i had to say, at one time?' He snickered. The idea was absurd, be absurd, like some of the complaints of the lessee. Exactly as absurd as too old to continue to be dismissed.

'We care enough. And it is becoming more and more. The age difference is becoming ever greater. Mark you don't? It is not exactly how much we care about. It is something mentaals. It has nothing to do with years, with the date of birth in your passport. You are just old and you are already very long. You have ceased to be exciting. In so far as it ever was. Exciting, says that word you something?'

He took the roof is released from the enchantment that the toilet bowl had exercised on him. He turned to his wife. 'You're right,' he said. 'There was no lust between us. But lust is not the biggest, the most beautiful, the most important, the only. For example, i found the smell that spread repulsive. But I have never seen anything of said, because it is not a question of smell. If it still to smell, after two children, there is something wrong. Not? You would still about smells whine?'

'What smell?' she asked and she came a step closer. 'What did you smell?'

He put his finger from, hustle and bustle which is also on her breast bone. A eight gesture.

'You know. You know that very well. Your fragrance. The smell that you distribute. Always, twenty-four hours a day.' He ran from its road in the direction of the washing machine. Backing up against the washing machine he continued, casual and pensive, arms akimbo. A pose was it. As peaceful as he stood there he was not. He was tense. Each rejection, everything which he recognized chased it out rejection In the life he had recognized the rejection. Therefore also had the life he hunted.

'Where You're talking about? Fragrance! Do you think that you can afford? Because you have saved a few years without me? Do you think that you now suddenly someone? Better than I do? Stronger?'

The preheated towel basket was a gift. He had to install them at the same time the course 'Self sushi and sashimi' had been followed. A ideetje of the relationship therapist. Go together to do something. Go together to make something. Give one another occasionally a gift. Be made for each other.

'You may be younger than I,' he said, 'what actually is true. You may find me old and slow and have always found, on the pathetic, what a rather subjective observation is moreover…'

'An old draft horse.'

'Let me express an opinion. You may find that everything and proclaim the smell that spread was not to harden.'

He began his right hand massage as he sometimes did when he had spent a day with writing letters and e-mails.

'Can you describe this odor?' she asked. 'Can you more precise? Do you mean odour? Is that what you say, that I am the off season? We are talking about odour?'

They stood for him. He could not reverse, because behind him there was the washing machine. He could the individual pores on its skin distinguished, the black of her eyebrow pencil. Perhaps she equal, he had its gewalgd. But it was no reason for the disgust separation, disgust was the epitome of intimacy. The final point of intimacy. Where the inevitable came out. The familiarity of the revulsion, the invariability of the melancholy that they called. The desire once more of the other to be disgusted. And thus also a bit of yourself.

'not per se, odours. Odour, which is the sewer. The tenant complains about odour. Not every unpleasant smell deserves surtitles stench. Orphan nuanced.'

'I off season, is that what you say? Is that what you are trying to say?'

'No, no,' he said, 'You not listen, just as before. Unpleasant smell is not unpleasant odours, smell is unpleasant smell, and I am sure I am not the first who has pointed out that do not naive. Do not be so innocent.'

'Where did that smell come from? I ask you?'

He looked to her, right in her face, briefly but it was enough. In its main were remarkable things, in its main found shorts. The lightning hit from time to time. He was the forgotten, he had the displaced.

'Why do you want to know? I have not said that it does not matter? I would like to end this conversation.'

They took his arm, the arm that itched as something in his absence was inserted.

'I want to know,' she said. 'I have the right to know.' The word 'recht' sounded hard and effectively. As if they were indeed had 2 grants employees on something they claim came out now. Its share of the spoils.

'From your mouth,' he said. 'especially if you been drinking wine. But you drank each day wine, so that made very little. Than was that smell soon so predominant that from your toes seemed to and from your hair, from your whole body. It was unbearable. And repulsive. If i strange to you have looked, must have the located.'

Squeezing gently, almost tenderly, in his arm and asked: 'you can smell him now? That smell? You can smell it? He is again?'

He shook his head, confused and irritated. Hunted he felt, through its presence, by its questions, by its proximity. A few hours ago he was started to make the oven dish, really happy, but without be aware. Lucky you shoot until afterwards to within. Ach, when I was happy, stupid that I do not have better attention.

'I am colds,' he said, 'furthermore you have just cleaned your teeth. I smell my own toothpaste. That too is no fun.'

'Come on,' she said. 'smell.' She brought her mouth near his nose. They blew. He felt the warmth of its asem on his face. Once again they blew. Close she was now. He was able to see everything. But he looked not more.

Ship's steward picked up her with his left hand at her throat. He pinch in her throat. They blew again. He nip her throat close with averted face. He set out a force. 'way to go,' she whispered, 'way to go. I must call the police? As in the past, Jörgen? Should I call them back?'

When pushed it. They fell against the wall next to the bathtub. But they are not required had for a long time to recover. She pulled the shower curtain aside and spoog a few times in the bathtub.

'Now I know the,' said ship's steward slowly, while he hand her in her throat is crimped had opened and closed. As if he was to the physio and dutifully did the exercises that had been assigned to him.

'Now you know what?'

'Now I know why you have come. Because you could not outstanding. You couldn't bear that I was happy. You Liked the intolerable that i had built up a life with Tirza. That i without you just saved. You are lucky always unbearably found. If you have no reason to cry and to cry, you have the feeling that you're not alive. If you face is not behind a veil of tears can hide, do you think the best of the existence wrong to walk. Without tragedy is for you the life nothing. Nothing. A…'

'Call this life?' She pointed to him. They pointed to the washing machine and the towel rack.

He did not reply. He opened the medicine cabinet and looked for stuff that you lubricate the mosquitoes bulten can. They had to have some left of past summer. It was a summer with many mosquitoes. Also had a nuisance to Tirza had. He had bought a mosquito net for her, but they were killed on miraculously through, the mosquitoes.

He found nothing. Iodine, plasters, aspirin. No mosquitoes stuff. For the purpose of Council with the Nagel he hustle and bustle of his thumb in the bump.

'Jörgen,' said the wife.

'Yes,' he said with the nail still in are mosquitos Bult.

'Who do you think really attractive? I am not. I know that. I knew that for a long time. I think it is nice that you can still also have said in so many words. Better say anything. More of your heart no murder pit. But I am curious who you or find attractive. Surely you must find íémand attractive. I wonder whether it might be men. I have to ask you that never, because I was afraid that you would find that to confrontational, that there was nothing of you would remain nothing at all, still less than now. I was afraid that you would feel unmasked, helpless, that you would collapse, to substance would wreck. But now that we are friends, just friends, not more than that, who knows best friends, I thought: I can also inform the men to whom your calls? Boys? Young boys? Blond, in a tight jeans? Or rather a little Indian?'

She came to him again. He did not. His left hand was moving mechanical about the mosquitoes Bult. It had not really helped, the nail in the bump. The itching was at best become less intense.

Just two steps away from him they remained.

'Are you so fortunately now?' she asked. 'Because you finally can be who you are? Undisturbed. Still in the secret of course, imagine, but undisturbed. They come late at night, as Tirza sleep, or in the weekend, if they are staying at a friend? Only, or a few at the same? In the learning? With moustaches? And smooth back hair combed, still wet and shimmering of the gel?'

Also he saw on her face the same emotion that he suffered an hour or five had seen, when they had stood in the vestibule, with its case on wheels. It was an emotion that he knew of her not. Between all high courage by, between all its defensiveness sarcasm appeared occasionally something on her face what it strongly reminiscent of despair. A look, a trait with its mouth. Along the way they looked around him. The sound of its voice. That despair was new and made her unexpected fragile. And also by him. Where they broke, he broke.

'Go away,' he said. 'You're crazy.'

Crazy? That you have previously said to me. Crazy? Because I know it? Because I no longer have something with that crazy game of you? I have many years of silence, so that you could feel better, so you in your own fraud could believe, and quiet could think that everyone, including i, since it is also believed. I was crazy, because I you and your self-deception have left in peace, because I have never said: "Jörgen, it is better for everyone if you admits, just give it, we are no longer living in the nineteenth century. There are worse things." But now I also kindly ask what the situation is, I love, now I ask, from interest, from pure interest, in friendship, who you actually find attractive, loss I suddenly my sense?'

'You're crazy,' he repeated. 'Even more bizarre than in the past. Why should we be pronounced, why can you see things not alone — why you have no respect for the silence? Why is that so threatening for you, so unbearably?'

She pulled her dress over her head. She threw him to disregard such as someone who is in a hurry I am told. Not the haste of the desire, the rush of the habit. The haste of sleep. Now sleep. Fast. As you do if you are a night not have an eye close done in an aircraft that also was delayed. She wore no bra. He turned his gaze.

'Jörgen,' she said soft, 'This is where you are afraid of? Is this what you abhor to me? That I am a woman? Is that what you're odour had? The stench of the woman? You yards away smell, because the more spooked your for something, the better you can smell the, that is the law of the animal kingdom, not? Is this what you do disgusted? You can now say in all honesty, I would like to know. I take no pain. The truth can me no hurt. I think the silence painful. The lies. The collusive fuss.'

'Go away,' he said with curved head. 'Please dont go away. Go to a hotel. This evening. I will give you money.'

'What for?'

'For a hotel.'

They lifted her breasts up a little. She was a smooth brown, they could the topless sunbathing is still not let.

'you see them,' she asked, 'durf see your watch? These are the breast that you have children for suckling. You can see them? They are not going to become stuck or puckered as with other women. Nothing is so harmful to the skin if contract and expand, contract and expand, but my breasts are not shrunk. They have remained as they were. Have you ever really looked at it? Have you missed them? The feeling of revulsion that they aroused for you. That you can still also miss? But thank God there is still one thing bigger than you disgust, it is not, you desire to meet social conventions.'

He ignored her breasts. He looked her in the eyes and when that no longer went, he looked past her.

'I am sorry,' said he eventually. Because he did not know what he had to say. Because they stood before him, touch and unreal at the same time, but especially nude.

A naked wife. On age.

He brought his hand to his head and felt His hair, skull, he had also itching.

'What you regret?'

He was hesitant, he did not know what it exactly unhappy, he knew that he only unhappy.

'DI ate it was not,' said he eventually.

You 'was not?'

'De man to whom you requested.'

'No, that wasn't.'

She showed her breasts.

'but i was also not,' she said after a few seconds. 'I was not the person to whom you requested.'

'No.' He felt the wound on his lip. 'As you can say. If the must. Then we are quits.' He had the idea that the undertail coverts.

'Quits, yes. That is also a way to look at it. Quits. Yet there are knapperds in my life. Feel not guilty, feel not overindebted.' She said the dreamy and business at the same time. They summed up the facts on, now it was them here. The profit and loss account was presented to him.

'Knapperds?'

'Knapperds. One had rasta hair.'

'Is that it? How do you describe it? How the hot?' he thought it was a word for his daughters. Knapperds. And if he would have had to laugh, he had a great laugh. Thank and energetic. Long, itself on the upper leg banging. Mother and daughter looking for knapperds.

'De man to whom I wish is a knapperd, yes. My girlfriends said: "He is no knapperd, but he will be well on your children." They said: "He is listless, but he will cook for you and to do some shopping, remember." My girlfriends said: "He is old, but if he is dead you still have a life for you." Look at me and tell me: What do i for me? A few days ago I was at a fortune-teller netherlandsbelgiumall. "There will be a lot of change this year. Otherwise everything will be," she said. "Wait. Everything is different." Look at me, Jörgen. What else is?'

He instep by his hair, which their original color were lost. They were white. For the first time he felt something of compassion with her, for the first time in years she was not the woman who him and her children had left in the lurch to always voze happiness to search on a houseboat.

'You have two children with me,' he said.

'Yes, and? Should that now my consolation and my salvation? What is a woman without a child? A PROSTITUTE. Less. A whore can have children. And i told you already: to bring kids seemed to me to be perfectly suitable. I could find anyone who was better, Jörgen. No one who wanted in any case. But the children have not saved me. The powerless desire in the eyes of a man who has done me more than the begging look my daughters. Other mothers to think that the love is, but it is hunger, Jörgen, ordinary, death normal hunger. And then that screeching, sometimes night long, yes, did you ever ear buds in, and later did you find that not even more a screeching problem, you loved it, it gave you what to do, but i had other ideas about life than listening to the screeching of my thirsty girls.'

He did his best not to see her. Weather instep he over his head. He would have hairs can paints, as the color it was old. He thought that it had something that white. Something gedistingeerds, he found that he did. He felt that he by the color of his hair uitstraalde authority. But perhaps he was mistaken.

'I do not know what you want from me,' he said soft. 'I do not know and I am also nothing to, but I am not gay. And I also never has been.'

When that he possessed he had dreamed about this, that he had experienced it all in a dream, that he with her in the bathroom had been and that she was naked. She was often nude. In the summer they had parties for the children which they half or sometimes completely naked had appeared, to other parents complained of her behavior and ship's steward promise had to his wife to order and to ensure that they are also located on tropical days not nude among the children would be interfering, when operating under its apple tree India Antje played. Also not half-naked, he had himself to be added. Because he knew the wife. But in the dream in which he had already seen all the call was otherwise expired. It was not about homosexuals.

'What are you?'

'What would I do?'

'If you are not a uniform. What do you do? What are you in God's name?'

'Is that what you want to know?'

'Yes'. Perhaps. Now you mention it. I believe that I can have peace with what happened with everything that happened, if I finally know what you're. Who You Are, Jörgen. Who are you?'

Ship's steward outdated breath, his hand rested not more on his crown. There was a blue spot on its upper leg, he saw. She was overturned. Or she was kicked.

'I'm nobody,' he said. 'My ego was large but i have halved and you have the further crunched into a giant meatball. I am the father of Tirza and Ibi. Especially the latter. That is what I am, yes, not much more, but also not less. The father of Ibi and Tirza. I am father.'

'You know,' said they slowly, as if they had difficulty finding the right words as though they spoke a foreign language, 'What I wonder? Have you never thought: Wow, what strange?'

'What do you mean? Yee? What did I have to find strange?'

'What I mean? Come on, hold you do not Jörgen of Domme.'

'I do not know. I have no idea what you're talking about. I already have a time no idea what you're talking about.'

'Have you never thought: what strange that i my wife never have an orgasm? What strange. Perhaps it is time that I am going to do that, or go to learn how to do that. There are books about follow overwritten, educational videos about are for sale in almost every reform house. Have you never thought: I must agree to do something, even if only once. Have you never thought: what to. For her. What do they think of me? Perhaps I should study. Perhaps I should practice. To me do.'

He stared at her as to a mouse in a mousetrap that for twenty years in the kitchen is and where never has sat in a mouse. And on a morning, just a mouse. It is not to believe. You think of a hallucination. A mistake.

No, in the dream was all different. Not that it was a pleasant dream, quite uncomfortable even, but this was onprettiger.

'we will end this conversation?' he proposed. 'Dress. Let us go to sleep. Pull a pajamas. Or a t-shirt. And let us just go to sleep. As if nothing is wrong. There are enough t-shirts here. You pajamas there are. Everything is there. Everything has on your lying in wait.'

Weather slipped his gaze to the blue spot on her thigh. She was careless, and inconvenient. They are often bumped. The color of its pants Pink, pleasant pink was, salmon pink. Not that hard-hitting pink that hurt your eyes, but that it also had something. A little too exceiting, precisely because it hurt to the eyes.

'I want to know,' she said. 'There are a few things I would like to know now that I am here. This is one of them.'

He nodded.

"You want to know about it,' he said. 'You want to know about it. Now, what I can remember, but maybe my memory me in the insert, maybe I am already dement slightly, but what i remember is that I sometimes you have not delivered orgasm regularly but from time to time it happened. Not every month, not every quarter, from time to time. But anyway, I think it is ridiculous to talk about, at this point in time, I think it is unreasonable. I think it is inappropriate.'

'Never',' she said. 'You not, Jörgen. Others, yes. The man with the Rasta hair, almost every day. You never. Never, you hear me. Never.'

He did a step in her direction, as he had the challenge its resistance to the throat to intervene, his arm went up, but he already controlled itself.

'I have you,' he siste, 'two children. Is that not better than an orgasm, is that not a thousand times better? Where are you? Two children, two healthy children, weighs not against all of the world? orgasms'

He did a step backwards.

'Dus you is in the illusion,' she said, 'You wrong in the illusion — it is to whining and howl. Have you ever tried to look with whom you have lived all these years? Have you ever really looked at me? Where have you been actually? On which planet have you been all those years?'

He mass by his wrist. Since he had wrist sprains with tennis, mass did he often lost moments. Sometimes in the middle of the night, as he could not sleep, or in the garden between the wieden and saw by. There was a lot to weeding in his garden. And to saw. And then he was still the cottage of his parents in the Betuwe, with garden, and what for a!

'What do you want? I made a mistake. Is that what you want to hear? I would like to say it. I made a mistake, I have never stood still. I thought that I can do you a orgasm edited but it was a mistake, it now. Ok, congratulations. And it is too late, thank God it is too late to do it. It is over. Your orgasms are my case no longer and vice versa. Others will have to take care about you, others have you taken charge. Why you come to me you complain? You have three years had time of your life, you have three years of orgasm lived up to orgasm, if I am not mistaken, what do you now still pressure for such few years in which the life that something else than an orgasm?'

'a few years? A few decades you will mean.'

'You had do it,' he cried. 'If it really was so important, if the for you such a case, the self-made.'

'I have done,' she shouted back. 'yours i had nothing to expect.'

'Dan i understand fully not available to you and which complains ouwe cows here from the ditch will get out. Forget it. Spacious your memory. Make way for the future. Press and hold on your resentment and your resentment to legs. You are young. You have said so yourself. Beginning with something new. You are started with something new. That is what you did become you had been proposed, I am sorry but let me with rest, let Tirza with calm. She has had the already difficult enough.'

'Late?' she said. 'But Jörgen, nothing is too late. Nothing is really. You have dropped me my life. That is the state of affairs. I can make no place for the future. I can do in the future. Because it has yet to be somewhere, in my life. Here it is a lie. I am come to collect it.'

She looked around, they waved with her arm, they pointed to the bedroom.

Not good point, he thought. Typewritten. Even worse than in the past. Getikter than ever.

'I have the you returned. Three years ago. When you get to your houseboat had moved. As I already had received your. This was also the opinions diverge. I need you to nothing, is not to be forced children, do not lead to a marriage, not to sex. The were all your ideas.'

'precisely,' she cried, 'You say yourself. The were all my ideas. Everything we did, were always the my ideas.'

Both to hear something they thought and they fell silent. They have made to wake her. The child.

When they saw that they had made a mistake, she said softer than therefor: 'what that will i come, Jörgen. That is why I am here because I want to return.'

She looked around, slightly haggard, but no more insane, on a peculiar way less insane than ever. Sober and determined.

He sweat as if it were a tropical day was. He rubbed his forehead.

They looked at him, while her dress was in addition to her as if she had him thrown down because he was in the washing machine. He would have to pick him, he would wash him, he would give him the label ironing, when it gave permission to at least.

'which body part to the woman you will find actually the most repulsive, Jörgen?' she asked. Her voice now sounded blandly. 'The breasts? Or the buttocks? If you look at me, where disgusts me you than the most of?'

He felt his jaw. If he is calmly came the pain sometimes go back, it was actually no pain, it was aware that there was such a thing as a jaw.

'I have you already said that I am not a uniform. I love women.'

They laughed. It was an unpleasant and hard smile.

'But of what then? Of what for women? They need to be of Uranus or any other Solar System? The dwarves perhaps, female dwarfs?'

Ship's steward swallowed. He regretted that he had offered her to continue to sleep.

But he did not know how he had to solve the otherwise. She was published, with a suitcase, they had eaten, she had drunk after eating and drinking was sleeping. Only this he had not expected. He is not anticipated.

'Tirza sleeps. Let us talk gently.'

'I was asking you what. Of which women hold you? Of what kind of?'

His face stuck, his hands, and he felt his jaw, which attracted as a machine that is not properly adjusted.

'I have never them classified according to species. I am not your type. You not mine. Is that not enough? We now know is not sufficient, in so far as we do not have known for a long time? We have the beast together rarely woken up, might never, unfortunately. But we have two children. That is more important. The beast in us is dead.'

He walked to the washbasin, loved his head under the tap and drank. That the water was luke warm he didnt care, he drank eagerly.

'Not in me, Jörgen,' she said, 'in me the beast is not dead. You've done, but it lives. It lives.'

He turned the faucet and turned to. 'Mewe,' he said, 'but in my view it is dead and buried, I have overcome. I have it under control. I am stronger than the beast. That is why I am free and you not. Pull slightly. You vessel cold.'

'Your beast,' she said, 'really live i have never been able to mention. Live as beasts. Your beast from the outset was seriously injured. You have given me the illusion that the live and nuclear healthy, but that was only to entice me, to me here to drag. I was not here, I still had not taken my feed, or the beast died a plant that never get water. O, occasionally was the wake up, but that was all game. What I do not all have had to do to your beast from the winter sleep. That is a thing of the past, you are right. It is all a thing of the past. But now I am here, and as often as I am not, say the me Jörgen, otherwise I will go away with the idea that I spent all this time with a homo lived, that the father of my children a gay. That is not a matter, not that I have anything against homosexuals. But I say: what women winds you?'

He pushed his hands against his sleep as if he had a headache that he tried in that way.

'Just say it,' she said in her most charmingly voice, 'are the male women, women with moustaches, without breasts, women with short hair or no hair at all? Half the children? The disabled? Women with a wooden leg? Unscrew that they can before they reach your bed with creep?'

He shook his head.

'or are the are secretly men? Now you can say. I am your girlfriend, your best friend. Someone who knows everything about you and yet nothing very place because it all is behind it. The marriage. The affair.'

'I,' he said, he had to take and he had to take one more time while he tried the unpleasant feeling in his losing denounced, 'I hold of vulgar women.'

As she was quiet. Then she began to laugh. It estimates. She threw her head to the rear.

'How raunchy?'

'tacky. I do not know how. I believe that you should mention the so. Tacky. Now you know enough? Should we go to sleep? Is the past?'

They continued to laugh. She did not on laughing.

'I was not tacky enough? How raunchy should they are? For them to your requirements?'

'I don't,' he whispered. 'I do not know and you are tipsy.'

'Come on Jörgen, tell me. Tipsy, of that bottle of wine? Come on. You can tell me everything. Now you can tell us all about it. You need not be afraid that I am angry word. I will never get angry. I have no interest in further. I am indeed, as you said, there is nothing more. If you encounter a vulgar woman, the beast in you wake up again? Or is it really dead, as you said, dead?'

She did a step closer. He saw her breasts, not wrinkled, that were virtually intact. He looked to the side to the washbasin, where a green toothbrush next to a blue was ready for the morning.

'Cashiers,' he said. 'women who work in bakeries. Women in shops and canteens. What does the there is also increasing. Sales assistants, in all types and sizes.'

A hissing sound came from her mouth. Excessively long and exaggerated hissing. 'Series,' she said, 'is for you simply class struggle.'

'Color Plays.'

They picked him with his chin as the lady grasp a naughty pupil. Serious and ironic at the same time. The criminal belonged to the game. 'racist,' she said. 'Color Plays.'

She showed his chin. Do not disconnect. She came to some closer. They wanted him pillow. He felt the, he saw to the expression in her eyes. They hustle and bustle its lips on his. And he would answer her kiss, he had to answer her kiss, he could not be otherwise, even if it was to not to harm her, the mother of his children, the mother of Tirza. He could not refuse its kiss, if he so wished, he had to reply to him.

Although that was not easy from his position, he gave her a reprimand.

They stumbled. They balked at reverse. They cringed.

And just as it seemed as if they scheel looked. It was probably the light that was incorrectly, or its own fatigue.

'You see,' she said, together as if he has shrunk, her in her stomach had gestompt, 'you see? It is not true. The animal in you is not dead, it is wake up again. I have woken up.'

He repair welding depth with a toilet-paper his lip, which had started bleeding. He had bitten. The voltage, the stress. It happened more often. With the piece of paper he about its mouth wiped.

'I apologize,' he said.

She was she crouched. In addition to the washing machine. And she looked at him.

'I offer my apologies,' he said again. 'I tried to answer your question, because you insisted on. Because you wanted to know if necessary. I tried your question to answer as honestly as possible. That I had not to do.'

They stood up. They are standing. van Heeswijk The color of its cheek made him livid. But it was not active fury, a passive, a quiet and silent rage that would result in the ridges of the hair, the lowering of the sheets, the preparation of an oven dish.

'You see,' she said, 'The beast is there, the beast will be there as long as you are, Jörgen, only i can wake up the cushion, admit it.'

He looked at its near-naked wife with the red Wang, and he looked like something to remember, also seemed the past to come to life, but when the weather was way, such as when you know that you wanted to say something, something important, but you can not remember what.

'What does the also?' he whispered, especially against himself. 'What does it matter?' And when harder: 'I have you already said that lust is not the highest. I have already said that this is a House of love.'

'Yes,' she said, 'You've done. Each shop a new imagination, the shop must be for you a paradise. But does work? Or will it remain with fantasizing? The whole life nothing but a trinket there where reality is not to be measured, or where it is because those fantasies in reality something would be too threatening. God, I think about how i your semi-rigid sex from me to within had to come, it is a miracle that we even have made children. A miracle. And God knows what for art handles all the more I have had to play tricks. Jesus, what was the sad and inconvenient. And all that time I have thought that it was because you secretly gay was. But You found me not tacky enough. That was it. I was not tacky enough. And now? You will find me now not raunchy?'

He took the toilet-paper of his mouth. He looked at his feet. When he looked to the paper. There was a small dark red droplet.

'You're tacky,' he said soft.

The Left cheek of the wife was still dark red, like they have on one side violently blushed.

He sweat becoming worse and worse, increasingly fierce and more intense.

'Why do you,' he asked, 'if it all so sad and was inconvenient?'

'For the children.'

'Why have you started to children?'

'I have already said. You listen to me? You listen to me?'

They stood for him, just in front of him. In one quick movement they handle him in his cross. They took it there and she loved it.

She loves, he thought. But he did nothing. He was there with the toilet-paper in his hand.

'Is there one woman,' she asked, 'die not burst out laughing? Or are they so numbed that they do not even laugh more if they see you doing? There is one woman who so much patience if i? Because how long does it take before you finally have a rigid? A half-evening, sometimes even more. Or mud you tablets nowadays? Vulgar women. It would be to laugh if it is not to cry. Get them now and then by chance or must you find them? You have to make to the town? Or to areas where the color shows live?'

He took her back to the throat. He could not otherwise. They had it and they did not. He could not have let go.

'Doing it,' she said. 'shows that the beast is not dead. I admit that I made the wake up, as I always have to make you wake up. Come on, Jörgen. Give me a reprimand. But not so gently. As in the past. That is the only way you can. You have not otherwise. Only if you hit you say: "I love you." Say it!'

As sure as he knew that his daughter was Tirza, as sure as he knew him on his work had told us that he was too old to be released, so sure he knew at that time that her he hated. He was struck with the back of his hand. On its other cheek. Hard and exactly. So hard that they released him and fell on the ground.

Also it was quiet. Dead quiet. As if they were in the mountains. High in the mountains, where no other people were, only snow and stone.

And then he saw it. In the opening of the door was a big hug with Tirza in the manual. They still slept with a hug. A blue donkey, at least a little donkey that ever had been blue.

They stared at her parents. The wife in her pants have crawled the basis until they arrived at the washstand ophees which they can. Its one Wang was red and the other dark red, against the blue.

"There is nothing on the basis, Tirza,' said ship's steward. He did a step in its direction. They looked at him impassive to, one might almost say neutral, with the donkey in her arms.

'Not afraid, Tirza. Never fear. My Mom and I play.'

3

He shaves rapidly but thoroughly. Occasionally he feels a little spot has forgotten. You feel better than that you see it, in this light.

The sushi and sashimi are ready. He has generously repurchased; ship's steward is prepared for hungry guests. As always on these occasions he is led by the fear that there will be too little, that hungry people to go home or that they will say: 'They are very efficient at the Hofmeesters.' Sardines, he has also purchased. Later in the evening, if the vote, is he plans with garlic to fry. Simple but tasty. He has done so often on summer evenings, and always have had success.

Through the mirror he sees the wife by the transitional pecking, still in her dressing gown.

About an hour will be the first guests to come. The people who arrive early because they do not want to go home late, and that despite their good intentions than bind and only for four hours in the morning with stains on their blouse the bicycle of the lock. It is restful to young people watch that gradually getting hit a surplus. Their desperate attempts to adults to imitate, all our efforts to claiming what there has not yet been and — as far as he knows now — what there never will be. Their attempts to reassure ship's steward.

He washes his face, make sure the foam on the ears and the nose to remove and then searches a shirt with matching necktie from. A few seconds are quiet for he wardrobe in the bedroom, with necktie and shirt in his hands and looking at the wife who in its cabinets rummages where her dresses are sticking. Than he decides: no necktie. It is Tirza's party, something ever a party was called. Something you live at without necktie even though you the father of the party spirit, and even if there are teachers. Not all its teachers of course. The invitations to Tirza has he left. It is her evening. Her farewell of the gymnasium, of puberty, who also know of Amsterdam and of him, Jörgen ship's steward, the father who now almost ready with his father household tasks. The education is over, it will be time for themselves, even though he has no idea what he with that time should begin. The rest of his life is for him as a desert.

He likes the shirt for his pants, check the colors. This fits together? Colors are never its strongest side. Maybe you should put it this way: clothes have never been his strongest side.

Ship's steward has his favorite teachers. There is no parent evening without him passed. Usually he came far too early, the duty called, and gradually become friends he was with that obligation. Preferably he became friends with Tirza's teachers, but making friends is not his strongest point. When Tirza is still on the lower school, he had her teacher is also invited to the food. It was an enjoyable evening. At the end there was a pet game played. 'We need,' he had explained to his wife, 'de lady of Tirza make it clear how special Tirza is, and that we can best do so by her and to invite to get a bite to eat. So that they can see is its natural Tirza environment.'

The children were initially mainly an idea of his wife. One morning at breakfast, that it now appears as a breakfast in a different life, it would have said: 'We get a child.'

'How can that?' he had asked.

And she had replied: 'I have stopped taking the pill.'

'a child,' he said. "God, there are not enough on this world? And you know for sure that it was a healthy child is?'

But they only had said: 'If i had to wait on you, there it was never did.'

A morning long he was in the war of the idea, until it after lunch decided to accept the duty. He waited until the five hours and peddled my way to then was the bank, where he is a life insurance concluded without his wife to say something. It had to be a surprise, the money that would be released if he came unexpectedly to death.

This was a ship's steward father become Jörgen as a man of paternity not more clear and also not wanted to know more than that it was wise a life insurance before the child made its appearance in this world.

When Ibi once was born, changed the duty of nature. The first months was Ibi between mother and father in, although in her bedroom neatly a cot. But they slept better in the large bed, safe between the two parents in.

And when she was two, slept they still, which Rittes im Bunde. Sometimes he made his wife woke up to assign her to Ibi. 'Look," he said, 'look, how quiet it is to sleep.'

And then came Tirza. The wife had said: 'If we have one, there is still a second at.' ship's steward had kinked and a few months later he went back to the bank in order to increase the life insurance.

He picks up another shirt from the cabinet and keep it up to the light to see if there are spots in remain tight, but he likes the color not. He would like to be cared for and distinguished appearance. For the teachers who will be the friends of Tirza Tirza, for itself. Yellow is not distinguished.

Three teachers called him after the failure of the runaway wife, the teacher Mathematics, German and Dutch. They had heard it, something not stop, hold down and they spoke to him to encouraging, they knew the phenomenon, sometimes from his own experience, and they loved it how Tirza did it under these difficult conditions, yes, about Tirza he did not to worry. Mrs Excavating, the Dutch which also Tirza Teacher's classes teacher was, early: 'you might want to come to talk about them, also in connection with Tirza? You will find that pleasant?'

'Oh no,' he had replied, 'dat is not necessary. And pleasant, it is not.'

He found the pleasant that they called him, but about a missing wife was not too long in the public to be talk. That is why he continued to maintain that the drain of the wife completely according to plan expired. It even had encouraged. 'walk away you can not call it,' he said to the teacher Mathematics, 'it is more so that we have a time holiday of each other. I voted against its said: "Walking but road, you will turn back."'

If his favorite teachers do not arrive tonight, he will present them speak some other time or their write a note. To his feelings for them would do nothing to change that. From time to time he would think about. At least once a week, perhaps more frequently.

Feelings, it is a word which he also remains stationary if an attraction along the way. He depends shirts and tie back into the cabinet. A polo shirt is better.

'I had something new to buy,' says the wife. 'What do i need? The best I have taken on board. The best I've lost. And the rest fits me not more. Or is it just not.'

Ship's steward points to what they in her hand, a dress of which he is the existence cannot remember. Airy, but they like airy dressed. Also when the weather begging for such clothing.

'You're disinterested," she says. 'You see not how incredible from the fashion this is? How terribly dated this is? In addition, just can not. The grease…' she looks at him, helpless actually. Dismayed, about the changes that her body.

'Fat?' he asks. 'Which grease?'

They pretend to her owner is returned, he thinks. To have hope on liberation, you need to have the chain located. For some it is the chain of hope.

He wants to Tirza's room walk, but they hold it against.

'Jörgen," she says. 'They will find it not crazy that I am there again?'

'Who?'

'De guests.'

'De guests? Which does not grant you.'

'I mean. They will not ask the question: who is that? Who is that Mrs?'

'I think not. There are a lot of people. Then it is one more or less. In addition you are the parent of Tirza. Whichever way you look at it. You can also always say. When people ask: "What are you doing here?", you say: "I am Tirza's mother." It is a plausible reason for her party.'

She looks at him full of doubt, it is not convinced. And she has her clothes in her hands that are out of fashion. That makes it all worse. 'But I have come out.'

'Dat denies no one. But that people do not know more. That they are forgotten. They have a bad memory. There are so many people. On the Vossius they have concept for this type of cases. They had in any case concept for me.'

He smiles in the reminder. The teachers called him when his wife by went with a childhood love. He will never forget, how friendly they were, without a. Also called nobody, not for him at least.

Ibi they had on the Barlaeus done, but after joint experiences Tirza they decided on the Vossius to do so. In particular it was a ship's steward who had decided. He found Tirza very talented. Already when she was eleven months and its first steps. Five steps, no more, but nevertheless, it was allowed to walk are called. He told it to anyone who wanted to hear it. 'They may already walk, they luff.' above all is to parents with children in approximately the same age he told the study with interest, and he did not — he was overwhelmed by his enthusiasm — that he called irritation. The word 'luff' was matured him in the mouth. When she was a few months old he was in the evening minutes long, sometimes up to twenty minutes about Tirza curved, to look at how they slept. The arms spread out. Sometimes she smiled in her sleep. Even Tirza's mother was not understood exactly where he watching them. What he saw there. In the baby.

Ibi was moved to its own bed, now Tirza slept in between them. And if the wife there also was not or late came home, than slept in addition to her father's Tirza He was sometimes in a corner of the bed because Tirza tend to make had wide, but he didnt care. The bed was of her.

Gently, almost tenderly he slides the wife aside.

He sees that the door of her Tirza room has closed, he wants to do not disturb its, that is why he goes to below and check the kitchen. Everything is ready. Everything can be served and eaten. The color composition of the sushi and sashimi has the appearance of professionalism, something to evade the homely. As if it is prepared by a catering service. That is the way it looks.

Ship's steward leave nothing to chance. We must prepare themselves for what may go wrong. Who need an excuse, has not been adequately prepared for a possible fatal error.

In the garden he torches, four in total. Shortly, when twilight, they will lighting.

Jörgen ship's steward goes to the barn, set the mower, the shovel, the machine saw and what smaller tool aside. There is enough space for clubbers who have also to isolate to each other to give a discreet kisskiss. He leaves the barn and looks at the trees. In the garden of his parents in the Betuwe are also many trees, which he must maintain an only child now that they are no longer present. Fruit trees shall be pruned.

He walks slowly on the grass back to the house. He takes a deep breath, he is satisfied. It is a nice party. As Tirza wanted it. 'It is my last party in this House,' she had said, 'what that will I would like to give a big party. Do you think that is good, pap? Really a big party.'

'Yes, of course,' he had said, 'but how large exactly? What do you mean by large? And I will go away, you will find that Nice? I will be a weekend in the Betuwe continue?'

'No,' she said, 'keep but. You can find my celebrations are always so much fun?'

And he had kinked. 'Yes,' he had said, 'very nice.'

If he is back in the kitchen he hears the voordeurbel. Also he is waiting to see or Tirza or wife will open it. If that does not happen is he himself to the front door. The ladies have to pressure with toilet.

It is Ibi. It has a small bag with him, what a ship's steward a little disappointing, because this means that they will not be many continue. She now lives in France, around sixty kilometers north west of Geneva.

It discloses its, laborious, a tad clumsy, he will stand on her toes, he apologizes, unintelligible. And also that something has onhandigs apologize.

Of his children he expected much, but of Tirza he expected more than of Ibi. Of Ibi he expected much, of everything. Tirza So was it. You must say. Everything.

'You squeeze me fine, papa,' says Ibi. 'Doe quiet.'

Sometimes he discloses the measured, sometimes it is again too enthusiastic, it is difficult to find the right balance.

He loves her at the shoulders, does a jog reverse, but do not let her shoulders.

'You looks good,' he says, without knowing whether he believes, without really looked to her.

'It is busy. The season has begun.'

Ibi, almost four years older than Tirza, has her study physics in France a Bed & Breakfast to start. If he thinks if he really thinks of, if he is all good until late penetrate, makes the ship's steward nauseous. How can you define your study physics for a Bed & Breakfast? Ibi had met a Frenchman, with him is they started the Bed & Breakfast. It was his idea of course. What normal human being asks for something like this?

According to a ship's steward he is no real Frenchman, although he has a French passport, but a color enthusiast who according to the rules of the game behind her money to it. Its honor he has already grabbed away, so what remains? Ship's steward wishes there are no words more to dirt. This he lost.

When she told not to proceed with physics, and as if that was not enough her father and sister of its intention in the foreseeable future to move to France, decided to take a ship's steward contact with a social worker to him by referred to a psychologist. 'How can you physics-ins for a Bed & Breakfast, how can you define the science for the elaboration of beds?' he asked the man during the first session several times.

"Do the your daughter might be happy?' suggested the psychologist eventually. Dismay the man aangestaard had a ship's steward, this traitor of science, this guy. Fortunately? That both his daughters would promote he considered something innate, if the least, the least of the least. He was not prepared to abandon the obvious, and for what? For short-term happiness. He spoog out. He goldsmiths clung to the seamlessness of the success to the show that he is with the life of his children had made. A beautiful, great show was that, a classic vision big and impractical, but especially big. In order to submit the science he had raised them, not to fold sheets in a hostel, with a man of dubious origin as innkeeper. Ideals could not be traded for voos happiness. He was stood up had the psychologist silently a hand and was never returned.

Ibi runs to the kitchen. She looks around. 'Jesus, what have you got your back expended. How many people expect you doing? Where is Tirza?'

'above. You may have already heard?'

'What?'

'Of Tirza.'

'what then? What should I have heard?'

'Dat Mama is there again. She has been returned. I do not know for how long, but she is there.'

'O.'

It seems no great Ibi news. It is perhaps also not a big news. 'Have you what to drink?' she asks.

'natural' ship's steward thinks he is a poor host and a bad host is a poor father. He does the refrigerator open. 'What do you: beer, wine, lemonade? There is homemade lemonade. Lemon, source water and some sugar. Pure nature. What you will find so tasty.'

'Meach.'

He gives her a glass in. They drink in one breath of empty. Then wipe them with the back of her hand her mouth.

'You were well heard or not?'

'What?' she looks at him as if he was not necessarily.

'Of mama.'

'Yes, that I had heard. Should I find something of?'

'Well…' He hesitates. They must find something of? It is a good question. He will find something of?

'I do not know whether you should find something of, but perhaps you have something to say, and yes, maybe you will find anything.'

'It is your life.' gaze. Re She is probably tired of the long journey. This morning in the morning is the house in droves. On steps in Paris. With the metro from one station to the other. He has so often said: 'If you have luggage, take a taxi, you get the money back from me.' But taxis are Ibi, and it is a waste of money at its independence.

Now he is a little bit is used to Ibi's proximity, he looks what she has. A camouflage trousers and a shirt in colors that it systematically giving birth.

'How are you?' she asks them and they put the glass on the worktop. 'I mean further. What will happen?'

'Go? Pressure.' He washes the glass out right away.

'That?'

He feels her anger, no, more than anger, hatred. The inability to forgive me, the hatred which remains lit long after others everything has already been forgotten.

'On the publishing house.'

He is not asking how things are in its Inn. Its Inn does he death. A larger favor he may not prove her. He finally, when he saw that he had lost money has given them to the Bed & Breakfast is something he has not able to supplant. There is no float white spots by his past. Things that he does not want to know more, things which he has tried to remove from its memory. It is not successful. He knows everything. He thinks. The task of the historian is to select details for the progeny of interest, thus condemned other details to oblivion. Whom nothing forgotten, has no life. In the password is the future. Ship's steward was after a year and a half to his study history stopped, he was German and criminology study. He couldn't forget. That is precisely why he stayed in his own past around like a blind.

Those who want to sabotage the truth, only has a faulty memory is needed. Terra incognita. One should at discovery trip can go in the own past and in a foreign country. The jungle. Bushmen, a cauldron. The cannibals welcome you welcome and slowly while the water heats up, you can see all the white spots no longer as white spots, but exactly as it was. A movie. Say Finally you know who you are and then begins to boil the water. They all have a price.

She points to his cheek.

'You happened," she says.

'I just shaved.'

They tear a piece of a paper towel and press it against his cheek. Since they are, father and daughter, awkward but intimate. It is undeniable, this is what intimacy is, this is what remains after the volatile omhelzingen in a vestibule, at an airport in a parking garage.

In her eyes he sees a remarkable chill that he knows well, but to which he has not able to get and he never want to understand. He relies on forgiveness, because he himself is prepared to forgive, after he helped with his dog. The mouth of a Predator, the claw of a real ship's steward.

'Are you happy?' he asks, while the paper slowly from his cheek. There remains a piece of sticking.

She looks at him surprised, but it is surprising that there is thick at the top there is, it is not real astonishment. It is the last, stubborn remainder of anger.

('est when you take a keen interest in for my luck, pap?'

He is doing a step backwards. 'I too am for your well-being. You are my daughter. I only have two daughters.'

'welfare is not the same as happiness. Stay, I get that crumb paper of your cheek.'

He is dead quiet, while Ibi to his cheek krabt, he feels its nail on his skin, he holds his breath and he tries to recall his life when he was still not had daughters, when he was still no function when he had as much as he had to admit a posteriori by the space wafted as an uncommanded projectile, a projectile that in addition to the editor only house boss was.

The day that ship's steward at the notary public the purchase contract for this House, he decided to rent out the upper floor, otherwise it was cramped, the money, are meager salary. The house was always going to be too large for him, even for a family.

He leased initially mostly to business travellers, for a month or a quarter. Men who worked throughout the day and in the evening exhausted on bed fell again early morning hastily to disappear in their carefully coated suits.

The floor was decorated with cheap but manageable furniture. Especially the view was overwhelming. The Vondelpark. When a ship's steward the apartment showed, he always insisted on to the Vondelpark, and that in such a way as if it was from him. Presumptuous park, presumptuous front garden.

When the businessman than said: 'Yes, this is good, I take the', was hastily a handwritten contractje brought out if they wish each month could not be renewed automatically.

'If you pay in cash,' said ship's steward at the conclusion of the contract for a tone as though he offered something special what nobody else got, 'on the first of the month, if you pay in cash, you get five percent discount.'

Five percent discount. That wanted to tenants.

So climbed a ship's steward on the first day of the month the flights of stairs to get to collect the rent, which generally all recent Xmas line up for him in a small envelope. And if not, he continued to wait, had a chat, and loved climatic considerations, because he spoke about the weather like and seemingly passionate. And he waited. He had patience. To the lessee at last to his purse handle to the agreed amount to count.

Missing the business travellers. ship's steward, was always a reason for the lock is not completely having to pay back, or better said: not at all. A crack in the wallpaper, a door knob that was off cases, a crack in the marble of the sink. 'I am sorry,' he said, 'but as it was not here when you withdrew three months ago. This is something I have to have it repaired. I find it annoying, but this is going to cost money.'

Not that ship's steward malicious was, but he had the money, he was so shy. His future depended. Later also the future of his daughters. What was freedom if you had no money to pay for that? Only the rich were fairly and even that is not always.

Occasionally jokte he was a bit, he did not like, but he jokte with verve. He pointed to holes in the ceiling which had been already, stains on the wallpaper that even though were not new, or he had the cutlery in the kitchen — he also rented the specifications — and suggested blandly told that there knives and forks were gone. With this small lies to abide did the shame are introduced.

He hated the lessee who is not of itself said: 'we will than the half of the lock but leave it on?'

Or why not the entire deposit? He hated the tenants who forced him to lie, because they were so stingy, because they were asking for. So he that his study German had completed successfully — although he was not promoted, but that was a detail and there were explanations for — was forced by the upper floor of his house to scrape looking for new defects. He got better things to do had to negotiate about how much it would cost a wall from two to four to witten. There were tenants who said: 'Otherwise i buy tomorrow as a pot of paint and then I do it yourself. That saves you a lot of concerns and me money.' But that was not the intention. It was not the wall or the paint, but to the lock which could not be returned. That was there is no longer.

Agile talked ship's steward around it, he drove over, he sighed, he jammerde, he raised pity on and then, apparently without cause, he was aggressively. 'If we cannot agree to your departure, which lock but, but we will not succeed you, because you have no right to the lock, you do not have a leg to stand on, you have it here run down.' He shook his fist and he thought he went on in the negotiating as another in a film, a book, a play. There were moments that he lost itself, than he had to order, also to take a deep breath. Thereafter it was the weather. A man must be self-control, otherwise do others for him.

As that his parents had been through, somewhere in the nineties, in hindsight perhaps already in the eighties, still had become more disconcerting. It was not a dementia, it was something else, a disease without a name. Because he was not so well knew what he had to let go of a ship's steward his parents but paralysis. He has had to ensure everything, the manage money, the house and the garden. He showed their power forward to its own account on booking. He had the necessary. Really immoral could not be said, because his parents were paralysis. The lawyer had assured him. That word said everything. Paralysis.

Hofmeesters father had a tool shop in Geldermalsen, his mother had sung in a choir, but that she had no money earned. The singing was its indulgence.

And he, the only son, was widely acknowledged, that was what you had to do, that was what was expected of him. Climb up. Because only the wealthiest members were not pushed around.

Hofmeesters parents were pushed around, that you could see them, that you could smell to them.

Come back to rest he could smile on that the tenant five days longer in the apartment had may continue without something was brought into account. And in the end he said: 'You know what. I ask you the extras lost, but we forget the lock just. Sandy about it. Sand on the lock. Satisfied as?'

He fell as quickly as possible than the stairs and the dormant feeling of self-contempt he could only be suppressed by itself there for the umpteenth time to convince you that he did for his family. First time for him and his wife, later especially for his daughters. For their future. Saints, he had ever heard in the church, have a past necessary. A future sinners. His daughters were the exception to this rule: they had a future and they were not yet sinners.

Gradually started the tenants to stay longer than a few months. It saved him the effort of the search for a new occupier, every quarter. The engagement of an agency that an alarmingly high rates for inept service early he had sworn anyway.

Ship's steward did it self. He was looking for the tenant as a groom for his daughter, as meticulous. He spelde ads in almost all newspapers to find the right one for you. The quietest, the netste, the most reliable, the cleanest. Preferably a which had another address elsewhere, that only a pied-à-terre searched in another city was registered. He made a great effort for its extra income from the hands of the tax. Because freedom and hunger were each other's enemies. And although he never had known hunger, had the fear of hunger with which he was raised and do not leave him.

What stayed was the ascent of the staircase on the first of the month when the tenant of the envelope containing the agreed amount not in time to ship's steward in the letterbox had pushed. That was the recurring ritual in his life. His worship. So the only way he lodged the supreme being. The first of the month he purportedly collected on what it was.

If he was then descended, always with the feeling that he had smeared, he had money after in the house room in order to be subsequently to mountains in a safe place until there is enough to the discreet disappear to an account outside the Netherlands. First Luxembourg, later Switzerland. And if he counting and deer Ellen, was he regularly by the thoughts of financial independence. About to fall, that was the, the thoughts about him fell, do not let him. That kind of moments he was held hostage by his own visions. He calculated how many years he still had been removed from this independence. He had the months. If illness and death but not earlier than financial independence. It was a matter of decades. Perhaps less. As the exhibition climate organiser.

But the joy of the slow growing power abroad, that had to ensure that Ibi and Tirza would never know as poverty, that the doors that open only for the rich were also open for them would be that they would be able to study at the best universities anywhere in the world, was decimated by the degrading corridor that ship's steward every first of the month. He could not understand why the tenant of the rent is not itself also came, he had already called for a few times. But if the tenant of the first of the month to eight hours in the evening was not yet published, he went to the outside and called again at the next door to his. The door which gave access to the apartment that ship's steward leased. He was not. He could not wait, afraid if he was that they would forget him.

Also on Sunday he was there. The first of the month was the first of the month. Ship's steward knew no Sunday, because he had a dream. And he forgave are debtors as they him conf Aven. The money was the forgiveness. Ultimately, if it came to the crunch, was always forgiveness money.

But also could not prevent this forgiveness that he has since the twenty or twenty-eight bad slept. He dreamed about the lessee, the envelope and about defects in his house. He dreamed of how he climbed the stairs to the house of the lessee and how everything was missing, the furniture and cutlery, the tenant, the clothes, the cabinets, everything, the only thing there was still, was a leak and a kattenlijkje in the sink, already in far-reaching state of dissolution wrong. Although the lessee was expressly forbidden to bring pets. Still no goldfish.

The soft but envying sound of water that on a carpet dripped, ended his dream always. And with the kattenlijkje in the sink, ship's steward who whiny by the apartment was looking for an elusive envelope with the rental. His nightmares were wet for leaks, damp from the mold, fluffy of cat hairs. In his bedroom he was visited by the ghosts of the real estate.

On a day he had, for the purpose of Council when he was, tensioned by sleeping lack, a brainwave. 'Ibi,' he said. She was then twelve, she played violin, they tenniste and she was recognized as an intelligent and clever to see. 'Ibi,' he said, "Do you want to earn five guilders and an ice cream?'

They nodded dreamy. She was a dreamy girl. Others mentioned its blurry. It is not, he gave the dreamy.

'Dan should you be so up momentarily to go to the lessee and then you say: "I come the rent." You will get a reply envelope. And that you bring to me. Do not dally and nothing else. But polite continue.'

He brought her to the front door opened, which remained standing and look at how they aanbelde at the tenant.

Since she went. His daughter. One of its two darlings. A lovely child. That had to be said. He said he was controlled: 'It is a lovely child. It must be said.' as if it were an objective determination was be no discussion which. Just like the gravity.

When he heard the stairs to climb her, closed the door and waited impatiently in his own vestibule on her return and his look focused on the doormat, arms akimbo.

Within two minutes she was there. Ship's steward threw himself on the envelope as a hungry beast. He had once he had two times. The banknotes flashed through his hands as if it were playing cards which he had to shake. Then lock it the money on in the dresser at a secret location, and gave Ibi, after her about her dark blond hair caressed, five guilders and some extra for an ice cream.

'MAG I buy now?' she asked.

'What?'

'The ice cream.'

'Yes,' said the father, 'you should buy now. Go but. Go but quickly. Because we are so food.'

And they ran to the outside. Relieved and cheerful. Not bothered by shame or crap that she was sticking. They knew no dirt.

From that day was the tradition: Ibi inde the rent.

Ibi did what the father is no longer able to do so. On the first of the month they went to top in order to achieve this where the family ship's steward entitled to it.

She became over time so accustomed to that they themselves often said: 'Papa, it is the first. I go to top.'

And he was going to rely on her talents, its charm, its understanding of the human psyche, what was tantamount to insight into the psyche of the lessee. They even appeared a strange pleasure to develop in the provision of these every day, in Hofmeesters eyes almost perverse pastime, who had always had the feeling that he was really too good for was that he was filthy, each month onreiner dirtier every step. But there was an important difference between Ibi and her father: ship's steward inaligning the rent. They had to play the only. When ASCENDING THE STAIRWAY, imiteerde her father. They persifleerde him, you would have to say. She was not mature, but they did so as though, and how. They did it with verve. And that was the salvation, imitation by him they drove to imitate the demons of her father. In its imitation of him, in its sometimes grotesque exaggeration was its freedom.

After a period of time it is no longer a ship's steward did warn. 'not dally and nothing. Come back immediately.' She knew the rules, she was at the height of the instructions for use of the ritual and she was there even proud that they each month again the mission completed immaculate. For her was the rent a spoils that had to be conquered and that they should share in the proceeds.

It was sometimes for that they came back from its trip to the lessee and against her father said: 'He asks whether it is good if he pays in a few days.'

Than said ship's steward: 'Of course it is good, but without a five percent discount. The discount i if cash on the first day of the month is paid does not if cash on the third or fourth is paid, it is the full amount. Remember that. The first of the month to midnight on and then it is the full pound.'

And when they then on the third or fourth appeared with the full amount, he went to sit behind his desk and Telde, with the calculator for themselves. Because the money abroad grew naturally, money should grow. It is fertile and in the right hands multiply itself as weeds. And it remained to watch. Ibi stared at her father who had the money, with a look of understanding and something that could be called stirs tenderness. As if they already knew better. It was no longer the father who full stirs tenderness toward the daughter looked, it was the daughter of a certain stirs tenderness to the father stared.

And if he had enough together again, he took two chop up days and traveled to Switzerland to the rent at a reliable bank, where experts for him to discuss the financial independence. Slowly, but closer. Day after day. Hours after hours. Minute after minute.

Ibi was older, they went to the secondary school, began to, in so far as they have not had already done when they are still in the lower school, they began to make heavier, she had squalls and scolded her parents, she lost her interest in the violin, o, the bitter disappointment of the education, but what was unchanged, what stayed, was the ritual: the first of the month they went to the top of the rent.

And when they came back with the envelope looked her father mischievously to them, as if they knew what they had just done, as if they were realized which they cooperated, like they understood that he could not. As if they were his shame seen through him. And that insight made her less free, bond her to the man that they had to mention 'papa'.

When he was finished with the merely a witness embraced her he, he hustle and bustle its against itself and kept its so also. The simple mission had been given weight, interpretation. It was what father and daughter bond, it was their secret, though it was not really secret, it was their covenant. It really was the only moment that they father and daughter were and not strangers who happened to be in the same house lived on the same bathroom made use and occasionally on the same table their supper to within worked.

He gave her no more money for an ice cream, but for a skirt or a movie. He said not more for which it was, he gave the ordinary. Silent, with a wink. Sometimes if he the financial independence within reach faster than expected saw the exhibition was years very note, he gave his daughter storage.

Often they came down with messages of the lessee, that he wanted to withdraw from the contract or that he wished to extend precisely. They saved her father one to which he had hate. And after two years it seemed as if it was always so. As though it should have been. The family ship's steward had a family business.

One lessee, the other, but Hofmeesters oldest daughter climbed at the beginning of the month the stairs to the top floor. The invaded her not difficult, it could not be denied: we paid her. Its pay was a pleasure. The envelope was personally, was a favor which the lessee was granted.

Since Ibi was co nceded less complained about wet spots on the wallpaper, a heater which gave too little heat, a framework that is not properly closed. Her smile took the complaints, did her legs a strong suspicion that it was very expensive to evaporate. Its eyes compensated for the dripping tap. Ibi weighed heavier than the defects of the furnished apartment.

And when, on an evening in the autumn, the first of the month — always the first of the month; if a ship's steward looked back on his life he saw an endless series of pay days — she was long any cowardice. Ship's steward weld a evening newspaper, listening to a cello concert of Elgar, but when he joined the opinion had arrived page he read the newspaper as a book, he began concern. She was already more than half an hour away. He read further but the pieces on the opinion page were not up to him by. After inserting each meaning he continued and his thoughts strayed off to Ibi.

Well, you could not of course the money and run away, you had to occasionally a chat continue to make. He reminded the is still on the earlier him this unpleasant task. But a chat of half an hour was no chat more. That was a conversation that was a half dinner.

He was already twice to the door jammed to see if they was coming, as you go to trams which looks but do not want to. The ridiculous assumption that look a little avail. That a compelling look that what is not more likely to will appear.

She could not fall over, they did not have the street.

He understood there is increasingly less. His wife was the door to retrieve Tirza, which continue to play a girlfriend was. Ship's steward could be with no one share unrest He dropped Elgar, walked to the garden to his apple tree to look at and between the branches of the tree by gluurde he upstairs to the Windows behind which the tenant is hidden, but he saw nothing special. The curtains that there always hung and which really need to be washed. Nothing moved. It was a nice evening for the beginning of October. Nothing zipper elde in the bushes. Nobody shouted. Silence. Eternal stillness.

He went back to the living room, there was little else on, and he took the evening newspaper of the bank.

A few days before was Ibi fifteen. Some of the gifts that they had obtained were laid out yet dresser. As they did that always as one of the children was minor. The gift table, so they called that. They were there not quit, not even now Ibi was fifteen. Nor with the garlands. Ship's steward depended on them, as he previously had the rent: systematically collected and dedicated.

He stared at the gifts, a watch that he had given Ibi, they had requested it. And he had a good investigated, days he was working on it. It was an expensive watch, but that could be for your daughter who had become fifteen. He wanted to buy one that they would be happy, one that they really wanted to have and they are proud of her friends to see.

A trouser there was further on the gift table, a game that he did not understand. A swimsuit. Two books. A drawing of Tirza, a drawing of a boat. The rest was already removed, eaten, or put into use.

Then he decided to call. This took too long. She was kept on all kinds of nonsensical complaints which the tenant — Andreas was called he, a young, German architect — ship's steward already a couple of times had filed on the street. On the street! The tenants had no more ways. No civilisation. He felt the, he saw and he read about it. The people were courageous, as a greasy and that about courage in depended the air. That was what ship's steward smoke as in the evening he went outside to just to walk through the Vondelpark. A combination of laziness and had taken possession of courage of the people of the city, a combination that ship's steward scared him outside ditch, because he has not could participate, because he had good time to understand that it has the courage of its enemy natural rooted idealism: The children must have better.

Count on everything that can go wrong is the opposite of courage.

He shook his head, although no one could see him. It did not only a girl of fifteen difficult to coincide with the defects of a furnished apartment.

Ship's steward called in to the door beside the HIS. Specifically, but not too long. You had to remain polite as landlord. The wood could once again be painted, maybe next year. Not right now. Now there had to be spared, otherwise it would never be what with those financial independence.

Ibi was probably also start to do their shopping. But they knew that they first the rent at him had to deliver? She was always meticulous. They knew the importance of the ritual. She knew what it meant for her father.

No one did open. There was a call but there was not open. The architect was apparently not home, or he slept.

Hofmeesters unrest increased. He took his keys from his pocket and searched for the key of the house of the lessee.

If he once the week was home during the day he entered the house of the lessee secretly. Not really to spying, just to see what is really transpired, with whom he actually had to deal with. What kind of meat he had in the cockpit. He opened cupboards and drawers, but rarely found incriminating evidence. At most some porn, a letter from a debt collection agency, Love letters. He took everything volatile by. You could not careful enough. But one thing has become clear to him: if people have secrets, keeping those not in their pied-à-terre.

Again he phoned to. For the security. Slightly longer, but not too long. That was uncivilised.

Also now no response.

Prudent he opened the door, a bit like a thief, with a vague feeling of debt, and he climbed the steep stairs. Slowly. He had, he remarked, Load of asphyxia.

It was the first time that evening that he realized that he was to be old. With physical defects came an inevitable end to the last illusions of the youth. And respiratory distress was a bodily unsatisfactory condition, that nobody could deny.

He hijgde. He heard loud music. A modern twist, but with violins. Someone was so home, or the architect had the music forgot to turn off. Lamps illuminate. In the winter the heating is switched on with the window open. Each year they were more decadent and brutal. It was not even decadence, it was a perverse indifference that ship's steward as a personal insult formulated, because he could not afford. Because he refused to afford.

The respiratory distress increased. Halfway up the stairs he remained stationary. Ship's steward would not meet his heart? Perhaps he had to investigate, a cardio gram, or what was that? A total and radical research in any case. Long ago had he smoked cigars, but when the wife of Ibi in her belly he had stopped. The cigars could not, it was something else. Another, unknown disease was to blame are respiratory distress.

As he was higher the music by more urgent. He could the text word for word means, but he lette it. Had so much difficulty he has never taken the few steps to climb. Thus began the death so, asphyxia on the stairs. A joke, that was it. Life.

Ship's steward entered the room which served as the living room. The door was open. There did not have to be beaten.

The lessee was behind Ibi. The trousers to the ankles.

Hofmeesters daughter was with her bare upper body half on the dining table that he had ever looked into and that it seemed extremely suitable for an apartment that had to be furnished. Its nail skirt was up poached. Poached, that was the word that was left sitting in Hofmeesters Main. Poached. Poached.

The scene made him think of certain movies that unsavory channels afforded after midnight. And then that music.

All about his respiratory distress were gone. That he just in the stairwell was still think about a premature end he could already do not remind me again.

One second he continued to his Ibi to watch. Then he did a step forward. With his left hand, he hijgde still somewhat, handle a small stalamp he laid the wife had investigated, but that unfit for your own house. Hand-me-downs moved to above.

His daughter was fucked if a beast. A scene that you expected to take action on a farm, in a stable. Not in the best part of the Van Eeghenstraat.

Hofmeesters breathing squeeked.

He grip the stalamp more firmly. He could not move in this direction. It felt as if he was, hard and fucked deep. As if the impact is not intended for his daughter, but for him. As if he was humiliated, the landlord, the owner of this property, in his own house humiliated. His body was pain. His body was dying for breath.

He had the strange sensation that he was torn open. The longer he looked, the more he became convinced that he was the person who by the tenant fucked was, hard and indifferent. With dedain.

Finally we heard them.

At least, the tenant heard it. The man turned around to saw his house boss, showed Ibi, his hands slid perilously of its submission.

The architect did something ship's steward could not hate: he grijnsde. With his pants, a gray trousers, on its knees. He grijnsde as though it was a joke, an unfortunate but still funny meeting. The grin of the hilarity was firmly on the face of the architect. It was a tad uncomfortable, it was actually to prote hours. That he gleamed. Hilarity, nothing but hilarity.

No shame — no fear, a grin.

The stalamp ship's steward grip even more firmly. He did a few steps in the direction of the lessee, looked at him in the eyes and hit when, while Ibi broke away from the dining table as if it were only now its realized that a provisional end was copulatie, hard with the stalamp on the head of the lessee. The sound of breaking glass still insisted to ship's steward and then he saw stains, as if he had stood up too quickly. He felt dizzy, but he did not in each other. Did the tenant.

Without too much noise to make the tenant fell on the ground.

Perhaps it was also the music which was so hard that all the other was drowned out. How could you music as loud? There were sometimes no neighbors? Had the ears are not enough to suffer from street noise?

The architect was cases and ship's steward was standing here with the stalamp in his hands while he heard his daughter shrilling: 'Papa.'

Around him was glass. The small, round lampshade was shattered by skipped. And he was there with the remnant of a stalamp in his hand. A stem, more there was really not about. One moment he did not itself more exactly where he was. And why he was here, what he came again. He had to grip, he had to stop and think.

They krijste. Ibi krijste as a child. If a hysterica.

They ran to the corner of the room and then back again. They covered her breasts. They withdrew its nail skirt downwards. That they forgot not. She was so worked now again not. They continued to pull down the, she loved it, they goldsmiths clung to its own nail skirt set as if it was a life jacket.

If you only to its screeching listened, you would say: a psychiatric case, advertisement in the Valerius Clinic. Then maybe you could say: the madness has its invaded, the madness has its won.

Her face made a older impression than her body. By the makeup probably. By so often and thoroughly that they play an adult it was a bit grown up. In her face. In her eyes. In the way in which she looked at.

But her body told a different story.

Her upper arms were thin as a scharminkel. As a child. There was no meat on its buttocks. That was all yet to come. The story of her body was childish.

No reason to screeching, no reason to be so worked up.

Its trainers, of a mark that is currently very popular but whose ship's steward but not the name could remember, were under the endearing spijkerrok This shop requires.

Everything he saw everything he took in located on, while his daughter ran back and forth by the living room of the lessee, as if they did not know what was her, what may also be so. A beast, in panicking by the storm on a summer evening.

But the father was a word. He was there with the remainder of the stalamp in his hands.

On the table he saw an envelope. The rental.

This was Ibi come here. He was already ready for her, the envelope. But something was between them and then it was that remain envelope. Innocent and immaculate.

The money brought him again at risk phrases. Money was just a todo cold water over your head. The thought of the rescued rent it from the overriding feeling of paralysis.

Slowly came a back to life in the body of the lessee. He moved. He called on end. crab He addressed the Commission. He pulled up to the table edge. From a wound on the top left of his forehead droop blood.

His trousers was hanging again on his ankles.

The grin on his face was fortunately disappeared.

When understood exactly where he ship's steward was. The hoped for by him. He was looking for Ibi. His Ibi. That was why he was here. Ibi was not returned.

He had listened to Elgar and an evening sheet read, to him too long until he had received suspicion.

The stalamp, at least the remainder thereof, he put down and he schraapte his throat.

The tenant looked at him, confused, as though he did not understand what had happened, as if no one here understand what exactly happened.

But a ship's steward recalled the humiliation, the tenant standing behind Ibi, triumphantly and hungry, as he had been there. The Triumph of the beast, that he would not forget in a hurry. The Triumph of the man. Because that is sex for the man, a victory. I have her, I take her, I use her, I take her in use.

And by who knew a ship's steward again reminder he went to say. What he had to say, what he already had a long time ago had to say.

'Turn music from,' he roared just up.

That he remembered now again, he did not speak, he went roar. He could harder than the roar music, he could everyone and everything about screaming.

The young architect week reverse, and it was only when he tried to walk, he seemed to note how difficult the situation was. How unpleasant it was the landlord with trousers and underpants on the ankles.

He drew up the pants, hastily and inconvenient. On his forehead was that large bloody place. The blood was not yet solidified, it was still fresh and only trickled. But the nakedness annoyed him apparently more, the nakedness was more urgent.

The architect wore a boxer shorts saw a ship's steward. He hated boxer shorts.

And he saw something: the man had no condom around.

Ship's steward really was disgusted by the architect. He had him from the outset should not have been adopted. To nice, slimy, to kowtow to, and if it came to the crunch, too difficult. When his daughter was not there, he had his hands now to the throat of the architect and the life from him, as you squeeze life from a tiny kitten squeeze. Also by pressing, also persist, also the attention closer and road is life.

When the architect had now tidied — his shirt was still open to his navel — and he is outside the range of Hofmeesters hands he was finally to the cd player and turned it off.

'Hugh, Hugh,' said ship's steward, 'at last. Christ was still an.'

He wetted his lips with his tongue and he gestured to the lessee, but who do not understand.

The 'Create the close,' said ship's steward, 'your shirt, button the close. I can see everything. I do not want to see everything. I have already seen far too much.'

Ibi stood by the door and lured her upper body rhythmically. They cried in silence.

The tenant tied his shirt further close, at the top of the stud.

When did a ship's steward with his right fist on the table so hard that he and the lessee still bezeerde two steps backwards. 'You pay for this apartment,' shouted ship's steward. Because he had recalled that he had to scream, that it had planned to make huge roar, if an injured animal. 'For the furniture you pay for gas and light, for the views of the Vondelpark, for the privilege that you in the best part of the Van Eeghenstraat resides, in the best part of Amsterdam and that for a reasonable price, very reasonable i would say, but you do not pay for my daughter. Is that what you understand? Not for my daughter.'

He kept his forehead as if he had to think of fixed what he wanted to say yet, but he had not more to say. This was what he had to say. He had said. Now he could continue. Yes, he had said everything that needs to be said. He could continue. He had greatly restricted to cases of abuse.

But otherwise than he had expected, the architect not bedremmeld remained and debt are aware silence, the architect said with hoarse voice: 'will you be sorry. This will not remain without effect.' He betastte his forehead and saw the blood that his hand was sticking. He looked forward, bowled, more bowled than alarmed. In the confrontation with the blood seemed to come the pain. Because he often moaned. No, he jammerde gently. A parent child, also that still. Of course, the worst were kons mother.

And ship's steward heard his daughter whispering: 'Andreas.'

What made him very. Ibi's whispers. His daughter which the lessee 'Andreas'. He was the tenant does not name. A lessee who had a name, was busy family, who got the door not more. The lessee was called tenant. No more.

What was went wrong? Why did he not better attention? How he had this man ever can get?

'I Declaration,' said the architect, and his accent was stronger than ever. 'Dear. I do this declaration, Mr ship's steward. This will not remain without effect.' He remained but to the blood on his hands. As far as it was not. A few drops. As if he were at work in the garden had cut.

Ship's steward grabbed as in a reflex the stalamp. But it was more something to hold, to seek support, than for a weapon at hand. What kind of weapon was so'n broken stalamp is at all?

Previously used as child had a ship's steward often under the blood interned. He had I made?

'I,' he said only. 'You can also on. I will make a declaration. My daughter is not available for rent. It is not included in the price.'

He roared just up again.

When he griste the envelope of the table and ran through to Ibi, which had ceased to cry. Flickering she was standing against the wall.

What were they lean. A child is still. Now the game was delayed, it was clear to see. Nobody could deny.

'come with me,' he said.

They shook her head.

'come with me,' he said again.

'I stay here,' she shouted.

Ship's steward looked his daughter. Her hands for her small breasts. On the bank was its bloesje, also a birthday gift. Of her mother. And of Tirza. They had the selected together. He took the, gave it to his daughter, and said: 'pull this, Ibi, and come with me.'

And in addition to the cd player was the architect, with the back of his hand against his forehead pressed. Certainly afraid to bleeding to death.

The man was too confused or too shy to go to the bathroom to walk and something in the medicine cabinet to search. A Mole. More was not necessary.

The bloesje Ibi withdrew with her face to the wall. As in the dressing room of the gymlokaal. She took hardly worth the close to buttons. She wore no bra. They did not think it was necessary. 'I have almost nothing,' she said one evening. 'Why should I wear a bra?'

Ship's steward had left this rhetorical question unanswered. His wife was not that evening. His wife was often uithuizig. 'You're just a a finicky bitch,' he had ever against the wife said. 'What must be your daughters?',

'I stay here,' repeated Ibi when they the blouse is wearing them and they no longer have to go to the wall did to watch. 'I stand by Andreas.' She was calm. In the calm came the determination.

Andreas. That name. Ship's steward had the impression that he was beaten with a gear lever. He knew no Andreas. He wanted to know no Andreas.

Ibi saw was found. There were still some tears on her cheeks. It heard at puberty. Shout, shrilling, crying. Nothing to worry about. Other teens did the same.

She looked at the tenant as they probably already had looked at him when he had met for the first time, when they had come here for the rent, anxious but strictly, sincere and yet challenging. Self-assured, but without hope. She came to the envelope, but they had a different job — one that they had given itself. It was a game for her, one big game. And look what it came as you did not know that you had to stop playing.

The architect said nothing more, he continued his wound palpation and he looked not to the subsidiary or to the father. He looked at his own hands, the table, the floor. He had the pressure with itself.

'You coming with me,' said ship's steward, 'otherwise you can stay here and for always.' He waited not for an answer, like he knew and feared, more than anything else the answer on his last warning feared. He took it in its upper arm, he pinch in its upper arm and pushed her out the door from the stairs.

In the stairwell began the shrilling again. The Crying. The moaning. The Spades. She was trying to kick her father. They tried in extricating themselves from Hofmeesters handle, but it did not and her attempts were also perhaps half-hearted. They had no choice. By Andreas continue? How will this be? As if they were deep in her heart knew that also Andreas didn't want that they remained.

Ship's steward pushed its for itself, how they tried to him biting and kicking. This was a rescue operation. Act on it. came Once they have downstairs was, she could to himself.

The house of the living room in to the bank where the evening newspaper on him was waiting. The evening newspaper that he is so quiet and peaceful had read, while his daughter two floors up was raped. If you had to mention that yet. So he called the in any case.

They showed on the bank. They deployed as a hedgehog.

The wooed you was not ceased. With long strokes went by and it seemed like there never would come to an end..

In his hand was a ship's steward the envelope with the money that now was not counted. Not once and not twice. The tradition was broken. Everything was different. There was also no hope of financial independence, no dreams in that hope we heard. Only his daughter was there. In coils on the bench. One large crumb misery. Sobbing, whiny.

'Doe quiet,' he said. 'Ibi, run quietly. Soothe. You are back home. Everything is good. You are safe.'

He ran for the bank back and forth. Now he was here again, he could not stop with polar bears. Something he had overlooked, something went wrong was, and he had not thought of in advance. He had made a mistake, while he had hate to errors. 'Ibi,' he said. 'Sweetheart. It is a good thing.'

The wooed you loved. They looked at him as he had the tenant outsiders. They were not for nothing family. He recognized the look.

'Geenstijl,' she said.

He kept his hand on his foot as if he sneezing, but the nies was not. He travelled to his lower lip. Vague he felt an emerging headache.

Never before had they called him geenstijl. It was a word which he had to consider a word which he no Council knew. They had never been kicked him. Geenstijl was worse than shovels. That is why he ignored the. He did as if he had heard nothing. He wanted to hear it, he did not know how he had to respond to. There were more daughters who their father called geenstijl. He had his father never called geenstijl. Unthinkable.

Ship's steward said only: 'Ibi, soothe. You are now securely. You are back home.'

The only answer to his request for calm was that they stood up. They ran to the door. Ship's steward was her for. Old he was, as he had climbed the stairs he suffers from respiratory distress, but this was here for him a question of survival and when you are busy to survive, you can forget all respiratory distress. He blocked the door.

'Where do you want to go?' he asked.

'upwards,' she shouted.

'To your room?'

'upwards,'. Repeated 'To him. To Andreas.'

'Why?'

'I want to top,' she said one more time now quieter. 'Plain. Therefore. It is absolutely none of you. I am no longer a child. I may go where I want. You are my boss.'

Simply 'Why is no reason. You have nothing to search. Here you live. To me, at your parents, from your sister living you. Here you have to find something.'

'You're my boss krijste not,'. 'hold on the boss about me to play, only because you have no one else can play the boss.'

That was. The pain was already in place before he could really think of what they referred to in those terms. All truth did pain, but still more, each year a little more.

'I don't play the boss about you, I can tell you that you only friendly also not to top Can.'

'My panties is there still krijste,'. I would like 'what that will upwards.'

'What is still there?'

'My panties, idiot. My panties. My panties. Do you understand the now?'

They screamed as he its long time, perhaps had never hear you scream.

And something made a ship's steward ziedend again. The way in which they said it, the way they looked at him, the word 'stab', a terrible word. 'Pants" was bad enough but 'Tab'. A slippery word, a word that made him uncomfortable almost crazy. In his own house, opposite his own daughter.

He was furious as above, in the house of the lessee. The anger torn and destroyed him and that made him still woedender. The word 'Tab', the fact that wooed you his eldest daughter so suddenly, so easily came to an end. The emerging headache.

That is why he did something which he had never done, not by his daughters.

He gave Ibi a slap. A hard. He could not save soft. If he did, it was hard.

They remained standing.

They krijste not. They cried not. They looked at him. Speechless.

It was quiet and it was quiet. It was as though he was finished with the counting of the rent and they now afwachtte what he would give her. Its share.

This seemed at the time that they both weather father and daughter were. The time full of interpretation, the ritual. But he said nothing, he had already something.

In Ibi's eyes he saw no gratitude, no joy over its share, no confidential wink about the secret operation which they had together each month, only contempt. An overriding contempt.

When he heard foot steps on the stairs. He turned around to and saw his wife hastily to accentuate the stairs with Tirza behind. The small Tirza.

They were in the meantime come home. The between time. How long he was actually above? How long had it all time? He had no idea. A few minutes and no more.

'What is going on here?' asked the wife. 'What is that noise? And what do you see out!'

How did he take out? He put his shirt in his pants, wiped the sweat of his brow. He looked as always, felt.

Ship's steward looked at Tirza. They had a red lolly in her mouth. Always as they are to that girlfriend, Emilie was called, they had been a lollipop in her mouth. Ship's steward disgusted of lolly's. They were poor. Bad for the teeth, bad for the stomach, bad for the child.

'What is going on here, Jörgen?' asked the wife again.

'De stalamp is broken,' said he finally, after he has a couple of times around itself had a look as if he is ensure that he wanted in his own home.

'What stalamp?'

'Die of the lessee. You first had bought for us.'

'Is that the problem?'

He was sleeping. He brought the envelope of the one hand to the other.

'The problem?' he tried to remember what the problem was and how he could make the best, in a few words. 'No, that is not the problem.'

When looked at the wife to her daughter. 'Ibi,' she said, 'what is going on here? What is the problem?'

Ibi remained silent. Glares at her father. Contempt, compassion and anger, that was what he saw. His eldest daughter of man. When he just turned back to the wife.

'The problem,' said ship's steward soft, 'is the tenant. The tenant must go. He makes us broken.'

Ibi did a step forward. Not for her mother to her father. 'No,' she said, 'Andreas is not the problem. You are not the problem, dad. And that you are already very long.'

Instinctively he raised his hand.

He kicked his children do not. He did but not his children. Net only. A minute or so ago. An exception. A slippertje.

He left his hand pockets. This time he controlled, he had everything under control. He had to control itself. Then came the rest. The handling of current affairs, spraying the garden during dry periods, the caps of the trees, the collection of the rent, life itself. Check yourself, since it all started.

'Doing it but,' said Ibi. 'You can my love for Andreas still not save me.'

That name, the terrible, cursed name.

He looked to his wife, but he did not see a glimpse of understanding. No sign of understanding.

Love for Andreas. At another time he is laughing hard he would have laughed and yet a tad concerned. What did his daughter of love? 'such great words,' he would say, 'orphan very carefully.'

'Can someone tell me now what is going on here?' asked the wife. They sounded irritated. As if he were a strange for its was a boy on the street that her daughter had attacked, and now they wanted to find out what exactly happened before she considers Velde.

He ran without answer to the kitchen, crossed the envelope in his pocket and washed his hands. First one times, then a second time and then washed his face, in the hope that the dormant would eliminate headache. He dried ends with a tea towel. He found no towel.

When he walked into the room again, were the wife and his daughters on the bank, with its three people, and they looked at him. They said nothing. The only sound that should be heard it was smak reaching sound of Tirza to its lolly sucked. A gaping hole was it.

The newspaper was slid to the ground. He folded it up and laid him on the coffee table.

Why they said nothing? What they wanted from him? What he had to do then? Nothing? The sidelines and secretly leave?

He did an extra knot of his shirt open, as if it was what the breath benam him, to close clothing.

'Tirza,' he said, 'throw that lolly road. Lollipops are bad for your teeth.'

There was no reply. The mother was not at. The mother only said: 'Let that child in peace. You have already seen enough damage tonight.'

The respiratory distress was decreased. What is in the place was it was a stiff feeling in the whole body. Perhaps he had to the physiotherapist. Or more tennis. Pain, that was the, his body was pain.

'Damage?' asked ship's steward. 'Damage? Where did you take over? Damage? You know what was going on above? Do you really know what in your own house is in progress?'

'It was your idea,' said the wife soft, 'die floor to rent. I would not have had the.'

It felt like Hofmeesters foot muscles were paralyzed. As if he was stunned by a dentist and still could not speak.

'would not have? But how we had to be able to live here than ever? Would not have. For you,' he cried, 'for you i have done so. For your future. And, take those Tirza lolly from your mouth.'

He looked his wife and daughters to but they seem not to understand him. 'would not,' I muttered he. 'would not.' He could only shake his head due to the lack of understanding shown.

'Jörgen,' said the wife, 'Ibi is a large girl. Ibi is a woman. It is not the way to treat her friends to.'

'But that is her boyfriend not,' shouted ship's steward. The tenant is '. You understand that not? You understand nothing? And she is still a woman. She is not mature. She is a child, a child. It is my fault. I had never been to above must send the rent for.'

He looked his own family, searching for something of understanding, but he saw nothing what seemed. He spoke a different language. He came from another country. He was a different man than the rest of his family, a become Fremdkörper. in this family. A remnant, but of what? From the moment of conception. The fact that his wife had twice fertilised. He was the remainder. An unnecessary remainder, such as a umbilical cord. And only one thing made to that end is not necessary: the money.

'You're really not normal,' said Ibi. 'Denk you that I am the only in my class i with an older boyfriend?'

He looked at the wife, but they seemed to find this normally. All-day confessies along you go if the weather. Everything it was surprising they normally. Everything he rejected, it was also good to understand and does not present a problem. He was old-fashioned, a stand-in-the-road. Indeed, an unnecessary hangover from a different time.

'MAAR,' said ship's steward, and he heard the despair in his voice, 'dat is not your friend. That is the tenant. That can be a friend are not. That is the tenant.'

'Papa,' said Tirza.

He looked to her. She was small for her age. They belonged to the smallest of the class, but the family doctor had said that the growth spurt. That they are not worried about having to worry.

'Papa,' said Tirza again.

'Yes,' he said and he realized that he for his own family stood as before a court of law. 'Doe lolly leave anyway. You can find the not even tasty. It is pure chemical rubbish. And there is other candy that you really nice place.'

'I have also a boyfriend. He is seated in the lady in the class. Stine'

Ship's steward wiped on his forehead. Sweat in his hands and sweat in his neck, sweat everywhere. That was perhaps also with the respiratory distress and with that uneasy feeling in the chest, arms, legs. The own body was an inconvenience. An instrument that was inadequate, and that he should be discarded if it were not for the fact that there is no replacement was. That was the age, which began today on the stairs.

'Dat is very nice,' he said. The ceremonies during the evening you must eat everything about tell, about lady Stine.'

'Not About lady Stine. About my boyfriend.'

'Yes, that is what I mean, dear Tirza, that I mean it. About your boyfriend.'

When it was quiet, and also Hofmeesters strayed off and that it was thought that everything has been resolved. This evening that they were talking about and lady Stine about the boyfriend. As each evening they would sit around the table. Maybe a little taciturn. Ibi looked often grumpy, but that belonged to the puberty. They would sit around the table, he would sit there. This was his family, these were his family members. He belonged to these people that he would soon to realize, as Tirza table about lady Stine told us, or about her boyfriend.

Just when he almost convinced that everything had was that everything went as it always was he heard the wife ask 'How are you this good now?'

He Regaining his back. If he thought about it or sank into in daydream, he often took a slightly curved posture.

'Good? Where have you on?'

And Tirza said with its high, sweet voice: 'Yes papa, how are you going to make this good now?'

He travelled to his lower lip. He had the idea that he has no side on could be, and that in his own home.

'But Tirza,' he said, as if they were the only thing was that it had made that question. 'I do nothing to make good. The tenant must something. Because he is a dirty man. He is a dirty architect. He is a dirty tenant. He is so dirty that he can no longer. I put it to the house.'

I also 'Dan,' shouted Ibi. 'Dan i now. So I take my stuff. I am still tonight disappeared.'

They stood up, they walked to the gift table.

'You see not what you do?' asked the wife, and they talked now not more quiet and calm. 'You see not what you do? Do you understand something of your daughter?'

'I understand very much of my daughter,' he said. 'I understand that she is attacked. No, that she is raped, and that they are in the war. That we must see a doctor. To the police. I understand that. They may be pregnant.'

'No,' shouted Ibi. 'Let him stop. Let it cease.'

They picked up the watch that they had obtained. She loved it in her hand.

'stop that? To stop, Ibi? Are you me in my house the law? Are you tell me what I can and cannot do that?'

'I am not pregnant' shouted Ibi. 'I am on the pill, geenstijl.' She threw the watch for located on the ground and with its right foot stampte they insisted as if they were too large a spin wild death stairs. They remained until the beast death pitching was. 'and that I do not need more,' she shouted. 'I do nothing of you. I need never something of you.'

Ship's steward wiping his nose, even though there is nothing to wipe fell. Too old, he was too old to children and actually started against his will. But when he was young, there were the expressionist poets who at the same time as child and pet in his life figured.

'Why do I know nothing?' he asked soft. 'Why nobody tells me something? Why do I always as last?'

'Because you never ask,' said the wife. 'You ask nothing. Besta you really? Do you live here with us?'

So that is the he thought, I never ask something. But how do you certain things? And when? In the dessert? Or on sunday afternoon, if it rains?

'There must you say,' said he could quietly, 'You almost every night when a a finicky bitch the house from rent. I do everything, and with pleasure, not, I go to the parent evenings, i stay at home for the children, but you are not there, you just need to be there not because you are artist. Yes, dear children, you mother is an artist. Nobody wants to buy its work, and between us and silence: it is not to be seen, but not that makes her, she paints by.' He raised his voice. 'And then complains that she said to me that I do not know that my eldest daughter on the pill. How did I that need to know? I must ask for the four weeks confuse the bathroom and see if I left in the medicine cabinet the pill of my daughter? Or should I each evening on the food questions: "Who of you is on the pill, dear children? A show of hands. Which of you has had a sexually transmitted disease, dear children? A show of hands. Who of you is today on the school square in the arse fucked, dear children? Hands." Is that what it means to be father? According to you? And then I begin there today. I did not believe that this should be the case. I had no idea that I was expected. No idea.'

Ibi was there. The wife was on and picked up the remnants of the watch on, they looked as if they wanted to investigate forward or the still could not be repaired. And Tirza looked with its large, brown eyes. Curious. But also tense. She looked like they understood.

Nobody responded to his diatribe. They Galilee to him as if he was an alien. Not anxious, rather curious and surprised, but with the remote that is an inevitable if a man is an alien.

'I am discreet,' said ship's steward eventually but, 'what that will do I not certain questions. Out of politeness.'

The wife went to him. 'Jörgen,' she said, 'it is not. Or you discreet or not. As we do to solve this. This is what it is all about. And it is not only you. It is me. It is. Ibi It is also a Tirza.'

He pushed her aside in an attempt to leave the house room. But so easy they gave not. They went into the opening of the door. 'Jörgen,' she said, 'denk after, word quiet. Just do you do things you regret in.'

He hustle and bustle its against the wall, it rattled as Ibi just had vibrated loose. At the top of the residence of the tenant. A child. A flickering child she was. Only her head was an adult and no more.

There was a matter of urgency. He understood the. There was almost to everything. His daughters had almost as if they felt that it would circumvent their life for the good and was begun. But hurry was no excuse.

'Are you me now also with a stalamp on my head?' asked the wife. 'Is that what you are going to do?'

He showed her, he walked to the kitchen.

Weather waste his hands, he had forgotten that he had already done just that. Under the sink in the box where the toothbrushes and the soap were preserved, were also empty plastic bags. He took a plastic bag, remained in the corridor for the mirror and decency by his hair. Then he walked out of the house. He had his wife and the children in the living room to hear about him, whisper, but he gave no attention to. They would heave, would ultimately they all understand. Ever. Later. It is for their sake.

First he walked in the direction of the Vondelpark, but when he crossed the street was, he continued and walked back again. The empty plastic bag Union flew in his hand.

Many met him incomprehensible for, the people and his own family, the views of the people, incomprehensible and unknown. There he could not penetrate. Not in their ideas, not in the people themselves.

For the lower door of the lessee, he remained. He stood there, as he had been earlier. With a handkerchief wiping his face.

Then he phoned to.

He waited.

This time it was open.

For the second time that night he climbed up the stairs and again he experienced the sensation that there is too little air his lungs was sucked in. You learn to live with respiratory distress and other defects. You know after a time not better, you avoid certain activities. So it would be. More than just he remarked how he was stuffy a little stairs.

Finally he was above. He sweat as if he was in the tropics.

The tenant was on his dining table. Ship's steward studied it from the hallway. As if he were a peep show was binn agreed the cracks. Not to go to a naked woman to look at but to an injured tenant.

The man had still not related or plaster on his forehead pasted. The blood was solidified. Were the fragments of the stalamp tidy. He was there simply. Without doing anything. With the door open.

When a ship's steward was entering the room, did the man is not. He looked his house boss is on and when he stared back to the table where what paper on layers, a magazine about architecture, a few pencils.

Ship's steward searched in his bags, he was also in panic because he thought to have lost him but he found the envelope in his back pocket. He presented it on the table. He rejected on his face, his neck. He had the feeling that he sneezing.

So he continued to wait as if he wanted to find out whether only the lessee would tackle the money, but the envelope remained on the table.

He waited and he waited and eventually he remembered for which he was. Everything he remembered. Ship's steward said: 'I come to bring you the rental.'

There was no reply. Also looked at the architect ship's steward, when he founded his look back on the tabletop.

'I come to bring you the rental,' said ship's steward, 'because you are here not more desirable. You have five days. I will give you five days to get here to get away with it.'

The architect looked at him. Blankly, strictly neutral, as if a ship's steward had said: 'Good weather, but about five days we get a thunderstorm.'

When a ship's steward not expected more that he was going to say something, said the architect: 'I do not know what your daughter has told you, I assume the truth, Mr ship's steward, but it is not what you think, not what you appear to believe. What is between me and your daughter has occurred, was mutual.'

Ship's steward submitted his warm hand on the table in the other hand he still loved the empty plastic bag, bowed himself to the man, he remembered the dream of the cat in the sink. Nauseous made him this man. Misselijker than all previous tenants together.

'Mutual,' he said when he went to the old dream of had opted out, 'How can something mutually between a man of your age and a girl of fifteen, of less than fifteen? That comes here to collect the rent. Do you really know what you say? How can that mutual? How old are you? You have no idea what is reciprocal. Between you and me, that would be mutual. Between you and me. Mutual. A girl of fifteen. Have you no sense of responsibility? Are you a beast? Is that what you are trying to tell me that you are a beast, disguised as an architect, that above my family a beast lives? The best that I spot in Amsterdam rented a beast?'

Ship's steward cried almost. It was not a sorrow, it was impotence. He wanted to say more, but he understood that it was useless. He put his left hand in his neck. A wet neck. It seemed as if he had fever.

'Your daughter,' said the lessee and he often looked almost happy as if he were to angels to someone who thought, cleaner picking him and out of the mud travelled, 'is an intelligent and luff girl. No child.'

The word 'luff' came to ship's steward as a beating.

'Luff?' he asked. 'How do you mean, for-?'

'It is early variety.'

Ship's steward shook his head. First slowly and then faster. 'You are a pervert,' he said. 'Dat is the. That is the only thing i can think of. A pervert with excuses. The cost of the stalamp i pull on the lock, you understand. That is not more than fair. It was not a cheap stalamp.' He hijgde of the voltage of the pain in his chest, the excitement about the language which uitsloeg man.

Then there came at last another expression on the face of the architect. The money would have been shaken him, money churns the tenant always wake up. The landlord saw anger on the face of the architect.

'That is not at all fair, Mr ship's steward.'

He wanted to get up but a ship's steward said: 'you remain seated. If you do not want any accidents happen, you will remain seated. I am not for myself. Do you know that? It is a feeling that you are not responsible for yourself, that you yourself have no longer control? That someone else is controlling your body?'

He showed his large, warm hands. He showed them to the lessee as if only the appearance was enough. The hands with which he worked in the garden, its own garden and the garden which of his parents had been.

Perhaps this was the by the wound on his forehead, or by the way in which a ship's steward had spoken, but the tenant was not. He stayed where he was.

Ship's steward ran through the room and his look focused on the floor. It postponed a chair, looked under the table. Finally, in a corner next to the bank, he found what he is looking for. A thong, a black thong. He picked it up and did it in a plastic bag.

Also he continued to stand still.

He looked at the man who now total seemed on the figure who had his daughter fucked as a beast. The architect was there as a school boy who is caught by the cheating. Younger than just he seemed. Actually more boy than man. Then said ship's steward: 'Over six days I come here again, then your stuff Road, then you are away. And then leave me and my family for always with peace. My daughter is not included in the price. Remember that. Children are not included in the price.'

'Meneer ship's steward,' said the architect while he gazed back to the table top. 'You understand something not. You want does not understand anything. With rent this has nothing to do with love has to do.'

Ship's steward rendered the plastic bag with the panties more firmly as if he was afraid that it would deprive him. The architect looked forward. He had set up his head.

It was a translucent bag. You could see what's in it.

'what you have done with my daughter,' said the father, 'dat is not a love. That is a punishable offense. That is the only what it is. That is the only thing that can be said about it. Love is never a punishable offense.'

He wanted to turn already, but the architect stood up. He came not to ship's steward, he was only.

The architect was a long man. Long and lean. Not unattractive but not personable. On the street he would at most noticeable because of its length.

'thinking you that I was the first?' asked the architect. 'thinking you know? Is that what you bothering? Let me help you out of a dream. I was perhaps the fourth or fifth. I did not dare to ask again the echo i was. Of me she has nothing to learn. Previously vice versa.' He snickered. At first it was a gentle smile, but it was becoming increasingly fierce., gegrinnik The reminder of Hofmeesters oldest daughter did the architect chuckle.

There was a ship's steward with the plastic bag in his left hand, he looked at the tall man, to the ridiculous wound on his forehead. The courage that that man uitstraalde, that so many people nowadays did lack luster, the assured, the lack of defeat suffered, the fact that they had any claim to everything and the idea that everything was for sale or rent, even his daughter, that he've despised. A non had him, when he was still on the secondary school, learned that humanity is a matter of nullity was. The better you do your own nullity see how more humane you. They knew no invalidity, the people, more they were their own nullity smooth forgotten. They were opposed to revolt, but it would be a high price to pay. Without nullity was not.

'It is not a question of whether you was the first,' said ship's steward, 'or the eighth. You was the oldest. This is what it is all about.'

The plastic bag creaked in his hand.

'took the initiative,' said the architect. 'I have against its said: "This is wisely? I have nothing to offer you." But they wanted to hear anything. They are there early today, Mr ship's steward. Increasingly earlier. Everything starts earlier and ends later. Your daughter is not from you. Do you think that. That hopes you. But it is not so. On a day you will still come back. They were looking for a listening ear. They are looking for someone to whom they could tell everything. At her home had made the obviously too busy with other things. Well, that is how it is. A. They are looking for — I am sorry that as its right in your face to say — they were looking for affection.'

The husband went down again. As if he had said what he had to say. As if he had participated in a conference and also had stood up to the speaker on a few points friendly but decided to correct it.

Ship's steward breathed in deeply. Take a deep breath was always a good way to unwind. But the deeper he inademde, the better the pain he felt his chest.

'How long has it been going on?' he asked eventually, when he was again a little air could obtain.

'a few weeks, a few months at most. God, I have not kept up to date, I have other things on my main than your daughter, Mr ship's steward.'

Ship's steward snoof if an injured beast.

When he nodded. He had nothing to ask for more. He knew everything. The architect had other things on his head.

He was still the same, pro forma actually. He wanted to see the money the man. He wanted to be there if the tenant are money, that is no longer was accepted in his pocket.

Because there is nothing happened, he said: 'Unzip the money.'

Also watched the tenant to the envelope when he pushed him toward him and set it with a slight smile in his pocket.

This event was completed. It was over. Ship's steward had done what he had to do so.

'I have to do with you,' said the architect.

'How do you mean?' ship's steward was already on the way out, but he turned around to.

'How do you mean?' he asked again.

'I sympathise with you. I would prefer an arm around you save. Because I understand you best. I would arm around you want to store and against you want to say that it is not so bad, that they on its feet. Ibi. It is young, personable, intelligent, horny, I am sorry that I must use that word, but that is also important for a woman in this time, and it is the more than anything else. And she knows, she knows damn well. Cunning is that they are also. No, it is not good with her. Surely you will also have seen? How horny she is, and how they need to play in order to fool us?'

Ship's steward listened to the catalog of good characteristics of his eldest daughter. And he smiled briefly internally, because he has had the feeling that he was doing to be insane.

'Met me?' asked ship's steward, when the list came to an end. I have 'you pity?'

'I am not the only one who thinks so. Others have me the idea. I am by others you will see otherwise. Not only as an intolerable house boss, but as a human person with weak spots, with a story, a history, someone you can understand. O, you say to yourself, so he does so. As is. And then you can live with it.'

The bag with Ibi's panties has always seemed to be heavier. As if there was iron in or a kilo of steaks. Ship's steward did only return again, away from the door, a pass in the direction of the table. The word 'horny' showed him still do not disconnect. As he had never been to his children.

'How do you mean?' he asked. 'You are not the only?'

'As I am doing.'

'what you say?'

'Dat others also sympathize with you.'

'Who? Who are the others? I would say that people know?'

'Your daughter for example. Ibi. It also has sympathy with you. They're ashamed not only for you, they also has sympathy with you. She has told me they came here really not only for the sex. They also wanted to talk to.'

If there is still a had been stalamp ship's steward the architect again on his head skipped. Hard and long.

There was no stalamp more. And he knew what he did. He mastered.

'You are trying to protect them,' said ship's steward, without knowing against whom he talked, 'as well as possible, because really protect them you can not but you try it, and then on a day they someone like you. So it goes. Obviously. And then you go back, you go back in time and you think: where i made the mistake, where i have overlooked something, what have I done that i could not do better? It is never in you raised, it is never in your main era, idea? That is a child? Have you never thought: she is a child? The child of my landlord?'

The architect shook his head. 'But it is not the child,' he said, 'they was long ago ceased to be children. She is less child than we do with two together. Do you know what they said to me? "Sex with boys of my age, that is always so inconvenient. And clumsy sex is bad sex." Yes, I also did not know what I heard. Clumsy sex is bad sex. Well, I found them not inconvenient.' The architect giggled.

Ship's steward stared at the man as to a pop in the haunted house that suddenly appears to be true, no wax that depends to deter people, no, against all expectations in a truly common. What ever live and was for some time now and not more.

'It is save,' said the architect, 'and i have its occasionally helped a little. Because it is its great dream. Or large dream, it is one of her dreams, I believe. She has a lot on such as that goes with people of that age.'

'On the savings, for what?' ship's steward asked the question mechanical, without thinking. His body he was still under control, but his voice not more.

'For a breast augmentation. She says: "I have nothing." And that is so. From above is just a little boy. The hope that the natural will do it has dropped, but she is to save, as I have already said. Occasionally I stopped her what. A vijftigje, a honderdje. You can smile. But for her it is a matter of life or death. The tits. No, it is a special child, a bold young woman who knows what she wants. You can be proud of her. You are also proud of her, I know. Just as I am. We are proud of her.'

Ship's steward ran out the door without to say something more, he ran down the stairs, went his house and walked right through to the kitchen. He was, what he was? He knew what he was no longer. Or is, he knew the, accident, that he was. A brok accident, accident made of bones, meat and what brain.

There was Tirza, on a stool, she was engaged to open kitchen cabinets.

'What are you looking for?' he asked.

'something to eat.'

'We are going so food.'

He placed the plastic bag on the worktop, took the panties out and lock the plastic bag on under the sink, where all empty plastic bags were stored.

'Why do you get angry, papa?' asked Tirza while taking in the crank climbed.

'I am not angry.'

'Why have you Ibi than skipped?'

'I have not skipped.' Ibi He searched for words, but the only word that came back again and again that it is not left, that he had never more would be leaving, was the word 'medelijden'. May have to daughters their father? Girls of fifteen? Just fifteen. And why? There was no reason to pity with him. He lived with his family in the good part of the Van Eeghenstraat, he had a respectable job as editor of a literary publishing, two beautiful daughters, one did all gymnasium, the other went to do that, he had a woman and a worker, he was not learns a sophisticated thanks to financial policy for him and his family. He was not a man to pity to have. Well, are oldest daughter saved for a breast augmentation. In the puberty many people did the craziest things. Were probably ten thousand girls of fifteen saving for breast augmentation. It heard. Nothing to them. He was an old father perhaps, but he was not a man to pity to have.

'I have calmed her,' he said soft and pensive.

'It says that you have beaten her.'

He put his hand in his neck, which was still moist. 'Ibi is a bit confused. How was it at school?'

'Ibi says that they may have no boyfriend.'

'They may best a boyfriend.'

'MAG I have a boyfriend?'

'You may also have a boyfriend.' He took Tirza on and continued its back on the crank. 'obviously that,' he said, 'I still keep yours Tirza. You may everything.'

They looked at him seriously, inquiring, and he wiped with a handkerchief on his face to remove the sweat. Only when he the handkerchief in his pocket wanted to stop, he saw that the Ibi's panties.

He explained the weather on the worktop, looked to one second. A black thong with a versierinkje that he could not at home. A beast. A butterfly? A? A Bumblebee?

He saw Tirza look. He lifted her. It took him effort. He had its long not raised. As he stood there in his kitchen, with his youngest daughter on his arm.

'Papa,' she said, 'is that of Ibi?' She pointed her finger to what on the counter.

'Yes,' he said. 'Dat is Ibi's pants. She has forgotten.'

Together they looked to the pants, Tirza and her father.

'If I am large later' asked Tirza, 'I get no tits?'

He took a deep breath.

'You will get them. Every woman gets breasts. Also you. And Ibi. But we need to be patient. You must learn to be patient. Everyone must have patience.'

When he pressed Tirza closer to adhere to and he remembered how he had held Tirza when she was a year old. He had lifted high into the air, above his head. 'Tirza,' he had said, 'you most beautiful of me, you love most. Do you know what you are? You are our solar queen. You have. And later if you large, go maybe dancing, or discover a new star, or you're writing and you win the Nobel Prize. Everything can be, my love Tirza, everything you like, because you are the solar queen. And now I will you completely dead cuddle.'

In fact he had its Mala, he had on a Mala read, to his wife a few days before the birth said to him: 'Mala means "bad" in Spanish. As a child you can not?'

When they had decided to call its Tirza, first with h, later but without, in order to avoid Hebrew associations.

He would not that his youngest daughter be called "bad".

'Come, Tirza,' he said. 'You're too heavy. I put you back on the ground.'

Part Two — The Sacrifice

1

The guests drip than expected later within a ship's steward. It is half past eight and there is still no one. That is why he eats the first batch baked sardines itself but. In fact he had only later in the evening to begin with baking the sardines, but he was not able to take in. Three sardines he has already. He eats the spine. You noticed there is very little of it is such a small fish.

He runs to Tirza's room to her a freshly baked sardientje. She has a black dress to that for years in her closet will not dress which he, together with her for this celebration has purchased. One of three hundred euro with matching shoes of almost the same amount.

He must have looked at disappointed because they saves an arm around him and says: 'I just might put it on, PAP, but tonight he wouldn't state. Tonight is really not. I am not in the mood. It is simply not the dress from this night.'

He smiles generous with the board sardines in his hand. 'But we have bought him for this evening, Tirza, specially for your party,' he would say. He remains silent. His disappointment are case. They must remain invisible to the world. If Tirza is turned over smiles her father still, seemingly sensitive. 'You state everything,' he says and let her only.

Ship's steward opens the bathroom door. Ibi is in bad lie with the ELLE, the ladies like that they used magazine've despised. 'Papa' calls on them, 'You can not correct?'

He let his gaze thought loos her body glide, a few seconds it to its abdominal tail. 'Sorry,' he says, 'Are you pregnant?'

'Papa' calls on them, 'stel not that kind of weird questions and leave me alone.'

It closes the bathroom door and enters the bedroom within. The wife still do not know what they will attract. To make the difficult decision — perhaps shoot something suddenly her föhnt within — they first her hair. Almost nude she for the mirror in the bedroom, hairdryer loosely in her hands. A smoldering his cigarette in an ashtray. Apparently she has the ashtrays somewhere found.

Also state ship's steward silently to her to watch, he wants to say something, something feel free to tell ends and vriendschappelijks, something you say against a good old friend who after years once again on the visit. Nothing to fire him within. Then he drops down the stairs. He wonders whether she will ever want to leave. He sees on against her departure, but the idea that they are never from now on it will leave him not less benauwt

He is now back in the kitchen on a stool and eat, without really enjoy, still but a fried sardine. He has completely forgotten his youngest daughter with a sardientje to pamper yourself. 'Tirza,' he calls with half-full mouth, 'You must also go to taste. They are so fresh, so you get even in Portugal not.' There is no answer. He would carefully sardientje a baked in her mouth wanting to stop, and then continue to look at how they enjoy. Then he would want her mouth wipe with a paper towel, but he does not impose on them. He remains without to chew, he hears how someone hard the front door closes. Tirza would leave just before her party, now the guests can appear at any time? He does not understand why they do not want to come to him together with him of the sardines to enjoy. Slowly resumed chewing the ship's steward. There is so much what he does not understand. More and more.

Two times he is already with the plateau full of sushi and sashimi ingewandeld the garden. To practice for as the young people are the future. The plateau is specially for Tirza's party purchased in the Japanese shopping in the Beethovenstraat. He is proud. They know him in that shop by name.

The torches are lit. Its apple tree has a ship's steward two weeks ago nobody pruned to allow the risk in tipsy condition against a low hanging branch to walk.

He has also now tidied itself, he looks good and yet unobtrusive, he says. As fathers to see hear out, they want at least prevent the child is ashamed for them. To children is good to note how natural assimilation. The child would like nothing better than the color of its surroundings.

Jörgen ship's steward is like a rocket which is ready for the launch.

It stands on the crank and pours himself a glass of kir. On the worktop he has a makeshift bar installed. He has prepared for the creation of five different kinds of cocktails.

In fact he keeps not of kir, but it is Tirza's favorite drink. They have agreed that all guests to start a glass of kir get unless they explicitly ask something else. Even though because of the color. Will be nice. All that bright red.

Are to kir sweet, he throws in some white wine to drink and the glass hastily empty. Then he looks at his watch. Quarter for eight and still does not have the dog. They will be able to do it? It is not his party, he gives all years no celebrations, for decades not more, but he is worried. Visions that they did he leave Tirza choke and that the family ship's steward all sushi only be eaten. These visions votes him, with the glass of kir in his hand, boatyard, as though he were already know that they will actually become reality. As if it were not to be in any doubt that his fear dreams will come true. He gives himself a second glass of kir in and shout out also with his fingers on the worktop. Earlier at Book presentations he felt the same, the fear that he would be only with the author, shame on him most did when he had to come to the Author with the words: 'I think we should do with two, but that is our fine.' The panic that it could fall over just before he had to take a short speech in which he on serious and at the same time ironic, author and book or translator and book would imply. For the press who rarely was inconvenient. But that is now all over.

Soon he drinks his second glass of kir empty. 'Tirza,' he calls. 'Tirza.' There is no reaction.

He picks up the plateau with sushi and sashimi and is there for the third time in the garden. He introduces himself that the garden is full of guests. He will be the reachout which he has not met earlier tell us who he is, Tirza's father, then interested in their stories to listen. Who knows he will be a young man a convivial stub shaft in the abdomen and whisper: 'Have you not a time in my bathroom met?' Nothing will bring him out of his balance. It will be a perfect hosts. They will go home, the children, and think: what has a nice father's Tirza

After a tour through the garden, run it transmits the plateau back to the kitchen, covered with foil and put it in the fridge. He remains at the sink stand panting. Towing with the raw fish put it. He gives a glass of kir.

No, for book presentations he need never worry about. There is a reorganization of the publisher. First they wanted to dismiss him, but then they found out that because of his age was impossible. The law did not stop, the law stood between him and his dismissal in, and the law was relentless in such cases. At the beginning of April he was summoned to the Director, who are generally only with the finance and the wishes of the main office occupied herself. A heady and difficult to fathom god, the main office.

First keuvelden them enough about everyday affairs, the director and he. The children. The climate. Both of the exhibition as of the society but also in the more meteorological sense of the word. The warming of the earth came in a phrase. And then some less enough matters. The fatal disease of the head of the marketing department. Marokkaantjes for difficulties made jam problem., Especially the latter was the managing director to the heart, he lived in Naarden.

After the congestion issue you raised, was the director lazy in his chair hang from, as if the call was in fact already past, and when he had asked: 'Jörgen, what important author have you discovered really is for us, all the years that you worked here? Have you ever watched author discovered?'

The question was about a ship's steward, because they had just come to the question of Moroccans and traffic jams.

He looked out of the window when the director, then to the office and then back out the window. There was a tree in front of the window. The tree was carefully in bloom.

'I did especially translated fiction,' said ship's steward. 'I do especially translated fiction,' improved himself. 'Germany, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, is happening today much interesting. And for a while I worked on the sports book, but that was me frankly.'

'No,' said the director, 'sport Books Are you not. But you can also discover an author in Germany, or in Eastern Europe? I am wrong? The problem of the authors who brought you have is that they only have cost us money, never diverted, cost only.' He leaned even further behind. 'You know, Jörgen,' he said, 'You will not believe what I have to say. We wanted to dismiss you, but our lawyer has discovered that in view of your age is impossible. And you know what we do now? We pay you just two and a half years from, or what it is, that two years and eight months which you still have to go to you. That we pay you, including everything, insurance, holiday allowance, tended. But you do not more. You need never to come to the office. You are free to go.'

When was the director on and grabbed der Grijn transmit Hofmeesters hand so ship's steward felt compelled to also. The Director looked as if he were a television closer presenter was that its candidate the main price should be able to issue but a ship's steward could not believe that the Director really thought that this is a main price was. This was not a main price.

'What are you saying?' asked the director. 'What did you say, Jörgen?'

Ship's steward did his best to look friendly and for the first time since he had to think times his parents and to his secondary school time. Apparently it didn't matter how old you was, fifty-four, fifty-eight, sixty two, once a skipped school boy in you was to come and live and not in good time, then he remained verjoeg always there. The humiliation, that was the constant factor that was what him with the person who he bond had been at thirteen years of age. The imaginary humiliation, which perhaps was even worse than the real thing.

'I do not know what I have to say,' said ship's steward and he took his hand gently from that of the Director. Are always warm and wet hands, the eternal fear to be caught, but which, that he did not know. In fact there was nothing that they could catch him. He took no pushpin home from the office.

'I did want to continue, but this is of course also fine,' he said. He wondered why he failed to say that this is what it is concerned not at all was fine, why is he not from his mouth got. Why he is so keen to give the impression that everything went. That things are always went on as he would have liked to have seen.

For the change gave the impression that he is not very convincing. He felt bewildered and he doubted that the distress, completely against his sentence to read on his face was. Perhaps more than confusion: terror.

To allay fears, to the whole of the appearance of a friendly conversation, suspected ship's steward, slammed the director the net is not discharged employee a few times on the shoulder and said: 'Is this not the dream of us all? By paid but not more need to work? Enjoy it. Go travel. Or rowing. You will still always like just rowed across? Disconnect your desk empty and take the. I am jealous of you, I say it you are honest, I am jealous of you, but yes, I cannot yet not road, Jörgen.' The director picked for the second time Hofmeesters hand and ship's steward felt now a pop, controlled by others. Not he himself, but someone else checked his movements, his statements, even his thoughts. Something was stronger than his will. The fear, shame, the calculation that it was better not to cause problems.

There is a certain amount of school pride in the man who did everything which is not of frenzied afbeet itself. The pride of someone who would be extremely quiet and continue as if nothing has happened.

'We are not forget what you have done for this company,' said the director. 'It is a hope and it was not always easy, we know that. In short, we of course take another official farewell of you. In due time, you must let us know but how you propose that something perhaps intiems. A candlelight dinner? Or a discount voucher? For now I would just like to say that it was a pleasure to work with you and you go well, Jörgen. Enjoy it! You know…'

He brought his head even closer to that of a ship's steward, as if there is now a secret that came already have a time on his tongue had lit. 'It is perhaps strange to hear from someone who throughout his life has worked with books. But the most beautiful in the world are not the books, the most beautiful in this world are the children. Go to your daughter in France. It will be the small children. Also delicious. Go with them rowing, go with them sailing, go with them water cycling. Children love water.'

In his mouth felt ship's steward a small pit, a grape seed probably. He had at the lunch a container fruit salad eaten. He had to take the pit by.

The director was pronounced.

In Mind recessed door to the ship's steward ran. Since he just turned around and asked: 'De-business, I still transfer to someone?'

The Director made a gesture with his hand. Good temper and boys-like. He went to sit on his desk. 'Forget it," he said, 'rgeet the. Fiction from the east, since we only on. We are going to do things differently here. The time that a book only in the book trade was available is behind us. The petrol station, supermarket, bank, yes even the bank, pharmacy, the waiting room of the doctor, the coffee shop, everywhere we will offer book them on every street corner we will book them utopianism. We must not allow ourselves to be marginalized. That is dangerous for a society, as the vanguard withdraws, if the elite is satisfied with a marginal position. True culture, real culture is the power of the number, nothing else, Jörgen. The power of numbers.' The director lost some saliva, saw a ship's steward, and that was a sign that he was enthusiastic. He was rarely enthusiastic, but if the at high exception occurred, than he lost when the talk of saliva Ship's steward had no choice, he had to remain at the door, because there was still what an encore, on his resignation that no dismissal should be mentioned, a swan song on his disappearance, an improvised farewell song for the writer translated fiction.

'Groups which is said: "Who read never", Jörgen,' said the director, 'we will get them to read. Low educated men. You will see: in a year or five have that the road to the book is found, perhaps not through the book shop, perhaps via the fuel pump, or the video store, or the liquor store or the peep show for my part, but the road to the book will also have their way. Muslims, forget it, everyone says. That is not read. The illiterate are the. Nonsense, I say, but you need to know to reach you, you must deepen in their needs. Orthodox Jews. The same is true. Jehovah's Witnesses who people watch ever wanted tv, Underhill, and if they secretly watching tv, they can also sometimes secretly read a book. Sales is demography. And we are going to give the customer edit demographic, we are going to examine him, we are going to examine it, and then we are going to operate it on size. Public friendly. And size. Also the long-term unemployed, the hooligans. What for the mass media, applies for the publishers. We can only survive if we the customer as an equal partner. If we stop talking about the heads of the customers to regulate forcibly what is good or bad. Everyone can today. Let the customer and the writer each other but complementary. The people also have no more time. Not for the newspaper, not for the book, not for the tv. We have to take that into account. We need to make books for people who do not have time to read. Yes, Jörgen, what awaits us is nothing less than a revolution. Digital of nature, without ideology, or rather an ideology, the only ideology which all of us will survive: The customer is king. The customer is king, Jörgen. Have we forgotten that, because we have isolated, because we have to dismiss this where we were in. You will all agree to follow, I assume, remotely. Disconnect your desk empty and immerse yourself in the Freedom. You are a brave soldier. Others take you now. With new weapons.'

'I have never just rowed across,' said ship's steward still. When closed the door and ran quickly, as he had to the toilet urgently, to his own room. He heard the Director before the laugh at the revolution that all and everything would come, whether or not digital of nature.

He went behind his desk. In addition to the computer was a cup of cold tea. That he drank slowly. He answered a few e-mails, in none of the e-mails he made mention of his departure or of the imminent revolution and when he waited.

He waited until everyone had left the building. He waited motionless, sitting on the chair on which he had been thirty-three years. There was very little has changed in this property. The changes would now. After him.

Ship's steward thought, not to nowhere are future, not at the time that he had spent here, not to his wife, not to his children, just as he thought to Tirza. This is not that they should come to know that nobody should come to know this. This was a shame. And it came to him for that his entire life to this disgrace had redoubled. He heard again the director questions: 'What important author have you discovered really is for us, all the years that you worked here?' He had no answer to that question. He had talents farmed which were died for they had been able to come to fruition, but was that his debt?

When he certainly knew that everyone had left the building, that only the cleaners were still, he stood up and went for the window. He looked at the garden, where he in the summer with a group of veterans are bread and fruit salad opat, and where since short, now the smoking ban also to this company was realized a few employees their cigarette smoke. He stared sensitive to the garden and his look had nothing sentiment eels, he was most surprised that he would never again see garden. That the farewell as quickly and as casually, especially the last. The farewell was ended up in a rush job.

He thought the departure of his wife, that he had not expected. Not the departure itself, since he had taken into account, but that they no longer had come back, that amazed him. If Ibi enTirza went to bed he had minutes long, sometimes up to an hour to sit next to the phone, waiting and hesitant at the same time, predominantly what he would say if they would call. The awareness that they can contact him if she had wanted, that was the violation. Who was it that was remember him clear for the spirit, which he would never forget.

After a few minutes to have been so, he looked at his watch and said soft against himself: 'I need my stuff I must get started.'

Many personal possessions he had not taken to his work. Other than colleagues who did their best to set up the office as a living room, he had his for contemporary concepts generous workspace as sober as possible.

Especially photos of his children he had hung, in all ages. Toddler, infant, a teenager. Some of these pictures were with adhesive tape on the monitor of his computer confirmed. He made them carefully, so as not to damage them. Then he did it in its agenda, so that they would not be creases. On the wall was a postcard which had sent Tirza him when they with school of Rome was traveling. He had let them hang him, although Rome Travel now for a year and a half ago it was because the words ontroerden him. So once a week he turned the card and gently weld the short text which began with the words: "Dear papa'.

In addition to the keyboard was a wooden kameeltje that Ibi before him had brought from Egypt. He went to the toilet, tore what toilet paper and wrapped the kameeltje, fearing that on the bike in his bag would damage.

There was still a drawing of Tirza on the wall, a self-portrait. Also that he concentrated. Frightened by both the wall to damage if the drawing.

Then it was his chamber is empty. He opened a few desk trays to see if he had forgotten nothing but the rest was not of him. He no longer treuzelde. His working life was over, it was fast and relatively undetected, that too. No major authors discovered that summed it together.

In the hallway he came a cleaner, a worldview against. Ship's steward had always suspected that the clean-maker for the Taliban had worked but he had never expressed that suspicion. It would now for always unspoken continue. In passing I mumbled he polite: 'good evening', he had any doubts are still not that the Afghan, just like those counterparts of him, the Trojan horse was that they had won.

When his bike broke away, conceived his leather briefcase still was a manuscript of an author from Azerbaijan that it in English translation for the assessment was sent. He went out of his bag and wanted to go back to the on his desk for the successor, but he stayed with his bike with the manuscript in his hands and did it ultimately back in his briefcase. Nobody would miss it. Everything would be otherwise.

He was a month for Tirza's final examination a free man. Free of obligations, free from the Clerk existence, free of very urgent financial emergency — because he was simply paid by — free of work which he had hate but which he still had to conduct. Production meetings for example. The freedom that it was suddenly given a desert seemed.

Home clogged he the wooden camel, the photos and the drawing in his tray with briefs. Then he worked on two lamskarbonades. And while he was busy with the carbonade, he said to himself: 'it is a disgrace. Unnecessary Resistance is a disgrace. Maybe I am always have been superfluous.' The pronouncement of these thoughts in a weird way momentarily. As if he had not necessary had put the foot cross by that so clearly to appoint. He took the pepper mill and proceeded.

'What was your day?' asked Tirza to table when she board had eaten empty.

'Well,' he said, "Press, we are working with the Autumn offer. It is a nice offer. And, how did your school research?'

The next day he rode as every morning at a desk or nine with his briefcase to the steering direction town. At the height of the Leidseplein he realized that this is perhaps not such a good idea. What he was still in the town to search? He could sit in a cafe, but then he ran the risk colleagues who might wonder what he did in the middle of the day, in a café. He stepped, thought just after and turned when. He started in a southern direction to cycling.

Arrived at Zuid/WTC station he was tired. He did his bike lock and ran a time with his briefcase under his arm by the station. To this him began to get bored. How long can you by a relatively small station walking? Most of the magazines in the newspaper kiosk he had already leafed through. He saw that the only twenty past ten was, freedom took a long time. Without thinking he bought a ticket to Schiphol.

Since he walked by the Departures Hall, first he did the first, when the second, and then by the arrivals hall. He got hungry and bought a sandwich with Brie, that he just sit on a bench in the departures hall opat. From his briefcase he purportedly collected the manuscript of the author in Azerbaijan. He began to read. Routinely he made here and there with a pencil notes in the margin.

Then he bought an apple and remained an hour and a half in the arrivals hall to passengers to watch. Once it he put his right hand up and waved. Like someone who is on the other side of the glass of the baggage band, ship's steward had recognized and passionate to him had waved. A family member, a good colleague, a childhood friend who for thirty years he had not seen.

He did it only for not too much in the holes to walk. Who the whole day hanging around Schiphol Airport, is located in a precarious situation. In these times. Everyone is suspected. That have common to all travellers, the suspicion.

At half past five he decided that his mind could go home. The day was slow to start but he was ultimately detour. He took the train to Amsterdam Zuid/WTC and peddled from there to his home in the Van Eeghenstraat, wherever he washed and the evening food, chicken and fried potatoes, prepared.

When they were done with food, he said to Tirza: 'When I hear you should have, you should say so.'

'No, PAP. How was it at your work?'

'The went well,' he said. 'We are being flooded with manuscripts.'

He travelled from that day five mornings a week to Schiphol.

The literary publisher did better, but the airport was also not disappoint.

Ship's steward developed a routine. In the morning he did the two departure halls, than lunch break, a sandwich brie and an apple, he drank water on the gentlemen toilet. During the lunch break he read the manuscript of the author in Azerbaijan. And in the afternoon he did the arrivals hall.

He did the halls, so it felt, he checked them, he supervised them.

Not too much in the holes to walk now and then he continued for a monitor, sighed loud, and mumbled: 'Damn, still delayed.'

Also he bought sometimes a rose, with which he than for the glass of the arrivals hall went up to return an imaginary passenger to say goodbye. But this he did only if he had the idea that his presence too very began to fall. Sometimes he left the rose in the rear axle, sometimes he took him to house, cut it short and put him in a glass in the kitchen.

He was a kind of private keeper. Minutes long he could for the monitors in the departures hall and there were days when he notes made in its agenda of the delayed flights. At the end of the week he leaves the agenda by and saw for example that on 2 June the KLM flight to Warsaw was delayed.

After a few weeks he had the feeling that he has all his whole life had spent at Schiphol Airport. Publisher are decades were pushed into the background, had received surreal about. The keeping of delays at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, view of the passengers and their luggage, differed not much of the work in the garden or in the publication of books.

Two years ago when they with the entire publishing a boat trip on the River Linge had allowed to come closer together, was a colleague next to him, and had asked him: 'Jörgen, which living your name?'

They both had a few seconds to the Linge looked ship's steward in comparison with memories from his youth suddenly found against falls.

'I live for my work,' said ship's steward after a long silence, 'for the publishing and for the children.' for his wife he could not justify more life, who had taken the legs.

But now he had to admit that this is not a particularly apt. He did not work more and yet there was hardly anything in his life has changed. Instead of five times per week to the Herengracht cycling he went five times per week to the airport. He saw what less people, no, that were not, he saw more people, but they saw him not. Or they had seen past him was of course the question. He lived not more for his work and yet there was no significant changes in its existence. He lived for the children, he lived for Tirza. That he was to say, on the Linge, in that boat.

Each trash on Schiphol knew he has, at least at its side of the customs, every newsstand, each check-in desk was familiar to him, each change was on and was a breach of its rhythms. The others were hell he had never believed. He had found it strange that it is precisely that quotation from Sartre had become so famous. There were better and more interesting quotes from Sartre, less cynical, less black, less lonely.

What he discovered was that the less the other existed, how which was more bearable.

He waited in the Arrivals Hall, just like dozens, sometimes hundreds of others, but it is different than the people around him he was waiting for someone who did not exist, he called someone who would never come on, he put his hand into the air without really to believe or the hope that his greeting would be detected by a person on the other side of the glass. He waved at most so that a coincidental passer would think: this is an ordinary man.

There are benefits to passengers too shaky to retrieve never appeared. It saved him stories that perhaps should get bored, disappointments, complain that: 'You are listening not.' tensions.

A time came to him a man with a sign bearing the name of a traveller was written. 'You are here even though a time, I see,' said the man. A driver is likely. 'How Long all I ask you? What flight awaits you?'

'A WEEK OR SIX I am standing here already, had a ship's steward must reply', but he said: 'a few hours." And he was all his briefcase firmly as if his life was in.

'but on which flight awaits you?' urged the driver to, a sweaty, squat man.

On the flight he waited? From that side he had never viewed.

'I is not waiting for a specific flight,' said ship's steward.

He opened his briefcase as if he was looking for something. He found an apple and bite. The driver remained standing look at ship's steward, how he the apple opat. As if the driver had hoped that there would be something, a word, a look, a sign of rapport. Two men of a certain age in the arrivals hall who know what it is to wait. There was not a word more from Hofmeesters foot. He ate his apple, gazing to the baggage number 12.

Even now his work, he was Schiphol never without a briefcase from housing. He had him of his wife received ever, long before the first time they disappeared long for Ibi, when she was only just together in the Van Eeghenstraat lived.

How less human existed, how they were more enjoyable. That he discovered at the airport. But that has not meant that there was something wrong with the people who do exist.

Writer he was been translated fiction. He had his entire life involved with the non-existing, with the possible at most, the probable perhaps. Now was the difference between what existed and what did not exist, between the border was unclear. Foggy as the airport in the morning in the autumn. You had the whip of the fantasy about the reality which would otherwise reality you as a rearing horse from the saddle as far as knew, ship's steward now sure.

High it he put his right hand in the air. Sometimes he went to the passport control and waved them that nobody else were waved goodbye.

After the first sardines all alone has eaten, he goes to the top. The bathroom door is open, the bath leave Ibi has. In the bedroom is the wife still for the mirror. Her hair is geföhnd. Its upper body is unfounded. She has a spijkerrok This shop requires to, and in her mouth a cigarette.

'What is that?' requires a ship's steward. He points to the skirt. With extensive arm. His lips are still grease of the fish.

'Dit? This is a skirt of Ibi.' They talk without the cigarette from her mouth and look at it themselves.

'Yes, I see that the of Ibi is. But why did you?'

Only now does the cigarette out of the mouth. The pose of movie star is less. They will be the wife, the wife who returned unexpectedly.

'because I had nothing to attract and paste. I am just about as thin as Ibi on its fifteenth. But do you remember what a dikkerdje she was at its 11th? They had just to the menstruate or we named her the garbage container. Because they all residue opat. She had the whole day hunger.'

Ship's steward shakes his head. The past he now wants to not discuss. This is not the right time for an evaluation of the past. The question is what time. 'it could not,' he says. 'it goes too far. And I do not want you smoke in the bedroom.'

The wife looks at himself in the mirror. There is a brush for her on the table, the hair dryer, lipstick, a comb, hairpins. They inhales and blows the smoke from, if a child that shall exercise for later, a child that is still not really can smoke.

'Why it cannot find the not flattering?'

'It is…' says ship's steward. He squeeze in his nose as if he were a cold and he begins again. 'The state from flattering or not flattering. He is too short. A MINISKIRT. That nothing is covered. That is not possible.'

'You will find him too short? You will find my legs than not nice?'

She goes on his seat and plug with some effort both her legs into the air.

'You will find they are not nice? I thought you liked my legs so. I have they cleared. Specially for this evening.'

'I think,' says ship's steward and he squeeze in his right arm, 'dit skirt sletterig.'

'Sletterig?' She tail him.

'Yes, sletterig. I have no other word for it and I like you, I am sorry that I must say there too old for. I think it is something for if you are eighteen, something for Tirza and her friends. Even this bear this kind of clothes not more. And how much you would wish, you are not her friend. You are her mother.'

They are going to just sit. Its legs are now largely hidden from view Hofmeesters.

'but I thought," she says, 'You a little sletterigheid in women, that men in general that. The way they want it, all they dare not say men like you. Not that responsible, that timid. That neat. I throw my weapons in the fight, Jörgen. If I do not now, than it does not need more.'

He pulls his polo shirt from, a shirt is better anyway. He also has too many gezweet, it is too hot. For the guests is the delicious, a warm evening, but he must operate. The hands in the holes. An empty hand means an empty stomach.

He will feed the hungry and not superfluous. He will never be superfluous.

The polo shirt is wet. He throws in bed.

While he chose a shirt, he says: 'It is Tirza's party, if someone its weapons in the fight should throw the Tirza is, but they do not, it is too modest. To decent.'

'Jörgen, what sort of weapons they would be in the fight to throw?'

'What do you mean?' he draws a shirt from the cabinet and runs on the wife. 'What do you mean?' he asks again and retrieves the shirt of the hanger.

The cigarette is extinguished. Finally.

'How I mean? That You know better than I do. Of the top has them nothing. She is from top as flat as from the rear. I do not know how it is that both our daughters have remained virtually without tits, to me has not located. Look at me. I am voluptueus. Do you think it is surprising that men call me "voluptueus?'

Ship's steward let the shirt fall. He has only the pendant in his hand. He tail to the wife. The madness, he thinks. The madness. This family makes me insane. No, not this family, this woman. My wife. How is it that I've waited on her, how can it be that evenings at the telephone was sitting with the idea that I would call to eventually from to see how is it that they appeared in my life because I hate her. She was never returned. She was but any cowardice. That would have been better. How can you be jealous of your daughter? On everyone you can be jealous of, on the neighbors, colleagues, family members, you man, your wife.

And almost everyone is a ship's steward itself also sometimes jealous, but not on his children.

He notes not, tense is that he receives with the wooden hanger against his leg stores.

'HOW DARE YOU THAT about your own daughter to say,' he finally there. 'And it is not true. This is still the worst. Tirza is a beautiful woman, a beautiful young woman. Everyone loves her, all the boys love her. Everyone is in love with her, I hear of all its teachers. I know of no more beautiful girl. And she is not flat. That they are not of these large lubbe Rende, vulgar hang tits, like you, which only Moroccans and Turks geilen is a blessing.'

She turns around. Away from the mirror.

'Hanging Tits?' she asks.

He saves with the hanger, stolen from a Swiss hotel, rhythmically on his leg.

'look good, Jörgen. They are? Do you call this? Are you so old that you are no longer good looks? You have a pair of glasses? Do you know the difference between a hangtiet voluptueus and?'

She picks her right breast, they caresses the breast, no, it is not a caress, they touches it thought Loos and ship's steward keeps on with the on one leg. Somewhere in the house is a door closed with force.

'They hang not, not yet perhaps,' he says, concern that he began a quarrel plane for the feast. He has all his concentration to operate, the sardines, the cocktails, wine. But now he once started is to tell the truth, he can no longer return. 'I am no expert in this area, I do not know where the hangtiet begins and the ordinary tit ceases, but I know that they hang from, that you can see. If you look closely you will see that they are all a bit of sticking, if you look carefully you can see that it with your tits done is as it is done with you. That is why I can also come back. Because you could look anywhere else. Because you know that it is over, your adventure, you flirt, you decolleteetjes, you paintings, it is all past, complete a thing of the past. That is why I am here. Because you could look anywhere else. But that is no reason to have the way about your daughter who its great celebration gives this evening. It makes me sick. It makes me sick. As I previously became ill of you, as word i still.'

He has regret these words, now already, while he enunciated. And again he thinks: the madness. There is a curse on this family. Perhaps there is a curse on me, but also puts a curse on this family. It does not matter to whom the curse rest, on my wife, on the children, on me, ultimately it rests on all of us. We share the curse.

She says nothing, it keeps the nipple of her right breast, it seems as if they squeeze.

He picks up his shirt on the hanger on the bed. At one time they were on Curaçao, with the whole family, but as hot as he has now had not earlier. It is the excitement, baking the sardines. The hot oil. His entire polo shirt smell to it. Fish. Grease.

'Jörgen,' she asks, 'we will fuck?'

She looks at him through the rear-view mirror. For her is the hair dryer. One of Hofmeesters last gifts. They naked is, on the spijkerrok This shop requires of Ibi after. It is five over eight.

'Now?' he asks.

'Yes'. Now.'

He looks at his watch.

'But why? Questions If I may.'

'Why not?'

'De guests come so.'

She shakes her head. 'Die not yet. You are always so as terrified as ever when it comes to guests, so excessive. You have no idea when celebrations start. You walk behind. You have always walked back.'

'De children…' he would also like to say something, but he decides to leave it at that. The children says enough. The children, that explains everything.

'Die amuse themselves. They are mature. Do you that your password? Your daughters are mature. The are no children more.'

'I thought,' he says, after a few seconds to the ashtray for the mirror to have been inconsistent nature, 'I mean, why so suddenly?'

"Well, suddenly, you can suddenly it is not really, Jörgen. We have previously done.'

'But it was always a fiasco.'

'Yes, God, if you want to call as per se.'

She looks at him still via the mirror, and while he is looking back, calls it up to him that he is a significant part of his life with this woman has spent. The best part of his life. The largest part.

I thought that was not the intention. You felt not attracted to me. I think it is not very, but that you have said. Surely this will not suddenly changed?' he takes a deep breath. Deep and thorough as if he is the doctor. 'I thought: you are long because you want to know how it with me and the children.'

'DAT I also wanted to know.'

It closes the door. Gently, when an intruder.

'You are here to guest. We had agreed. We start yet again? We were all agreed that we would begin again. We are so often started again. It was worse every time. We said earlier: "It is good for the children." But you have said so yourself, that children are mature. We do not for the children do.' He talks as if he were a plea to the account.

Although his upper body expose, the sweat still on his back.

'We do not start again. And that in God's name? That?'

He gulps a few times, he rubs his mouth, his back, he removes the moisture as well and it comes from his body.

'Met the fiasco.'

They laughs. Their fiasco is only something to laugh. The echo of the tragic failure: a high-pitch smile.

'Why do you say such things about your own daughter? I think that it is unacceptable.'

'What I said?'

'They flat.'

'but they is flat. Two peas in a small shelf.' She sigh. "You can not protect your children, Jörgen. Not all their lives. The more you protect them, how they are weaker. You have to prepare them for the world. That is what people will say about her. That they are from the front is as flat as from the rear. If I do not say, say the others. They can better of hear me, because I say it with love.'

'They has a beautiful sight.'

'O certainly, she has a beautiful sight, and beautiful hair and a nice figurines. But no tits, Jörgen. No tits.'

'Tirza is your daughter. Your daughter. She was in you. Tirza is…' Tirza What is even more? He does not.

'Well and? I know that it is my daughter. I must therefore see things which are not there? She has no tits, ready. And to give you the truth, I can not stand to her. I know that a parent which is not to say that with this terrible, and bad, and perhaps it is also called, maybe I am terribly and bad, but it is the truth, I can not stand to her. It has also emerged as a heksje, she was already, a toddler. She is evil. And she has never been nice to me, Jörgen. Never. Not even if baby.'

He hears the words still, but they do not penetrate more up to him by. Ship's steward remembers Tirza's disease, her puberty, its presence in his life when not many others more were present. Her school. He decides that the wife in the war. She is probably in the transition. When will the transition? Increasingly earlier. Everything starts at an increasingly early. But the longer he thinks about it, the more he has the feeling that they are always so.

'They do not. She is your daughter.'

'Dan can they still nice to me. They will ignore me.'

'They shall take the blame you that you are on the phone. She had you need.' He despised his own words, so weak he thinks they.

'I had my life must enter its?'

Yes, ship's steward say. Yes, for your children will give your life. Perhaps that is the only where the Parenting is all about. The rest is of secondary importance. But he says: 'that nobody is asking for you.'

'They, Jörgen. It.' a cigarette is learned.

'Smoking in the bedroom i find uncomfortable. You know that. And tits are also not everything. In addition, they… They has small blisters.'

'knobs are no breasts, Jörgen. What are you waiting for?'

He shall establish the shirt that he will attract open. He must concentrate on the role that he in a few minutes, perhaps half an hour. Each time the call. The first guest on a party is always the most difficult. Everything is so touched, so new and fresh. The conversations still does not rotate smoothly.

Previously gave his wife controlled celebrations. He has never felt at home on which celebrations. If he could he retreated in the bedroom, but sometimes had collected there partiers were the wild times. Eventually he went than but on the balcony and looked at what happened in the garden. The sensation totally insulated, which it would otherwise never bothered, was at those times painful. As a disease felt the insulation. If a painful disease that against each drug file was.

Their friends were read her friends. Courtesy calls were bored him because he already had to carry out as many courtesy calls with translators, authors and colleagues. Until he discovered that it helped to go around with snacks. With the man who with the snacks around, nobody talk. As it developed into serv earlier in his own home. An unknown would be in him have seen the waiter. Galant, but silently. Always discreet. A man who coincides with its unobtrusive but relevant actions. Sometimes they were the partiers surprised that the servant, this friendly slave, the owner of the property was found to have.

'What do you want?' he asks. 'What do you do?'

They state. The spijkerrok This shop requires of Ibi is tight to her buttocks. They may not move properly. Engages the image to him. Unexpected and more than he would have believed. This is his young wife, in the skirt of her eldest daughter. It is perhaps not potsierlijk, but it is there to survive.

'What do you want in God's name?' he asks. 'De guests come so.'

'Fuck.'

'But why? It was not between us, it was, how you mentioned, a catastrophe. Not only the fuck, let us be honest. Our marriage.' He smiles, because the truth is summarized in a few words as innocent sounds. As inevitable. No one could do something about it. A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT. There was fog. An oncoming car.

'Because we have no one else.'

He walks on her away in the direction of the balcony door, if an animal which is chosen for the slaughter, but that is also still pro forma opposition.

The expression on her face is changed. She looks at him carefully. 'Or is there someone? Someone who i know nothing? Did you know? And do you want to say? What you have actually done all that time that I was not?'

He shakes his head. 'No, no, no one. Nothing regelmatigs, nothing is worth mentioning. Why did you not to your childhood love? In this houseboat?' He close the balcony doors, fear that the children will hear him.

'something went wrong.'

She does a few steps in his direction. The substance of the spijkerrok This shop requires seems to crack.

'Would you not know what?'

He nods. 'Of course I would like to know. What went wrong? Tell, short.'

'He wanted a child.'

They are at the reminder. smiles She grins. It is for him, half-naked. She seems to be on Ibi. Or rather, Ibi resembles her. Tirza not. Tirza seems to anyone.

'Why have you not made? It could even when you left. You was fertile when you left me. It had been easy.'

"Because he couldn't. He could not. He was barren, showed. And when he was crazy. He said that it was my fault. He turned by. Thus, Jörgen. As you look at, not?' The grin.

The shirt that all that time he has maintained he explains in bed. He takes a look at his watch. What he wants of this woman, with whom he shares little else than two daughters and about half of his life? Perhaps not even that. Why did he not, six days ago when they suddenly turn for the door was, after the oven dish said: 'I will call a hotel for you. We speak a little further on tomorrow? We will have a cup of coffee?' Why he can do not release her? It is time.

'His seed was dead and he said that it was my fault.' She smirks as if they were a mop tells which only they can understand the essence of the problem.

Then he and pulls bending his shoes off.

He looks at her and the wife nods approvingly.

Ship's steward pulls his socks off and the fact that he downstairs in the refrigerator the sushi and sashimi on the guests are waiting. He is proud. Proud of what he that afternoon in the kitchen has made itself, concentrated and with love.

The socks are in the shoes stopped. 'Dead' seed,' he says, 'is no fun.'

Soon he pulls his trousers.

He depends on a seat in tidy, it is his best trousers, he there must still be the whole evening host in play.

So he is in his underpants in his bedroom. A tummy he has, but for a man of his age should have no name.

'Why do you come back?' he asks.

They scrapes her throat. 'You have said himself," she says. 'You know everything you have always conscience.'

'What I said?'

'I could nowhere.'

He sees the nail skirt, he sees the meat that a bit about which lubbert spijkerrok This shop requires, it is not really ugly. It is almost charming and this woman who he hates and which he despised — if not the whole time then certainly regularly, more often than he loves — emotion it for you. More than he had suspected, more than he had to itself like to admit. What its about is, makes him week. Because it is so small. He sees the clear, it cannot be denied. Little. He is the curator of its past, the depositary of its seductive force, he remembers everything he sees who she was, cross through anything. In his life her adventure lakes, every day.

'We are still went to France," she says. 'But it was not. Death seed is not live in France.'

He looks at his feet.

Then he looks at the wife.

She says: 'I specially for you so raunchy made possible, you see that? So I am uncouth have never been.'

'Yes, yes,' he says. He sees.

'They can you anyway not tacky enough? The woman who you want to?'

He nods, he breathes heavy. Not of excitement. Of misery. The reminder of happiness is misery. The reminder. To admit that you have made a mistake. And that from that mistake two people also emerged. Two errors, if you are viewing the pure. Also that he has on his conscience.

'Yes, yes,' he says. 'I see it. You have never been so tacky. And you are for me. Only for me.'

His socks are dark blue with light blue stripes, they put in his shoes as Gnome lakes.

'We must learn quickly,' he says, "because the guests come so. They had actually already.'

Fast," she says. 'very quickly. How you want it?'

'How do you want the?'

She shakes her head. 'You see," she says, 'at the beast in yours is not dead? You can see that it is still there?'

Ship's steward does a few steps in its direction. He seeks his hand, becomes the nipple in which she had gently squeezed.

'Why do we do this? We are not too old for? We would not be better to know?'

She pushes his hand gently road. 'you see it not?' she asks. 'Is the not yet penetrated to you? Are you blind? We have no one else.' She puts the emphasis on every word, every syllable, as if they were a dictee reads.

He delivers his main closer.

'is that?' he asks. 'Is that the only?'

'Why do you think I am coming back to you? Because I knew you would not expel me. Because I knew that you had no one else. Who wants you still? Look good, Jörgen, we are residues. We are what it is about. From us, the beast in us."

'How did you know that i you would not dismissing?'

'You got me never expelled, why should you do now? You are always been afraid. The exit self, that you could not care. But that the people you would speak of shame as they do about poor spouses, that idea was you no peace.'

He gulps saliva road.

'You are now the only, Jörgen, the others…' she smiles. 'De others, they are dead, sick or insane. Or they have received something better, something jongers, and they want me not, not yet for a cup of coffee. The new life must not be compromised. You are the only one, you are the surviving. Finally I you the winner. You got me completely for you alone.'

The curse, he thinks the curse. That leaves you never loose, which drives with you as a cloud, and if you die, who on your children. That is why he had no children wanted, intuitive, he wanted the curse not by. Until they were there. When he was lost, he lost itself, first in Ibi, later in Tirza. He forgot the curse.

'You will find me furious raunchy?'

He looks to her and nods thoughtfully. 'Yes,' says he slowly, 'void tacky.'

'How do you want to do, Jörgen? You have to say. It is your evening. It is also a bit of your party. You have for Tirza ensure all those years.'

Tirza, that name to shake up seems to him, takes him to his positives. Tirza. It is true, he has all those years for her. And for its lived, by its lived with her lived, in addition to its lived, under its. He feels the need to scream, to help to scream but there is no one who will hear him.

'I want you to take over the knee,' he says.

They are smiling and also he can imagine how they stood for others, in better times. For her childhood love for example, on the houseboat, patronising and unreachable. The oscillation of the houseboat, pleasure boats that pass by, shouting and singing of the persons on board. The summer. And then the dead seed.

Ship's steward goes to bed are there are side of the bed. He looks at the balcony doors. From the garden of the neighbors child vote sound

'It is what we are about is," she says and she runs to him. 'It is not much eh? But my beast is flexible, my beast drives me sometimes insane, so is the unaccountability of and also your beast is there still, Jörgen. It is there and it was all time waited on me. You do not have to say. I know. It was all time waited for me.'

She goes with her belly in his lap. Still he hears child votes, but now also howl. Someone has been dropped. They often fall, the children of the neighbors, they are young and impetuous.

His left hand rests on the nail skirt of his eldest daughter, on the buttocks of the wife who to a living boat went. That is the story, the myth of his life.

'As tacky,' she whispers. 'so terribly tacky, is that you are only for can be ashamed.'

Ship's steward caresses her buttocks thought Loos, like a cat caresses which is on your lap to lie down.

'I am mischievous,' she whispers. 'I have always been a naughty only. I am your imagination. Nothing more than that. I am the fantasy that you can touch, Jörgen. That is why I came back. Because I am your imagination. Say it. To say that I am your imagination.'

'Yes,' he says, 'You are my fantasy, you are the fantasy that i can touch.'

He pulls the skirt which is not of his wife is up slightly. With the power of someone in agony is, he shows his right hand on her buttocks come down and nearly at the same time he says: 'They have me supernumerary declared.'

But they do not understand.

Once again he saves her on the buttocks, with the same terror, and he says: 'I am declared supernumerary. I will now ask you supernumerary.'

Still orders them. She controls of his lap. She pulls the skirt of her daughter downwards. As if chastity suddenly plays a role.

'what you call it?" she says. 'I can't. What are you saying?'

'nothing'.

'Sorry," she says, and they caresses on his hair.

'What is there?'

He is seated on bed, as he just sat. They can take place in his lap. The game can continue as it has never been delayed. As if the all those years work has been done.

'Sorry," she says.

'Which sorry? You have done nothing.'

'It is not.'

'What?'

"It.'

'Why not? What does not?'

'The Fuck.'

It stands on the bed, pull the sheet right. Although it is still just as right before he was on the bed plate snam.

'It was a mistake," she says. 'I made a mistake. I am sorry. We are friends. Yet? I wish it was, I wish I could, but I cannot do it. I can not with your FUCK. Not more. I am sorry.'

She gives him a kiss in his neck. 'nothing I can do," she says, 'but I find your repugnant. I was the forgotten, i was the forgotten altogether, but suddenly I knew the weather. Suddenly I remembered everything. When you give me numb. Hierzo.' She shows where he has touched.

Ship's steward condition. 'The does not,' he says. 'I had you already warned in advance.'

'I am sorry,' whispers they, 'dat i not to have been able to help you. I had helped you love.'

They are opposite each other. They retrieves its hands by her hair. They will open the balcony doors. The air outside is still hot.

'nobody need to help me,' says ship's steward. 'I don't need help.'

She looks out over the gardens of Amsterdam South and he is there in his underpants in his bedroom and he wonders what he is doing, who controls it, what demons he obeys.

'come," she says. 'Give me a kiss, I know that you are not angry.'

She runs quickly toward him. Just as quickly She grabs his head and they kiss. Ten to twenty seconds. They kiss as before. No, worse than in the past. They kiss as if the death is already in possession of them. And also that few seconds that the kiss takes, it will be used. Somewhere in the past is the life clogged, and suddenly there is resistance, as if the ship's steward in mind that has been there as if a ship's steward must never forget what he misses.

Then he pushes her gently. 'enough' says ship's steward. 'I have to me with the feast.'

She looks like him lovingly as previously, in the very beginning, the cursed beginning. Then she asks: 'maybe you would have a nagelvijltje for me? I would like my nails also do.'

At this point the voordeurbel.

He tail to his wife, listening to the sounds in his own house, a door being opened, another door by the ride close falls — the garden doors below are open — but nothing else. Silence. Nobody opens the door for the first guest.

Panic about it.

That is why he pulls his trousers and rent as soon as he can down the stairs.

'Jörgen,' calls on the wife. But he now has no time for her. He has other things on his head. The celebration is started. Finally.

With a jerk — by the haste and injures the nervousness he his finger — he opens the door. And since they state. The first guest. He knows her face, well even, that is not the problem. But he also knows no longer how they would.

He puts his finger. He points to her. 'Geography,' he says. 'Geography. Is it not?'

The woman in front of him, is actually quite a young woman, end thirty will they are, at most, shakes her head.

'Field Camp," she says. 'Field Camp is the name. Biology.'

Only then called to ship's steward by how he condition. Pointing to a strange woman, a teacher of his youngest daughter with a bleeding index finger. He pulls back his hand.

'Of course. Please forgive me.' He claps his hands. 'Biology. How could I forget that? Biology. Lady Field Of course Camp. We have often met. The last time…'

She looks down and He follows her gaze. It is at that moment that he sees his bare feet and almost at the same time his naked belly.

'O God,' he says.

'What?'

'I must be excused.'

'What for?' would miss Veldkamp know.

'This.' He points on his belly. His bare chest.

'Nevertheless not at'

'I was showering and then I heard the call and my daughters are…' He coughs. 'My daughters are nowhere to be found.'

"I will otherwise still a cube thin skirt? I think that is not at all very. It is delicious. I have now once the nasty habit always to come too early. I am much too early?'

'You are not at all too early. You are right on time.'

He picks up her right hand and drags lady Field Camp in his house. With his left foot he closes the front door.

Only after a few meters calls it up to him by that it is inappropriate to the teachers of your children in your house to drag. For the door to the living room he let its abrupt and says: 'I must apologize again me.'

'which now?' would miss Veldkamp know.

'DI ate so hard safe with you omspring.'

'O, but that does not matter.' She smiles and somewhat ironic, measured 'I think it is nice if there now and then a little hard safe with me is handled.'

He looks at her skeptical though. Not only is it a half-naked, that is already unpleasant enough, he has the feeling in the grind setting to be taken.

'I am myself not,' he says. 'It is the heat, the celebration, the goodbye. Tirza goes to Africa, as you know.'

'We are all sometimes not ourselves. It would be very boring if we always all would remain ourselves, Mr ship's steward.'

He is studying its because he wants to know whether they are the Meent, to put an end to the unpleasant feeling that he is taken in the grind setting. Than he begins to understand that a half-naked man is not a disaster, not more. Half the world is naked. There is nothing to be concerned about.

"do it easily. I am so with you.'

He will hastily up the stairs. In the bedroom is his wife in her nails to paint. They cross her hand. 'What do you think of this color?'

He pulls his socks and shoes and yet also but again the polo shirt, whether there is a smell of sardines. Will the whole house to sardines smell. Also he remains for the mirror and he caught, to his surprise, grief. A sorrow that all other feelings that sometimes in him welling up about wins. The shame, the fear, the realisation that a disgrace.

'Is this beautiful pink or something to vigorously?' she asks.

'You're right,' he says. 'We have only one another. No one else we can get more. That is it.'

'Is the pink?'

She pushes her hand further in his direction. The smell of the nail polish piques his nose, it mixes with the air of the baked sardines.

'Dus you can now also get no one else. Discarded do you. Why have you got.' He talk more against themselves than against her.

'It is well to pink?'

'No,' he says. 'Just Right. Mrs Field Camp is there. They gave me half-naked having regard.'

'who is Mrs Field Camp? I have no idea more Who is who. You must tell me a little bit earlier proposals to all people. I do not know what more matches face.'

They talk as though nothing has happened. So they always talked. As if nothing had happened.

In the bathroom does he generous aftershave on to the smell of the sardines to dispel.

Ibi is its teeth. 'Where is Tirza?' he asks in a cloud of aftershave.

'Die is her boyfriend to retrieve," she says and they continue to brush.

Energetic and drops welriekend ship's steward the stairs. He goes directly to the kitchen, retrieves the plateau from the refrigerator, remove the foil and parades the living room, where lady Veldkamp mother soul only on the couch.

'Sushi,' says ship's steward, 'sashimi. And in the kitchen is wasabi mayonnaise.'

'What tasty," she says.

'Self-made.'

'De sushi?'

'Too. But I was talking about the Wasabi mayonnaise. Who should I make. It is not easy but i have deepened.'

'O.'

They look at each other as to the teacher, biology and the father of Tirza.

'Wait, I will set up some music.'

He runs to the cd player.

Tirza specially for this evening cd leaflets burned. They are all ready. On a pile.

He puts the first cd and continues to listen what music follows. She not only her music, but also a few songs he particularly likes.

'The Andrews Sisters,' says he is glad, 'it is one of her favorite numbers.'

This is due to him. Actually it is his favorite number. When in the cradle was Tirza, he filmed the Andrews Sisters. On the music he danced with her by the room, and he forgot the curse. Also there was no curse, no history, only the baby in his arms, her look, the smell of somewhat acidic milk, its warm head and the Andrews Sisters.

Now there are no Tirza, there is a plateau with sushi and sashimi and a man on age that despite the aftershave vague to baked sardines smells.

He sings and gently with the music note, for lady Veldkamp, on the couch.

'I'll try to explain. Bei mir bist du schön. So kiss me and say you understand.'

Lady Veldkamp smiles. She has certainly already experienced a lot, and if a ship's steward is sung, she says: 'What Wasabi mayonnaise would be nice.'

He goes to the kitchen, comes back with the Wasabi mayonnaise and a dish and allow lady Field Camp itself brag off with a small wooden spoon. Also from the Japanese shopping in the Beethovenstraat.

He looks proud how they eat sushi.

The happiness, the intensive, intolerant, ravenous happiness of the youth he recalls only a rumor. A fairy tale that he himself never read it.

Of his youth or what we had to continue is a worn song about.

He runs to the cd player and start the CD again.

And while lady Veldkamp him a little surprised and also somewhat fearful aanstaart, with the sushi in her hand, he sings for her.

'Ridi,' sings a ship's steward. 'Ridi ridi ridi ridi, ridi.'

2

To nine hours is the room filled with a fourteen young people, lady Veldkamp, and a teacher economy against whom a ship's steward Hans must say, but of Tirza is still no trace. The wife is hiding in the bedroom, fuming probably, occasionally still smiling to the childhood love with his dead seed, as you albeit with its hand in a failure to smiles. A colossal disaster.

And ship's steward himself with raw fish by the house. It shares a kir from, talks about subjects on which he has never been a word has changed, he already has two cocktails, a caipirinha and a screw driver. Both very successful. He has outdone itself, says he himself, he will constantly this evening.

Without much trouble is growing it above the Jörgen ship's steward from those years ago on the celebrations of his wife taciturn in a corner with snacks around went up in mid call or plant water. Heady celebrations were that, with men many years younger than ship's steward, his wife the status of 'house friend'.

There is progress in Jörgen ship's steward. He is social. Milder and accessible. More than what he is also the father of Tirza now, and in that role he is good temper, uitgelatene. It will not be to him.

In the middle of a tour with edamame, soya beans prepared on Z'n Japanese, he thinks to recognize a boy from the winter on an early Sunday morning is encountered in his bathroom. The boy was on the badrand, sick and showed with red eyes. But if he the boy polite but clearly, while he asks him what edamame has, denies those. 'I've never been,' he says. Although a ship's steward are sure to have seen him in his bathroom, try to have him, he does not go on. Also the youth has the right to politeness to lies.

Ibi is downstairs and sit on the couch, in addition to the teacher of biology. In any case one of his daughters is present on the feast.

After a long silence has developed a call between Ibi and the teacher, what a ship's steward comes on. Ibi is stiff. In the past it was Ibi against everything. There are still days she that is.

The voordeurbel regularly and than rushes Tirza's father to the front door to do what his youngest daughter would have to do. Shaking hands, kisses have adoring review, compliments receipt. Ship's steward it at a firm handshake, in some cases with the words that everything must declare: 'I am Tirza's father.' the word appears a smile on his face which he himself for compelling.

'They shall meet as,' he says again and again, 'it is also her boyfriend.' It sounds as if he knows exactly what he is at that boyfriend as if the proposals must family ship's steward already three times with the boy has been on holiday.

Some of the guests give him the gift that is intended for Tirza. They mumbling: 'Here, for Tirza', and they print it slightly in the manual, without giving him to look. Shy boys, of whom ship's steward suspect that they have been in love ever on Tirza. That they have written her letters, in the middle of the night distraught have sent SMS messages which they later so deep that they were embarrassed by the following day not dared to school. He tries to encourage them. He would not want to define them hope. Shyness can be a curse. Never hope, that is the question. What happens. Not give up hope. Continue.

'They will be pleased with them,' he says, without knowing what is hiding under the wrapping paper. And he puts the presents on the dresser, in the middle of other small and large packs and the obligatory drink bottles, what flowers. The tradition of the gift table holds position. A family is a construction of traditions. Ship's steward would like that they are a family, a small family, half a family maybe. That is why he defends the traditions, therefore he puts them on his own, if necessary.

While he runs down the hallway with three beers and two glasses of red wine and a vodka ice cream on a tray, he sees the wife descend the stairs. She has the old nail skirt of Ibi and a bloesje that is tight. Far too tight. There is crammed with everything from, a female body that protrudes out.

She is walking with high heels. Shoes, bloesje, skirt, it seems from a dress up trunk to have come.

He remains in the hallway to wait for them at the bottom step is reached. The tray in his hands and the slight smell of sweat, aftershave and baked sardines around him. The smell of the party.

'Jesus,' he says soft.

None of the guests it has dared to go into the garden. The torches are lit in lonely. The guests pens together in the living room. They wait for the others, they wait for Tirza.

The wife will stand in front of him and running a radio button. On high heels can its legs the comparison with long ago. Their first introduction, the first days, the first weeks. The time that you have a blank sheet are for the other, the freedom that it entails, the happiness. Somewhere in her legs the freedom that ship's steward is lost, and resistance has been recovered at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. But when tasted that freedom no longer him, better said, since he tasted the true flavor of the freedom: gal.

Somewhere in her legs is the memory of happiness. They were always been nice, legs, long, slim and yet muscular. If they wanted to make impression she did a short skirts. He remembers the cans of other men, they remember the first time that he realized that he had received children with a woman who was actually too young to him, not with his age nor his status paste. Its still lifes claimed not much, but if still life was they themselves unbeatable. Ship's steward gold in the Seventies as a promise, a writer who would want to climb to Publisher. Someone who had to be taken into account. But he continued to sit in his room at the Herengracht Canal, with views of a tree, is concentrating on the translated fiction and sometimes even on the tree until he woke up once and had to admit that no one more account should be taken with him. Only he still. The hell were not the others. He was the self. The hell sat deep in him. Anchored, hidden and invisible, but live and hot. Piping hot.

'Is this not overly?' he asks.

'What? This?' she draws attention to itself. She shakes her head. 'I am exaggerated? I think not. Do you think the exaggerated, Jörgen? I have done my best for Tirza's party.'

'It is precisely for that reason. It is precisely because the her party, its great celebration, did you a bit…' he looks for words, diplomatic solutions. He looks at what is happening in the bloesje pops. Desperately she looks out, but nevertheless not unattractive. The word 'loeder' comes in him. Now the youth also has left his wife, he sees the loeder in her that she will probably always has been. 'You had to keep you in.'

'In account? Why? Do you think it is not nice?'

The tray vibrates in Hofmeesters hands. The voordeurbel.

Go back to top and do something else,' he says. 'I implore you. This is not the case. You are not a sixteen more. We ourselves are not sixteen more.'

'But Jörgen, you are as old as you feel. They have not told you that? I am the flower of the eternal youth.'

She pushes the tray a few centimeters to one side and press her mouth quickly on the HIS. 'Test you?' whispers to them. 'De flower of the eternal youth.'

He struggles, he wants its not kissing, he wants its never kiss. Never again. Two words like a charm. The shortest prayer of the world. The prayer of Jörgen ship's steward. Never again.

The voordeurbel again. 'It is a disgrace,' he says. 'You are a disgrace, as you now stands. And you are no flower of the eternal youth. I am sorry.'

They should again like her mouth pressing on his own, but he is different reverse. The vibration of the tray is worse.

'Dan only i have to you," she says. 'a disgrace if I am, then we just a Monozygotic twins. Then we are made for each other.' She smiles. They laughs as if there has never been something has happened between them. Good brave. To the covenant which no longer exists to emphasize, as she smile.

Then they enter the living room and ship's steward hear the calls are silenced. He remains in the aisle, he would like to shout, as people do who are trapped in an elevator but there is no other sound from his mouth than what heavy breathing.

He runs to the kitchen, set the tray on the worktop and serves a glass of white wine for themselves. 'De flower of the eternal youth,' he panting slightly. There is more memories of him, also pleasant. In the marshlands of his memory are also nice memories clogged. If you remember the happiness than has the existence.

A colleague once said to him: 'You can not live on memories.' Why he said that knows no longer ship's steward. The debate was that he forgot. He knows only that the colleague said to him: 'You can not with a knife into your past rooting as if it were a garden is that you have to omspitten, Jörgen, because one day you go with that knife in yourself rooting.'

Not long afterwards was strokes that colleague.

You are a slave to your memories. That is the way it is, you will ship's steward. Some people remember things that never happened. Also it is for. They are slaves of the fiction. Postmen of their own myth.

He drinks are glass empty, without much more than the cold, Slightly sour taste of the wine. Only when the voordeurbel for the third time, shooting to him within that someone is in front of the door.

He rent there, angry in itself, angry at his wife, angry at the person who is now in front of the door. Ship's steward strives — it cannot do anything — to perfection. This is the party that must be perfect, that must prove that the rumours which is doing the rounds about him are not true. How well he has succeeded, that he wants to say that he wants to bring about and how good the life he has succeeded, how well the children have succeeded.

That is the hidden message of the kir, that is what the sashimi must tell us, behind the caipirinha tells a story: the story of Tirza's father, the story with the good outcome. He had his youngest daughter only educate, but it worked out well. Yes, let his message in God's name for one evening a joyful message.

A girl stands for the door. One of Tirza's many friends, one which he has not seen before.

'Ha,' says the girl.

'Ha,' says ship's steward, while he think of the wife who has become a disgrace and he wonders exactly what is in the living room. As he does after her departure wondered, evening as Tirza above homework to make was telephoned or with girlfriends: where is it now? What is it? In whose arms is she? What did they? She regret? The silence sometimes forced him to turn the tv. There was nobody who argue with. He was his own enemy. If he wanted to annoy, he had a talk show to watch. Scream he did against the tv. Until he got with the pity tv and there silently opposite sat down.

'Are you the father of Tirza?'

He nods, almost delighted because he also derived from which of course unnecessary worries. They are no longer together, they do not have a relationship. As his wife for love like to walk, is that its case.

'I am Ester," she says, 'without h.'

'Ester without h,' he repeats. 'I am Jörgen with umlaut on the o.' He suspects that are sharp answer funny and this presumption is strengthened by the white wine, presents a momentary euphoria. Also is a ship's steward liberated, a few seconds strides he winner by its own course.

In the dressing room he stays are to adopt something in, a jacket, gift, a bag, but there is nothing to believe. Ester without h carries a dingy jeans and on the back of her hands are two telephone numbers written, he sees. Sit at its feet flip-flops. She is without gift. She is, you might say, without clothes. Ship's steward does not of people who refuse to be accepted.

'Can I offer you a glass of kir?' he asks.

The question that he has received almost all guests. A question that is as a house. Thereafter is his experience, the conversation without too many problems.

'What?'

'a glass of kir. Can I offer you that?'

She shakes her head. 'Is there tomato juice?'

'Yes, of course. There is also tomato juice.'

'Without ice.'

'Without ice,' reiterates ship's steward as if he had life long has done nothing else than this: orders recording, hang coats, people of whom he himself barely able to understand the name to others.

'And I would like the toilet use?'

He is going to her for. The toilet is located next to the kitchen. He opens the door, will switch the light on and check quick or the toilet there are decent looks like. It is. For a party.

In the refrigerator he seeks the tomato juice. He has three suits purchased. But where are they? From the living room is the voice of his wife above the music. They talk as if they were on the scene in the theater and they also the rear rows must see to it.

He has bought them, yesterday, he knows for sure, three suits.

Again he opens the refrigerator, somewhere in the refrigerator should the tomato juice. He she crouches down next, He kneels, perhaps in the vegetable drawer? He moves a few suits orange juice and throws in a carton of milk on the ground.

Ship's steward is now kneeled in the milk, for his open refrigerator, and he tail to a dish sushi which he earlier in the day has lovingly prepared.

I must not lose my sense he thinks. This is not the time.

Quick state he and close the door of the refrigerator. He gives a glass of wine in and gently says: 'it is a nice evening. This is Tirza's night.'

He grabs a roll of kitchen paper and wipe the milk carefully.

With the Wet plugs kitchen paper in his hand he remains certainly half a minute motionless. He will hear how the toilet. Gently squeeze it in the kitchen paper. As a charming host he wishes to be recalled. That must be a viable ambition.

This realisation forces him back to action. He throws the kitchen paper road and has the feeling lucky to have had. To avoid a risk to be. On his knees are two damp places to see, but who will look to its knees on a party like this?

He iron his hair smooth, picks up the tray with the beers, red wine and a vodka ice cream and walking to the living room, to his mouth the smile which he has studied for decades. The smile of the translated fiction.

'Can you not see that I am her mother?' he hears the wife say. They state in the event of a small group of Tirza's classmates. The children, to the extent that the children be called, around her as a big fish they shore with difficulty.

Ship's steward takes on new orders and he turns the music a little harder to prevent too many people unintentionally listen to the words of the spouse. Despite the loud music he hears the wife say loud and clear: 'I was traveling, Tirza has an excellent time with my husband. She is an independent child, always been that way. She had no one necessary.'

With the empty tray is a ship's steward back to the kitchen. He makes two new sushi rolls, a with salmon, a with tuna, drink a glass of white wine and then calls on its mobile Tirza phone, but it is not. He slowly begins to get nervous. A father is someone who is always to worry about. Especially if the parent refuses to do so.

He hears her voice. "Hi, this is Tirza. I am also not. But let but a nice message.'

That nice message he has never been understood. Sometimes you can still not nice to leave a message? 'Is your phone there than just for fun messages?' he had asked.

'Yes papa' Tirza had responded. 'My telephone is there for the fun messages. If the messages are not nice, they should you call but.'

'Where are you?' he speaks in. 'Tirza, come home as soon as possible. Your party has long been begun. We are waiting for you.'

Then he on the stool. He expresses his hands against his sleep and remains so until he the economy teacher the kitchen looks within walking.

The economy teacher is after a few laps around the kitchen has come to a standstill, he leans against the worktop and tail ship's steward a tad rude, such as people at parties. They will also take a look elsewhere. In the living room they have a minute or two for the bookcase CSQ and then they wonder: how would the kitchen look like? Kitchens spoilers much.

Ship's steward would not let themselves know, he simply return tail, without is still to be able to move in this direction. The cheerfulness which radiates the man is a ship's steward hostile. Other Mans happiness is a threat.

The man has a bottle of beer in the hand, a linen required depends loosely around his shoulders. He also had a student can be, but he is a teacher and He grins. The economy teacher is a man who always seems to grin.

'How does it, Mr ship's steward?' he asks.

Ship's steward is on the crank. He feels caught as if he is a guest in his own house as if he were in his own kitchen does things that can be done better not. Its black trousers shows on the knees some stains. For the rest you see nothing of the milk. That is the advantage of black. You see there is little. But he feels it still, the moisture. He feels it through anything. A damp man he is, a damp man on age. They may not see it, they will not see it.

'Excellent. Say but Jörgen. I am Jörgen. And you? You'll be entertained a bit?'

Ship's steward talk soft and civilized, he talks if someone involves without him effort.

You'll be entertained a bit? That is a question that you give an economy teacher asks? He has doubts about it but it is now too late to do anything to do so. He remembers that the economy teacher Hans hot. There was not a fairy tale figure which was called Hans?

Ship's steward will feel dizzy. He no longer want to sit on the stool. He concentrates on the shoes of the economy teacher, black shoes with a buckle. A fairy tale figure which was called, he comes Hans. Previously he read a lot for the children, also from books they still could not understand. For the love of art and culture, you should children on their toes. On its tenth nam Tirza knowledge of Don Quixote and his adventures, on its twelfth was Mrs Bovary and her about game in its inwards gelepeld, and when she was fourteen and actually no longer wished to be read out, climbed the ship's steward still the stairs with a copy of the Russian Library under his arm. 'Go away,' krijste them if he saw her bedroom. 'I want those notes from the underground not, I do not want to hear. Go away, dad. Go away, PAP. Go away.' She Trapp elde with her legs, but he went to her foot streelde end sit and its just as long until they have calmed down. He was the book open and las its fifteen minutes for from Notes from the underground. With the large Russians you could not start early enough. If you as a teenager the nihilism seen through him, did you made no further through it.

'It is a nice party,' says Hans. The man looks around, he does not seem willing to go. The kitchen is a good place, cozy and comfortable. Leaning against the worktop gliding the hours away. Weather an evening over.

The weekend in the houses of the people, in the morning the sound of the citrus press, evening tv, once in the quarter of a party. Together to do some shopping. Together Buy or borrow a cd. A crypto grams solve together. So will the economy but teacher life.

It is a ship's steward known for family life, and yet we are not. He iron his hair flat and offers the economy teacher, while he sushi is the life of the man: organized and happy.

Previously, when the silence in the house just had done its appearance, regretted it could be that he was not able to play the piano. Than he had in the evening and on Sunday afternoon behind his piano to be able to sit with three or four lovers around, as other people in the cafe to sit down with a group of friends.

He did not have a talent for friendship, as others no talent for signs or foreign languages. That is precisely why he had to want to play a musical instrument. Instead of talking with them, he had music for the people want. You are talking about to thoughts about. Ship's steward has mainly thoughts which do not need to be conveyed, which are of a secret nature and must be kept secret in the interest of both parties.

Tirza previously played cello. She was very talented, but she had the cello are discarded. Sometimes only after the departure of the wife, if the silence him in the evening threatened to make love, if he no longer uithield, how he also had done his best — twenty buttons walk through the garden, itself aloud from Dostoyevsky's diary of a writer — than he climbed the stairs and knocked at Tirza.

'Are you already finished with your homework?' he asked than. When they said 'yes', he proposed: 'Would you like to come down in order to play on the cello?' But he said that only if she was ready with her homework. School went for everything, school went above the cello.

'a particular girl, your daughter. Sensitive, gifted, quick.' The economy teacher is doorframe with the beer in his hand, as if it were his regret. The goodbye, the fact that Tirza succeeded his own career. The man sweeps up his mouth. 'Of sushi you should not eat too much,' he says.

Ship's steward nods. He opens his mouth. He took the decision to say something. We now need to happen. He is going to speak.

'Very sensitive they,' he says. 'And very gifted, that she was as a kid. When they were no other half was understood them all. Understood them.'

They also is 'Mooi.'

They also is 'Mooi,' agrees ship's steward.

'adult'.

Ship's steward nods for the umpteenth time.

'They are going to make a trip around the world, I heard?'

'No trip around the world. They are going to travel a while. Africa. Botswana, South Africa, Namibia. Perhaps Zaire. She is always been interested in that continent. Do you still have a beer?' ship's steward now leans itself also to the counter. From the living room by a vague urge to the kitchen. Our opinion unanimously. What the wife also all says, ship's steward does not need to hear. It relaxs and must think to Schiphol, the departures hall where he five days per week walk through it. As an aircraft is built to fly, so he is built for the loneliness. Only occasionally he touches the other, when an airplane is the ground. To then quickly, with engine misfiring, take off again. A plane that is too long to stay on the ground, does not loose any more. Each day an emergency landing. Each hour of an emergency landing. His life one large emergency landing.

'Yes, tasty,' says the economy teacher. He puts his empty bottle in the sink.

'A GLASS?'

The guy shakes his head. 'However, make sure that it has its own needles with you if they go to Botswana and Zaire.' He takes a beer bottle of ship's steward and secure it immediately to his mouth.

Ship's steward looks. Weather he will feel dizzy.

'Its own needles?'

'Its own syringes and needles. If you go to Africa, you must bring your own syringes and needles. You never know when you are in hospital.'

The father of Tirza can imagine that pupils secretly or less secretly on the economy teacher in love. He radiates what needs to everyone. Trust, not just in the future, in everything. In life itself. In the goodness of everything alive. An intense confidence he radiates from.

'Are you there than in the past?'

'Africa?" asks the man. 'Never'. Yes, Egypt, Hurghada, the Canary Islands. But you can mention that Africa? I know people in real Africa and which had their own syringes and needles. If you are going to Cape Town, you have no syringes, but is still Cape Town Africa?'

There is a silence. With Cape Town seems to have come to an end the call.

'MAG I ask you what?' ship's steward let the worktop. He folds his arms akimbo. 'a strange question perhaps.'

'Sure,' says the man. 'Of course you may ask what. Also strange questions. I am more accustomed to.' He smiles and takes a big sip of beer.

Weather feels a ship's steward the dizziness. Now even worse. The dizziness is the symptom of a false idea. Thoughts that there should have been not but which do not have to expel that is the hell.

'What is a hedge fund exactly?'

Had just the economy teacher still good temper and inviting laughed. Everything we ask him. He is there. To give answers, also on the unanswered questions can. But this had apparently not he expected.

'A hedge fund?'

'A hedge fund,' reiterates ship's steward. He had asked: 'What is happening with the sex life of the Crocodile?', than the silence bedrukkender had not.

'Yes, how can I explain that?' says the economy teacher after a few seconds. 'It is a kind of investment fund. An investment fund that also makes a profit or can make it as the markets do not increase. The hedge funds are generally not public recorded.' He would also like to say something, but he did not know what. He smiles, for the first time now also itself a tad helpless. Get lost in a conversation that he had never wanted to speak on his free evening.

When a ship's steward some five years ago was abroad with in his briefcase for buisness seven months to rent, had the advisor at the bank with whom he discussed hedge funds. No, he had with her about hedge funds. Hedge funds were completely.

He had read something about it, he had heard about it. The hedge fund were noisy around as a large, but particularly attractive secret.

The explanatory notes to the hedge fund was not quite up to him by squat, but you had to be in this kind of case to rely on your intuition. His intuition had never left in the lurch, at least not if bank matters did.

'An investment in a hedge fund starts with a million,' said the ms of the bank.

A million, that was pretty much everything ship's steward had. He had spared diligently, o, he had more than just the rent to his account at this bank transferred. A erfenisje here, the proceeds of a sailing boat sold there are also regular holiday allowance. Everything went to the investment account to the daughters to give access to the worlds that had never enter ship's steward itself. 'Are you sure your investments do not want to spread a little?' asked the advisor still. A young woman with blond hair, in a sleek, black suit. Lush hair. She was new. He had worked with a man. A man had him of investment advice. A man with brown hair. What was still at least about it. Everywhere balding spots. Ship's steward saw many, and the more he saw the less he dared to say. The more he saw the more thoughts in him that never opborrelden share with the world could be. He was blind, it would him for that reason that have been raised.

'You must have confidence,' said ship's steward. 'a little risk.' The thought of the financial independence that is becoming increasingly came and which would ensure that children are not pushed around would be, as well as the sleek, black suit of the advisor voted hopeful. ship's steward On the courageous. O, there was hope, you had to only keep your eyes open minded. The results which the hedge fund had recorded in the past were spectacular. It could not be said. That was up to him by reduced. Spectacular. A word that stood as a house. A word that it vague reminded the House of sex, prohibited sex in a lift or a toilet.

'I must warn you, the costs are high.'

'but the results have been spectacular.'

'De results are spectacular,' judging the wife of the bank. She spoke the word 'spectacularly' as if it was a rare delicacy. 'And it is a particularly popular hedge fund.'

They looked at him, he found, beaming.

'I want it,' said ship's steward with dry mouth, 'I want that hedge fund.'

And He stared at her as if they were the hedge fund was. As they sat for him as a mannequin there was one moment no doubt: the lady of the bank was a hedge fund of human flesh.

'we will simply have to do it?' she asked as if they still hesitant, but it was as much as was clear, a pro forma question. 'Everything?'

'Everything,' said ship's steward.

The name of the fund to which he now insert power went was exotic and yet reliable, as if it was always there, for decades had led a secret life. And this charming thing only now manifested to him, as a God that he still had unexpectedly chosen to inform him about his existence.

She wrote something on a paper that ship's steward good temper, almost generous with its own fountain pen signed and when she asked: 'Even what coffee?'

'like'.

'What biscuits there?'

'Tasty,' said ship's steward.

When the biscuits arrived there is a ship's steward grabbed the dish, with so much enthusiasm that in its hands crumbled. He looked at the crumbs, he looked to the teacher.

But the lady of the bank wasn't seeing it, and he continued to whom he was, the man who came to bring the rent. Not for him, for his daughters. For their future. For a better future. The affordable happiness.

In March of the following year he was gone back to the bank, with the rent of the last few months. With the hedge fund was excellent. Spectacular, it was the word. Yes, the financial independence was now really within easy reach.

One year later, at the end of March, he travelled back to the bank. Everything was the same, everything went as always, the same train journey, the same office, the same computer, the same advisor, whether she wore now no tight, black suit, but a gray skirt with a white bloesje. Everything was there, including its blond, lush her, and also the coffee lady and the biscuits, they were all there. Only the hedge fund was no longer there. That was in amused. Disappeared. Road.

'How can that?' asked ship's steward.

There followed a long and technically story that he did not understand because he could not listen. He could not concentrate. The damp palm of his hand shaky crumbs of sand numerous biscuit.

He could not help but think: I am reports. But he did not know who or what it had produced reports. Not the lady on the other side of the table with its red lips and its white blouse. A woman he would like a time had wanted to cushion, but the lust he had under control. His lust was a enslave showboating sheep that was in a small but loyal audience. Not the tenants who had not paid neatly the bank, who could do anything about it, as far as he understood from the words of the friendly smiling mrs. They thought it was a real pity, and almost he believed her too. She was just so sad if he fell again and again and the word 'world economy'. That sounded like world Judaism, but then more innocent and therefore even more horrific.

He, Jörgen ship's steward, which the tax and the tenants had been outwit, who had earned his daughters a degree of financial independence to deliver many others which only he could be jealous who had worked because he lived in the belief that only the work was a drug against grief and suffering, he was defeated by the world economy. Was down. The world economy had him on the knees forced. In the world economy had he found the enemy too strong for him, too strong for the predator. Finally a real enemy. But it was an enemy without face and without a name. One who could take no story. The world economy was an enemy that would not break the silence. He would not be warm of this enemy. He could never embracing the world economy to its gently to bite death. The world economy had no face.

'We have had a difficult time,' said the lady with its sad face, and yet he saw that they are not really sad was rather pleased and happy. 'First the Internet bubble, when the 11th September. There are good punch cases, and some players on the market have of that do not fold can recover.'

'De 11th September, what does that have to do with anything?'

He remembered that day as the day that the Wall fell. How against his daughter said: 'Remember this well, this is history.' And so he had also looked at. As to history.

'Ah,' she said, 'Meneer ship's steward, everything has everything to do with today. You know what they say: if they are in one part of the world, cough, hits the other part of the world. But how is it with your daughters? You had two daughters?'

The history threatened to be personally now. The Anonymous world economy got a face, a body, a name. Mohammed Atta, who had a ship's steward are money taken, the financial independence, freedom for his children who was so close, so terribly near. Mohammed Atta was behind it, Atta had beheaded Hofmeesters hedge fund.

'What you asked?'

'How your daughters?'

'Excellent,' he said. 'Why have you not also called me?'

'We could not reach you.'

Slowly approached the end of the conversation. There was still an outstanding on his account, something of two months rent, and he threw the eight months rent he had.

The lady of the bank early still: 'Would you like to invest?' But he said: 'Let's get it on a savings account.'

They gave each other a hand. 'Until over a year than back,' she said.

When he was outside. Spring. Sun. People who for the first time without jacket on street walked. The happy with which that went hand in hand.

So ends the financial independence, he thought. As everything ends. In an hour the done. You will receive an extra biscuit. A regretful gaze. The sympathy that in ten minutes should be handled, because the labor costs are high.

He walked through a shopping street, viewed the faces of the other people and wondered whether they also by the world economy were defeated. Or by Mohammed Atta. Or by both at the same time. They could recognize each other, the report ones? Or they remained anonymous at all times? The winners and losers brotherly next to each other, together strolling through an expensive shopping street. For always on the stroll. No one knew where the chaff from the wheat divorced.

For a shoe store he continued. He studied the ladies shoes. There was a lot of brown on, this spring. He did not brown shoes. Also not brown suits.

He wondered why he now had nothing more. Why everything from him was decreased. A good reason why he could not think of. What purpose was to serve? The game was played there actually? And who played with him?

When he went to the shop within, he applied a few black boots, but during the fit urged up to him by that he could no longer afford this. That he is now even but little could afford. Also, a fraction of a second, he had the disputing the shoe salesperson to ontkleden and on the spot, with her to penetrate to, if only because the control him had anything to offer. Lust is the highest form of indifference. He looked to her. 'I will still be some other boots to show?' she asked. 'or perhaps what low shoes? That is good as well as the earlier summer.'

Who commits a crime is never more only. Wherever he goes, the crime goes with him. But he did not dare, the security guard at the door had him in the holes, and he fled from the shop. He was in such a hurry that his briefcase in the left shoe shop. The salesperson came chasing him.

He looked in the bag. In addition to two manuscripts, four pencils and a banana were leaflets on hedge funds and other investment funds. Colored leaflets, printed on glossy paper, he knew what printing cost. In the busy shopping street he sheet by the leaflets, with the briefcase under his arm. People clashed against him. He stood in the way, but remained standing. He saw the graphs, the figures, the language in which the future was described, a rosy, carefree future.

When did he take everything will be back. Reports are fear was no longer a dream, a vision for warm summer evenings. It was there. The defeat had without notice on the horizon.

How to live after your reports? You can look into the people, or not? Maybe it is better to look to the ground, in the hope that they will not be able to see you as long as you do not see them.

In a McDonald's, he bought a vanilla ice cream, that he is sitting on a pavement opat, next to a group of young people. A few seconds they looked at him and wonderment and ridicule, with their backpacks full of school books in addition to themselves, when they decided to ignore it. The old man with his ice cream. They let him in peace. They let him go.

He had Tirza still. Not everything was dropped him. They had left him something. Tirza. They had left him the most beautiful, the best, the dearest. They had left him the solar queen.

Then he stood on and although he still was reports, walked to the station without solely to look to the ground. Because there was still Tirza, somewhere she waited on him in another world where no hedge funds existed in another country, in another existence.

But in the train back to house could the thought of the solar queen does not prevent him because he is ashamed by the world economy was reports. A terrible shame he was made, comprehensive was she and they resulted in one single idea: I can no longer come under the eyes.

He was a man who looked to the ground as he walked the streets, a man to his shoes when He stared just a supermarket with a trolley his hometown, a man who the cans of others avoided as if he was afraid that his history to his face was to read. The history as a putrid wound. A mark.

Home plugged it the leaflets about the hedge funds in a la. It felt as if he were not only those folders, but his entire life there buried.

'They are very popular,' says the economy teacher. 'You must agree to look forward, though. Viewing, every day to the pension funds invest their money somewhere in. And if the market is stagnating, than is there to seek alternatives. So is the hedge fund. But it really is once again talking about its peak. Why would you know this, I ask you?'

Ship's steward grabs him gently with his linen required, almost in passing as if he were a stain has seen that he, as befits a good host, wants to brush it off when dry.

Tonight is different. Tonight he looks human. Tonight is forgotten everything. Tonight is he who formerly he was, but better, an improved version of the old ship's steward, because this is the feast of the solar queen.

'You must agree to look snobbish,' says ship's steward. 'As a weapon that is loaded.'

'I had the not yet viewed, but as you can see that.'

A Smile, a sip of beer. Still a smile. The economy teacher is truly charming, on the endearing.

Ship's steward release it, he picks up the shaker of improvised bar and begins to shake impetuously. Tirza's friends must now but also more of his cocktails. On the feast of your youngest daughter you let out. Cheerful. Full of good courage. Hopeful. On the feast of your youngest daughter you yourself are a bit of the party spirit. It converts the shaker on the worktop and serves a half glass of wine. It rejects his glass against the bottle of beer from the economy teacher. 'They is something special,' he says. 'They…' he is also not more from his words.

The thought of his daughter quickly overwhelm him, leave nothing of him about reduces him to an appendix of such subsidiary. An insignificant and excess appendix.

'Tirza? Yes. I have a special relationship with her. With more students in its class, it is a special class, but especially with Tirza. So cheerful, as open. And it is always wait and see what comes next year.'

The economy teacher does one step in the direction of the door. He is seen in the kitchen. In sushi yet has no draft. And cocktails is he also not particularly. He will return to the place where the real celebration takes place, the beating heart of the living room.

'They sometimes disappear snobbish, hedge funds?' is called a ship's steward after him. 'they cease to exist. As if they have never been Hofmeesters.' voting is schor. He remembers his excitement after the call at the bank. Decades of rent and gains disappeared. Where is the money he would still like to know. He will not need it back, also with this loss that he is reconciled. He does not know better than that it is not there, but he would like to know who are money now. Capital is not destroyed? It disappears from only the one pocket and thrown into another. He would like to see a face. A photo of the man who made his money now has a photo of the house where all the saved rent of him now live. As he always has been curious to the childhood love of the spouse. A perhaps unhealthy curiosity to the person who has overcome him.

'SOMS disappear hedge funds,' says Hans while he is already in the corridor. 'It is just the nature.'

Then he walks away, as he came in the kitchen. Careless, the bottle of beer in his hand. Luck. Ship's steward looks after him.

He washes his face, dries out with kitchen paper, call Tirza one more time but will once again its voice mail, and then enter the living room to place orders, gossip.

Between the making of a few cocktails by quickly he drinks a glass of wine. He must also relax, such as Hans. Let everything but on him. He can. He has reached the age where nothing more from the balance.

He went back to the party, he finds that he is much better than earlier in the evening. The white wine makes him relax, almost light-hearted. Just and he is frivolous.

In the living room is now danced. The lights above the dining table are turned off and there are what chairs aside.

Three girls, a boy and his wife dancing.

The wife dances with the boy. He knows the boy, he is here a few times on the floor but a ship's steward can not on its name. He only know that it is a name with one syllable. Sometimes he has that even if he reads: what status calls not up to him by, but the syllables he sees. It counts them, one, two, three, four. The syllables jumping for his eyes up and down as the wife now for his eyes with the boy jumps. Dancing is called. You surrender, not onsierlijk, when you consider that her body is in a piece of textile which human yardsticks never should have been pressed.

She could always dancing, and she did it. They still does not bad. Only if you see pictures of her of a five or six years ago, how old they has become. Only when you see the photos to find you.

Even more than to the mother of his children, is that to which a ship's steward to watch is: a woman, plane for the withering, which with a boy of eighteen dance as if there can be no lasting. If her youth will always continue.

And I regret it. He caught on itself, vexation sorry is virtually disappeared, the irritation is weakened. It is so much easier in the enemy to see the stronger. And then it appears that the enemy just as weak as you, perhaps even weaker. Even though reports. A wilted enemy is not an enemy more.

The story, the myth where you get all those years around your identity, shows no longer weefde valid. The mother of my children who by went with her childhood love. The mother of my children who thought that she was the painter. That story is not more. Because that childhood love is there not more. And the mother of your children there is suddenly. In light clothing, but absurdist does not detract from the fact that she is again.

That is what he sees when he to the dance floor looks. Its own history disguised as self-deception. The flour of the eternal youth. That flower does it think of a hedge fund. Promises, glossy paper, spectacular results. A dream of a hedge fund. A dream of a woman. The fragile happiness within easy reach.

The wife lays her hands on the shoulders of the boy. God, how would he? He has eaten here, even twice. A polite boy, a little quiet, though, go there was little on him. He even wanted to help clearing.

Ship's steward considers that he has had a little something with Tirza, but he is not sure. When it comes to love, is it a year and a half ago have been somewhat abrasive. From its fifteenth they already knew that they After her graduation a year to Africa wanted, but when the boys went, changed weekly of opinion. They 'I just good friends,' she said, 'and some of those friends are casual boys, but that does not mean anything. It meant but something.' And then they smiled as if they were a large joke found and ship's steward laughed.

Three years ago, a few weeks after the wife was gone to the houseboat, had at supper Tirza asked: 'Papa, when will I lose your virginity?'

Ship's steward was busy in his desert to surrounded, Panna Cotta from the caterer a few streets away. He heard her question did surrounded with. When he had looked at his watch. 'Everyone is deflowered,' he said. 'Early or late on the everyone, Tirza.'

'For me in the class are nearly all of them deflowered. When will I lose your virginity in God's name? You know everything?'

'Not everything. Little even, really.' He licked his spoon and laid him down. The panna cotta tasted him not more.

'but you will still have everything an opinion? About the oddest things you have a view. What is your opinion about the fact that I have not yet deflowered am? That everyone in my class deflowered, only the nerds and suckers, the pimple heads not, but also everyone but me. What have you got to say?'

Ibi was not there. Ibi was at that time already disappearing, busy trying to resolve to dissociate themselves from the world from which they had come about.

Ship's steward looked at its support framework. He was alone with his youngest daughter he would only remain with her.

'things happen with a reason, and if they do not happen that also has a reason. You have not, you will lose your virginity because you do not have the correct.'

She sighed, Tirza, they said: 'Pffff.' And when once again: 'Pfffff.' There was a half panna cotta on its board, they cut him with her spoon in three pieces. 'Dat is such a crap, PAP,' she said. 'that is so passé. It is not that you lose your virginity by appropriate. The point is that it happens. That is the most important. That is the only thing that counts. I want you to help me. I would like that you say who must go to me came to.'

Ship's steward hustle and bustle his hands against his cheeks as if he suddenly had received serious toothache.

He looked at Tirza, gifted youngest daughter not by just anyone should be deflowered. Previously she had many swimming. She had participated in competitions. Three times per week he brought her after his work on the bike to the Zuiderbad. He was nearly as fanatical as they are. No, he was fanatical. His daughters had to do what he had not done so, what he had failed to do what he by circumstances had failed to do: excel. Because one thing they could not complain ship's steward they could not say that he had not realized that on this world only place was for excellence. The rest was finished, or simply pushed aside, bored in a corner. And even the performances of ontkwamen not always that fate.

To Tirza became ill. When was the last with the swimming.

'I give the names of all suitable boys, and at a given moment you say: "Stop" Okay, we will do the same? I can do not have to choose. I know it is simply not.'

They had stood up from its seat, she was now behind him, she had her arms around him skipped.

And he was there, gazing to his panna cotta, listening to her voice, his hands against his cheeks pressed, and also that the wife is possessed he now perhaps would call, at this very moment to tell where they had been all those weeks.

'You must help me,' said Tirza. 'Fathers are to help their daughters, are nevertheless? fathers Well, help me than, PAP.'

'Tirza,' he said, 'do not as strange. Please do not as strange. Hold on to those nonsense. You can eat panna cotta.'

They are more solid against are hustle and bustle seat.

'I'm going to the names list the boys, with a short description. Are you ready? David, brown, smooth hair, about a meter seventy four.'

'No,' shouted ship's steward. 'No, Tirza. Sit down. Keep this. Sit back.' He did with his hand on table.

They showed him, went back to its own seat.

This was also, and portrait took them a bite of her panna cotta.

'Not sad,' she said. 'Not sad, dad. I would like just so horrible like to lose your virginity. I am not ugly? Why does it not?'

Also he strangled a bite of yet the dessert. They sat down. He rejected his hands off, even though there is nothing to kleefde, and he hustle and bustle them against his cheeks.

'You are very nice, Tirza,' he said. 'terribly nice, this has nothing to do with it. But the boys are shy, only later they are less shy, and even then not always. You must be the guys at their convenience.'

"How?'

He made his hands against his eyes, he remembered how he her to the clinic in Germany had driven, and for the first time of his life he began to pray. Not with words, a singing was, a racket. He were noisy internally as a large insect.

'But how?' she asked again. 'How do i boys on their convenience? They are doing so foolish.'

He made his hands firmer against his eyes. The Racket loved. 'You must not forget,' he said soft, 'dat a little afraid of you. They are for all fears, but the allerbangst are they for you. Therefore you must be the boy who you have chosen to bring with you to a place where no one can see you, a secret place it must be. And you have to have him gently touch. First he will act as a deterrent. But you must not scare. Whatever happens, you should never be alarmed. You need to turn it simply touch. And then you say: "I am Tirza and I love you."'

As far as possible hustle and bustle he even more firmly against his eyes and he hoped but that his hands would absorb the tears, that they do not over his fingers, seep into the vision of the world would be extracted by the hands with which he is so keen on in the garden worked.

'And then if I said that?'

'Dan…' He swallowed. 'Dan — he has a t-shirt or a shirt or a jacket? The boy who you have selected.'

'a shirt.'

'Dan,' said ship's steward, 'dan you should slowly open his shirt, first the upper buttons, and than the lower. He will defend, maybe he will even want to walk, but you have to deal with him in his arm and say: "not drain completely, because I am Tirza and I love you."'

'And then? Tell.'

Ship's steward could almost not more. Sank his head still further away. His eyes were made to red, swollen, hands are wet and old.

'Dan…' he took a deep breath. And again. Such as when he walked up the stairs in search of Ibi which was not returned by the lessee. The same sensation of asphyxia, of suffocation. 'Dan you must add it to your pressing firmly and not forget how afraid he is that he more afraid for you than for the dead, because you are a woman, Tirza. And then you feel him, you must feel him how he is and how he is, you need him, you need him smell kissing, you must attach against him, you have to hold him as if he would like to emerge, and that he would also, but you must continue to hold him. Because he also wants to be held, he wants to escape and he wants to be held, but you have to be stronger, that is the only solution. And then you say: "Who are you? I am Tirza and I love you, but who are you?"'

At that moment a cry Hofmeesters escaped on foot, a slogan as a fog horn. Short but hard, one that can be heard for miles.

Tirza had stood up. Ship's steward, appalled by his own stunt, was also.

'What is there, papa?' she asked. 'What is there?'

Afraid if he was that they would like to see the tears, he pressed up against her. He loved her and he kissed her, on her hair, its cheeks, its nose, its lips, her ears. 'Nothing, Tirza,' he said, 'nothing is there. I had a dream, I had a bad idea. There is nothing. Everything will be fine. Everything is good.'

He opened the garden doors, he took her to the darkness of the garden, although it actually was too cold without jacket to go outside, but he hoped that they are red eyes would not see.

'Dus so I must do so,' she said, when they finally were motionless on the grass. The wet grass.

'If you must do it,' he replied, his head swiveled away something of her, gazing to the barn and the trees, the houses of the 'Willemsparkweg'.

'But why are the guys than fear for me?'

Somewhere on the opposite side were in a room the lights dimmed, a child room probably. The voorleesuur was in order.

And still half of its turned away he said: 'because they think that you are unreachable. As soon as they have broken they will no longer afraid of you.'

She went on her toes. She whispered in the ear of her father: 'I am Tirza and I love you.'

3

Ship's steward at the bank next to Lady Veldkamp, which is already the whole evening has not betrayed, and for the umpteenth time he also wonders where Tirza remains, why not just call. It is wise, indeed no longer a child, adult. More mature than many of its peers, there will certainly be a good reason for its late arrival. Perhaps it is time for you to passé own party to appear. He knows no longer so sure what is and what is not passé, actually, he never knew that.

Also he looks at lady Field Camp. The kir seems to seduce her, she is working on its fifth glass. She smiles at him, he smiles back and then he observes the partiers as a general his troops. There is not a deficit. The orders are already recorded. For the security he said: 'beer and wine you can also become suits in the kitchen.' nobody will with an empty glass. No one will be unfortunate this evening.

Ibi is still next to lady field camp on the bench. But they do not say anything more. It is sitting there are quite simply, as they often formerly sat, withdrew, closed, actually already left, perhaps it was never really had been decided as a child that they are not involved in this family wanted to hear. That they just do not match. Probably she thinks to its Inn, her husband, her boyfriend, how you want to call the man in any case about who wish to remain silent and ship's steward There are things about which you are not speaking. You resigned, but talk, no.

Also, almost in passing, lady Veldkamp Hofmeesters, only to attract his attention. 'Mewe snobbish," she says.

'What?'

'Die dancing people. The children.'

'Yes,' says ship's steward. 'Very nice.' But rather he had the wife is not dance. And certainly not tonight. With all these children that hungry around her.

Then Ibi abruptly and starts to dance also, wild and exuberant, as if they were in the jungle is, in a place where no one can see her, where they have only is and the shame has no function. Shame the other necessary. 'Do you because you think that the other looks, because you look that the other wéét.

It is ten hours. Even a few seconds to stare at the ship's steward Ibi are, like fathers do that, boatyard and proud, though there to him a unfounded fear at. In his children find their own fear, in the meetings with his posterity who fear to life, in everything he recognizes them himself to his control from dictatorship. He finds that his daughters to bad and sloppy on the life has prepared. They complain about him speechless, his children make him who he is and who he is — he must face — is unbearable.

Someone is running the music harder, the wife saves during the dancing its arms to the boy, the boy who sometimes has a snack meegegeten. Still is a ship's steward not on its name. He goes to the kitchen and serves a glass of wine.

If the glass is empty, call he Tirza. Her voice mail. "Hi, this is Tirza. I am also not. But let but a nice message.'

'Sweetheart,' he speaks of 'Your party is in full swing. Almost everyone is now. You really should. It is a stunning celebration.'

The voordeurbel. The weather is not Tirza. It is Mrs Of Excavating, its old class teacher. He also speaks with her about general affairs, politics, a novel of a Belgian of whom he has never heard.

Then walk in the garden ship's steward.

The torches burning even. Yes, that he has done well, they burn through.

He is going to the barn in. Between the machine and the rake the saw he leans to the wood. He says something, but he itself can not understand. Only after a few moments he realizes that the order repeats that he is a minute or so ago and if he has included this is ready, if he is satisfied that he is nothing forgotten, that his memory works, calls it up to him by that he still does not know what a hedge fund. The economy has not teacher should be able to explain, no one has to be able to interpret it. The hedge fund remains a mystery. More than three years after the disappearance of his hedge fund he still know not what exactly has disappeared.

With both hands and rubs his newly shaved cheeks. He remembers that the wife is said to him: 'Fuck', when he had asked: 'What do you want in God's name? The guests come so.' He thinks of the balcony doors in the bedroom, he remembers the evening that they stood on the sidewalk with its suitcase, not so very long ago, but it seems like a different life. As he remains are hands against his cheeks are printed, its memory filled with something called a misunderstanding.

After a few minutes he calls itself to the order. There is a festival. There is a host. There is no pain. Pain is fiction, the most in any case. Who has pain must concentrate, until he feel nothing more. With a broken leg is going to be difficult, that is true. But he has not broken leg. Nothing he has broken.

Someone opens the door of the barn, but he can not see who.

He are staring and are staring by the semi-dark, than he recognizes the girl that tomato juice has ordered.

'The Celebration is within,' he says more unfriendly than intended. 'This is the sanding.'

She seems to act as a deterrent. She had definitely no man expected, only old crap, silence. But she recovers rapidly. It may also be that they followed him. That they are not at all shocked of his presence. That he was the person who an unfounded fear felt.

'And what are you doing here than?'

'I? I get the same breath. Also some fresh air.' He pants as a bad actor with sounds are words should be emphasized. 'I could not find the tomato juice. He must be somewhere. But I could not find him.'

From his mouth, in this barn, on this evening, sounds like a statement for a full life, for the absence of many, for the absence of happiness. The tomato juice was not found.

'I drink something else.'

She has the door of the barn is left open. He looks at her flip-flops, to its jeans from below is coiled a few times. Perhaps it is the fashion, he thinks it is a funny face. Than he recalls its name: Ester. Without h.

It is reminiscent of Tirza him. Even without h.

'Are you a good friend of Tirza?'

'Not really.'

He is off the wall against which he was leaning so enjoyable. He has to go back to the party. We need him. His daughter is probably already arrived.

'I am really a girlfriend of her.'

The father is looking leery toward the girl. What is it doing on this celebration? What do they here? This is an evening for the friends and girlfriends of Tirza, not for wild boar roaming. Not for people who want to free drink because the their tastes better when there was nothing they have to pay for it.

He puts one hand on the mower. Another father had he want to be, which he means: a better father. When it became apparent that there was not for him to in Excel, he had chosen for the fatherhood. To ensure that children are reflective and critical to the world would look. What is intelligence other than the critical distance which itself and the things? They should not take are children, everything had to be called into question. On nothing else than the intelligence of confidence, that he had learned their. He had the intelligence to the rank of God. The god who would make everything. And now he has the urgent feeling that he something about the main has seen, that the critical eye which he and his daughters forced the world has to be seen on the fundamental questions does not answer. The own intelligence as god leaves much uncut. The white spots are numerous. The god will not be possible, the god has no answer.

'Why did they invited you?'

It is true what imaginary substance of his shoulders and making a step in the direction of the door.

There is no answer. The girl is in the door opening, playing with one of her flip-flops. She looks to its tool, the garden chairs, an empty crate in which ever mandarins were and that he has retained for reasons that are unclear. He awaits. Still no response.

'And do you already know what you are going to do? After school?' he asks than but to take the call to finish. Whether they are a friend of his daughter is or not, a call must be completed neatly.

'I go back to school. I am slumped.'

'I am really sorry.' In his pocket will ship's steward a handkerchief and he rubs his forehead. It is not wet he thinks it is wet.

'I am not good in school. They say that I am slim, but that is not the case.'

He knows he is no council with this conf leg. He knows he is not a council with the entire conversation. Another time and rubs his forehead. Stronger than the first time, as though there were scabs on his forehead grow that he must off crabs.

'Have you my sushi?'

'In relationships I am also not good.'

'Have you my sushi? There is also sashimi.' He urges. He wishes to reply. He may not oppose as his questions are ignored.

'I eat no fish. Take them to me never long. A month or so. Two, three weeks. I am sorry to tell you it all.'

'does not. Do you ship's steward embodied vegetarian?' his handkerchief again. He must be returned to the party, but I am not. The longer he remains in the barn, the harder it is to go back, to resume his duties.

'I eat no fish. And certainly not a raw fish.'

A difficult girl. Difficult eaters are difficult people. Ship's steward loves people who eat everything, especially everything he has prepared. There should be eaten. People who cannot talk, food. Even people who can not life, food.

'but you are vegetarian?'

'I eat no fish. I do eat meat. I do not know what you are then. What are you?'

Ship's steward also thinks about this question. Is there a word for? If it exists, he knows it is not. 'Dan you are someone who does not eat fish,' he says after a few seconds.

They are there and they do not seem to want to depart, they do not understand that he should it.

"Well, that is what I am. Someone who does not eat fish.' She smiles, but it is not real smile. Previously a persiflage on the smile.

'I am sorry,' he says one more time he is now close to her, he must push her aside, he must return. 'Of those relations and of school, and also of the fish, I am sorry but you will probably find someone who loves you. And there are also vegetarian snacks. Olives.'

'Ah," she says. 'Yeah. "Hold" is so old fashioned.'

'What do you mean?'

'We do not do more to.' It is almost aggressive. As a reproach. And it felt also for ship's steward, he has the impression that he rightly pointed. A faux pas he has committed, and this girl let him that subtly know.

His hand rests on her shoulder to its friendly but still determined to push aside. The image of his wife in the living room to the dancing is with Tirza's friends bubbles forth in him and bothers him, makes him nervous. Sick, you would have to say. Sick.

'What are you doing?' he asks, his hand still on her shoulder.

At the same time tough and fragile, so they, and its solidity emphasizes the fragility, or rather: emphasizes what there all already is broken.

'We enjoy each other," she says. 'We try at least.'

He rubbed with his right hand by his hair. His left hand remains on its shoulder, as if those hand paralyzed.

Its answers him not, he wants no longer hear them. A so-called rebel, that will they are. Someone nothing, someone who has not understood that it is a question of the world to view critically, that you have to work, work, work and a further work, but believes that can enjoy the goal is. What a about courage. What a heart-free courage.

'We,' he says. 'We? I am not so sure that there is a "we". For example, you and I are we now have a "we"? I think not. Who is "we"? On behalf of whom do you speak?'

What is the problem with him? To what for discussion he begins? What he wants this child, that of fish or school appears to be, evidence? He must leave her only, her in her own sop cook cook it. Do not reduce to its level, what that level might be. He must be above it, he is a man of nearly sixty. Men of almost sixty are above. But what he discovered again and again every hour, every quarter, as if someone not tired him a little to want to prove: for He is not above. Nowhere is it is at the top.

'I believe that there may be a "we". I think that I can say: "We do not, we are not 'Love'. We do not. You might be. We do not. We positive displacement ommen the." hopefully you will find me not cheeky, but I believe you nonsense proclaims. I believe that many people nonsense proclaiming and that they think that may, that that is no problem, because they are older. Or have money. I am not clever. Not as smart as they think, but I know what nonsense.'

'I must return to the feast,' whispers ship's steward. 'We are talking about. Later. Another time. You can love cannot abolish, Ester. I have tried, when i was so old as you. I wanted to abolish the love. I can tell you a lot about. You can also come along to eat. Will love Tirza. Before they leave. She goes to Africa, as you know.'

'We. Now you are saying it themselves. Wé about. We, you see that it exists. We have a second, we are a "we". Whether you like it or not. We are a "we".'

He looks at her face. His hand is still on her shoulder. For the first time he realizes that his life not hurt, better life, his life, he understands that while he is at the face of Ester without h. He must be thinking about what that means. What does pain? 'I need it,' he says, and he hears smekend yourself how it sounds, how little authoritarian, how hopeless. 'Let me through it.'

'MAG I continue?'

'Here?'

His hand slides out of her shoulder. Despite the warm evening he suddenly cold. It suppresses the tendency to flip teeth.

'Here.' She pointing to his garden tool. He sees a bag of manure, a bag of earth, the machine saw, a rake, a mower, a bucket, the box in which mandarins have sat.

'In the barn? But here is the party. Here is nothing, girl. Here is nothing at all.'

'I like to be alone. I must also…'

She picks the bucket, turns around and moves that sit in it.

'Look," she says, 'I'm sitting here doing good. I am no one to load.'

He hesitates. He must find this well? Completely normal is he not. One caught up in the barn while the party in the living room is in full swing. Well, he has celebrations of his wife could be pulled back into the bedroom, but he is a man, and when he did he was already a man on age. One that could make no friends, but who had come to the conclusion that the with only two daughters also best presentation.

'Well,' he says. 'For my part. If you feel like it. If this is your idea of a party. I will give you something to drink. What do you have? And you can make light. There is also light." He points to the light button. 'I will give you something to read? The newspaper today?'

'Dank you. I do nothing to read. I am myself gently pats.'

He bows down as if he were its not good can be understood. He also believes that he has not really understood her. 'What are you going to do?'

'I do myself gently stroke. So.' With her right hand rubs them slowly over her left arm. She is doing slow, that they would feel what eng and is unknown. A reptile. Her arm is a reptile.

A few seconds he looks at the scene and with a light feeling of unease. With a presumption that is becoming more and more urgent: would he not witness. Not right now. Never really.

In the distance he hears the music of the party. Votes.

They rubs on the basis on which telephone numbers are written and then on her bare arm. Back and forth. To accelerate without, but also without.

'Ester,' he says with all the conviction that he can lay in his voice, 'within are very many people who you would want to gently with pleasure petting. Go to the living room, i imagine all kinds of fun people, but I think that everyone already knows. Go with me. Do not stay here. This is not a barn for you.'

'I prefer to do it themselves. Petting. I can do better itself.'

Also he remains motionless. He is in two fight. He must convince her, but he does not know how. He thinks it is irresponsible to its here to leave only. Completely irresponsible. If you are old you may find yourself caught up in the barn while the party in the living room brawl, not if you are young, then you get load of unwanted thoughts.

'Meneer ship's steward," she says, while they are still on her arm rubs, 'is you sometimes gently stroked?'

Without further to say something more about it the sanding. He calls this call to continue no longer. Enough is enough. He feels tempted to scream: 'Cheeky Monkey! Cheeky Monkey who you are!'

But if he is outside, he calls only: 'What do you actually drink? Will I get a glass of orange juice jug and now there is no tomato juice is that?'

'Sinaasappelsap is well,' calls on them. 'But without ice.'

Adjust with large he walks to the kitchen.

Ibi's generation was different. They should be close with Tirza, but nevertheless, such excesses can he of Ibi's girlfriends not remember. No fish food, yourself in a shed stroke gently, slim find yourself. Love is as much as he lethargy.

If he has pouring the orange juice in a glass of wine — other glass he can no longer find — he feels a hand on his shoulder.

He turns around.

'Tirza,' he says. 'Where were you? Where do you come from?'

She looks sweaty from. Something of its eyeshadow.

'I have hard cycled," she says. 'I heard you messages. When I cycled extra hard. It is a bit of fun, find the people like? They will find you sushi tasty, pap?'

She is sweaty, but she radiates. Its eyes rays.

He expresses its against located on and he understands, has not previously understood that so clearly, so overwhelming, so no-compromise, that he wants to have no reason to live without Tirza. Without her is life is no longer conceivable and what is not feasible, is undesirable. It is right to exist. What he presses against gives him at the same time the privilege and the duty to life. Without its voids the obligation, but also the right. He can hardly imagine how he lived when they were not being. Call Waiting, that was it. As he has lived all these years, waiting for Tirza. Though he knew that the Tirza not of course was to whom he waited.

'Pap," she says, "Press me not so nice. That may later. At the airport. You are always so hard safe. I would like you to someone proposals.'

She points to a person who has obviously been a time in the door opening of the kitchen has been.

A boy, perhaps a man. Ship's steward wealth him on twenty-three, twenty-four. Older than Tirza in each case. A fairly dark skin, a wide jaw, heavy eyebrows which he gives the impression surly to watch. Perhaps he looks also surly. Who knows?

'Pap,' says Tirza, 'it is Choukri, my boyfriend.'

Runs slow ship's steward to the opening of the door.

The few steps which he takes from the sink to the door opening to walk, everything he thinks of the devastating age. He is nearly dead. And what is the difference between nearly dead and completely dead? What details you have it, how many square millimeters territory who you have separate the enemy forces? Ship's steward seeks his hand. 'What was your?' he asks. But for the man can reply says: 'Choukri Tirza, dad. It is called Choukri. I have said.'

'Chou-kri,' reiterates slowly, and ship's steward it shakes the hand of the man. 'I am Jörgen ship's steward. Tirza's father.'

The man comes to him is known for. The longer he look at him, the more it with some trepidation that he has already seen.

'Dus you are…' says ship's steward, but because he does not know what he wants to go to say he pauses and the silence makes use by saying Tirza: 'Yes, that is him, that is my boyfriend. He goes with him.'

Still keeps a ship's steward the hand of the man, the basis of the boyfriend of his youngest daughter. A large hand is the, a cold hands. No fine, soft fingers. No piano fingers.

'MEE? Where To?'

'To Africa. I have told you that he says Tirza lasts?'. They depends almost to the arm of her father, but he let the hands of Choukri do not disconnect. My boyfriend goes to Africa, PAP.'

'O Yes, of course, to Africa. And what do you do?' he asks.

'I create music.'

'Music. What Kind of Music?'

'I write texts. And I play guitar. Under other.'

'Guitar. Under other.' He turns the hand of the man and examine the nails.

'I refer to the ship's steward,' says, 'You have long fingernails. People who take seriously the guitar, generally have long fingernails. I have no long fingernails. But I play no guitar. I work in the garden.' He shows his hands on the man. He seeks its arms. He moves his fingers as if he were on an imaginary piano playing. 'Look,' he says, 'gardeners hands. The hands of a gardener.'

'Papa,' says Tirza, 'we are not here on the Veemarkt. You do not need to compare each other's hands. He is just in.'

Ship's steward laughs, and at the same time he knows that he is almost certainly the man ever has seen on tv. But he does not know any more what broadcast, not even in what context. It was somewhat comical, was the news, a talk show?

'You're right, Tirza, you are just in. I must not so many questions.' He turns around to the man. 'But I am curious. I am a curious father. And Tirza is a curious daughter. Not, Tirza?'

He makes two glass of Kir Royal and pays for itself a glass of white wine in. Without asking whether he has meaning in Kir Royal he the man the champagne glass in the hands, the other he gives to Tirza. He puts his arm around her, he expresses its close to adhere to, his life, his right to exist, his youngest daughter.'Cheers,' he says, 'on this evening. I have heard a lot about you, Choukri, and I am glad you now finally to meet. Do you do anything other than make music?'

'I am sitting in the social work.'

'a social worker?'

'Yes.'

'Mewe. Also useful.' ship's steward takes a large sip. And still a. His glass is empty again. It goes quickly. Still he keeps Tirza securely. As if they would walk if he is released. 'You have no need for university education, not? In order to be a social worker, I mean? That goes without university education, is it not? What do you mean by that?'

'a training,' says the man, 'but indeed not University.'

'Not everyone is in the cradle for the university,' explains ship's steward. 'Some people have no interest in science, some people have no talent for science. That also have nothing to search on the university.'

'Pap,' says Tirza. They laughs as Tirza only can laugh, friendly but strictly, played and my sincere, polite but a bit naughty. They caresses her father on his cheek. 'Not now. Not now about science begin.'

'No,' he says, 'not now. Another time. If you want to eat. We are talking about science.' He looks at the friend of his daughter and he is convinced now not more that he already has seen him. He knows it. Only that which he does not know.

'It may be," requires a ship's steward, 'di ate you ever seen on tv? Have you ever on TV?'

The guy shakes his head. 'I create music, but I am not famous. I have never been on TV.'

'But we have already met each other, not? We know each other.'

The guy shakes his head. 'No, not really. This is the first time that I can see.'

'Pap, do not be so weird. You have never met Choukri. You can have still not seen him.'

'Maybe here in the neighborhood?'

'Choukri never come in here. Choukri resides in another area.'

'In which area?'

'In the near the Central Station,' says the man. 'On one of the islands.'

Ship's steward nods. On one of the islands. He makes two further glass of Kir Royal, for the man and for his youngest daughter self he holds the at white wine.

'Dit,' he says, if all glass is full, 'dit here, where we are now, is the best part of the Van Eeghenstraat. Later, after Jacob Obrechtstraat, begins the lesser part. Also nice, but i would not want to live. In fact this place, these few square meters, the best place in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands.'

It rejects his glass against that of the man, then hit it gently against Tirza's glass. 'On this evening,' he says. 'On the feast. On your happiness and that of all the people. In accordance with Spinoza you can not be happy when your happiness others disappointed. You Know Who Spinoza was, I take it?'

'Pap, also no Spinoza tonight. And no Dostoevsky, no Tolstoy. Also not, ok. Please, pap?'

He are empty glass of wine and gives the right back full.

'You see,' he says. 'You see, Choukri, my daughter has me in the pliers. My daughter is my boss. That she was when she was born. From the first moment. And do you know why?' he begins to whisper, as if there is now a secret, something further nobody should know. 'As they are the solar queen. Tirza is the solar queen. Be careful they just now you also in the pliers.'

Ship's steward takes a large sip, puts his glass on the worktop, retrieves the champagne glass from Tirza's hand, drink that empty, switch the also on the worktop and lifts her.

He raises his daughter high into the air. As high as he can. And with difficulty, with smoky voting, because the breath is difficult, he says: 'you see? I can still lift her, my solar queen. If the must, I am wearing her by half Amsterdam. Not, Tirza?'

He then turns a round with her in his arms and another, and even a. He turns around in the kitchen, as a trophy, if a false goddess. He continues to rotate until it is no longer possible.

He puts her back on the ground. He is dizzy, he must hold on to the worktop. The kitchen is running for his eyes. His daughter is running for his eyes.

There is a silence. No one knows what is to be said. Tirza grabs Choukri's hand.

As they were three in the kitchen.

Ship's steward clears his throat. Slowly rotate the kitchen less. He will recover.

But still nobody knows what is to be said.

The silence is continuing. The silence is painful.

'come, we go inside,' says Tirza finally against her friend. 'We go to the party. My mother is there also. That you know it. But I do not you to its proposals.'

'It was fun with you to create knowledge, Mr ship's steward,' says the man. 'But we can see each other again later, I take it?'

'O certainly, we still see each other,' says the father. 'Later in the evening. Or another time.'

She leads the way, his daughter, and the man follows her, his hand in her hand. Also still swings Tirza to Jörgen, she winks at him. He is only in his kitchen.

And at that moment to fire him within what he has forgotten. The sushi. He has not offered their sushi.

He looks at his watch. It is almost a quarter to eleven.

Ship's steward keeps his head under cold running water and he takes a racket where in that head of him, the buzz of an insect, but he now knows what that buzz is. It is a prayer.

Without his face to dry it remains in the middle of the kitchen are dry. He can be against, he is refreshed. Tirza has arrived. Now you can start the party.

From the fridge he retrieves a dish with sashimi, he removes the foil and putting the fish from on the specially procured plateau. He says to himself: 'If the eleven hours, i go again sardines buckets.'

The wife has the boy on whose name is unable to come to the ship's steward but pressed up against a wall, they talk to him, the table is moved to the side, the exposure further attenuated, but the sashimi continues to do it properly. The people drink and eat eagerly. Hunger and thirst go hand in hand.

Tirza and her boyfriend speak with lady Field Camp. A girl, he is already forgotten her name, says to him: 'Come, Mr ship's steward, ga also dancing.' He shakes determination of no. 'I am tonight for the catering,' he says with a very friendly smile.

She listens hardly. The girl is already forgotten him. She pulls the economy teacher note. And Hans will also let pushalong.

In the middle of the living room is a ship's steward with the plateau in his hand. He has the feeling to be invisible. No unpleasant sensation. He is there without being there. The man that nobody stands out, so he can be mentioned. And he is strangely enough proud of. Not previously. Then a colleague said: 'I was on that book presentation and you know what happened?' And after a few minutes when there is a small quiet fell, noted on ship's steward: 'I know, I was there.'

He was been there, he was present, but no one had seen him.

He is studying the party. Tirza and her boyfriend are still in conversation with lady Field Camp. Never knew that lady Veldkamp as animated can talk, she is loosened. Mrs of mining seems also well entertained. Yes, this is the time the people come loose, and if the people come loose, ship's steward like his sashimi. You must have some in your stomach have for you make contact with your deepest and most hidden drifting. He looks at the friend of his youngest daughter he loves him in the holes.

Someone collides with him and asks: 'There is also tuna?'

If in trance he points to a piece of fish and than he tail back to the boyfriend of his youngest daughter.

He continues to stare.

Ship's steward now knows why that face him as familiar, he now knows to whom the boy reminds him. He does not understand that he has seen straight away. Everything is now clear to him. Mohammed Atta. If two drops of water. The same chin, the same eyes, the same style. A Brother of Mohammed Atta. A doppelganger. Mohammed Atta themselves, would he say almost if he is not almost certainly knew that man was dead.

With the half-empty plateau he runs back to the kitchen. He drinks quick a glass of wine, leans with both hands on the refrigerator and think: Mohammed Atta is in my house. Atta has arrived. Atta is resurrected.

It converts a pan on the fire, the oil, garlic, salt, pepper and the sardines within easy reach. The pan must be hot. He touch with his finger at the edge. Please wait. It is still not the case.

Ship's steward know not what to do, he does not know how to stop this disaster, therefore he concentrates on the sardines. But that it is a disaster, doubt he no longer. Mohammed Atta is a disaster. What else?

He makes a new bottle of wine open. Italian gewürztraminer. The wine he has together with Tirza sorted out. He looks for all wine together with Tirza. For many months, for years. They tried it inspects, he is buying.

'Jörgen.'

He turns around.

His wife.

Her body seems even more from the textiles to grow than at the beginning of the evening.

He now has no time for her. He is going to sardines buckets.

'Jörgen.'

The pan is hot. Slow the, if only you wait. Very slowly. But now it is here. The oil can.

'Jörgen, I am talking to you.'

'I am to cooking. You can see that not? I bucket sardines.'

It is a few steps closer.

'I don't, I would just like to know whether there is still some rum is.'

The sardines in the pan. He is doing them one at a time. Of these moments enjoying. He loves cooking. More than on the food itself he holds of the cooking. He is the begin to appreciate, slowly, gradually.

'You Know Who in our house is?' he asks without turning and his look tight on the sardines. 'You Know Who in our living room?'

Anyone, Jörgen? Who is in our living room? The love of my life? Have you seen him?' she giggles as if they were a good joke has told us. The love of her life in the living room. She has reached the age at which that is a joke. What was that girl in the barn said? We do not. Take account of. We positive displacement ommen the.

'Mohammed Atta.'

Five sardines are now in the pan. There is still one at. The sixth. Brotherly they are now next to each other. This is nice. This is what a ship's steward beautiful. The sardines have never left in the lurch. For as long as he does the household, for as long as he cooks for Tirza, it is his specialty.

'Who is Mohammed Atta, Jörgen? I know that? He is the love of my life? I will make him painting? He is suitable as a model?'

'Mohammed Atta, you do not know who Mohammed Atta is? Damn.'

She shakes her head. They concern to him. The father of her children. They smell to it.

'No idea," she says. 'MUST I know him?'

'Where are you in the last few years has? In a cave? Was that living boat on drift?'

The oil splatters cheerful.

Ship's steward picks up an apron and binds the order.

'I have no idea who is Mohammed Atta, sorry. Apparently he is not the love of my life, also good. I just wondered if there is still some rum is, I started with rum-cola and now I would like to continue to do so. There is what?'

'Mohammed Atta,' cries out ship's steward. 'Mo-ham-med At-ta.'

'Schreeuw not so, Jörgen.'

She takes it back. It is against him. They squeeze in its upper arm. The man who they exchanged land for her childhood love. Traded and taken over. And be taken back. Or half taken back. An endless series of takeovers is the love life of the man.

He walgt of her and the more he walgt, the more he hopes that they still have also remains pressed against him. Not long, a few seconds. Longer is not necessary.

'I have no idea what you're talking about. But that does not matter. I came only for the same rum. Those guys are so nice, Jörgen. Those guys of Tirza. Such nice and sensible boys.'

'Las that childhood love of you no newspapers? He had no money for a subscription? He was arm? Or Dom? Or arm and Dom? The tv went sometimes to as Houseboat? Was there a tv? Where have you been? In the world you have lived? And furthermore: when that happened you lived here. At least officially.'

'I was in love, Jörgen, i was in love. Than escapes you ever what and I think you love, I think you actually rather than i have found you ever, but I now say where the rum. And then you must explain to me but who Mohammed can't think. What I all missed. As living boat. I promise you that I will listen. I have always listened carefully if you tried to disseminate wisdom?'

He tail in the pan. Just like and then he must turn the fish. The dripping sweat in his neck, but he has no time now to tackle his handkerchief. The listen closely, this action. Sardines buckets is more difficult than people think.

'Four years ago,' he says while he is the pan of the fire to better distribute the oil, 'four years ago is the Third World War.'

'O that I certainly missed. The Third World War. There was also a hunger winter?'

'hold on,' he calls, 'hold. The hunger winter is yet to come. And I hope that he will affect you as first You deserve it. People like you have earned a winter of starvation, not a, no, to four at the same time.'

It is firmer against him.

'What kind of man I am?' she whispers. 'In which category I fall? The category "has-the-hong winter-earned"?'

'De category who are so happy and invulnerable, that they feel like the newspaper no longer need to read. Which category, that is what I am talking about.'

He picks up a spoon, moves back and forth the sardines to prevent them lard.

'I have the Third World War completely missed. Forgive me, Jörgen, forgive me if I irreverent nature with the World War I handled, but where is the rum? Keep me no longer in voltage.'

With his elbow he pushes her away.

She is coming back. It expresses its abdomen against his buttocks.

'Go away,' he calls, still with the spoon in his hand, 'go away! Dirty woman, go away.'

'Is the Third World War has already past?' she whispers in his ear. 'or is he still working? Notify me. Illuminated me.'

He turns the fish. The cooking calm him down.

'I am not in the mood for flauwiteiten. There is still a bottle of rum in the refrigerator. And I am ashamed for you. Uncultivated. Barbaric. You have. When i got to know you I thought that you would be cultivated. A painter. That must be a cultivated woman. I thought. Art Academy. She will probably know something. Ha! None of them. Heard the bell without knowing where the clapper is, that is the best that you can do.'

'I am also not in the mood for flauwiteiten. I am not bland. I have meaning in rum. I have meaning in you. I have meaning in someone. Are you someone, Jörgen? Are you a person?'

They get a por. And ship's steward remains in the pan stare. It bothers him not that the oil splashes, he tail if hypnotise. The sheet of the sardines is so beautiful, it is nicer than the sheet of the man, but he must admit that he has never seen how human sheet looks like you the bakes in a pan.

The wife opens the refrigerator. They bending itself. They are looking for, as he is an hour or so ago the tomato juice was looking for.

'Mohammed Atta,' he says, 'was one of the hijackers, he was the leader of the hijackers. And the friend of Tirza is his brother, or a half-brother, or a cousin. Or an uncle. Or a married uncle. In any case a kind of Mohammed Atta. The same meat, the same eye, the same jaw. The same thoughts of course. The same hatred. Hatred against us. Hatred against what we are, who we are and why we are.'

'But Who are we, Jörgen?'

They retrieves a few bottles from the refrigerator. They sigh. 'You have it here too full,' she panting slightly. 'As a human can still find nothing?'

And while he has his hands on his apron, effectivenessdrynumber considering that he said 'we'. As far as we are concerned, without thinking. The came eight-free and of course. He hates 'us'.

'I think I know it," she says. She has the rum found. 'Mohammed Atta, of the eleventh. The eleventh, yet? Not? The eleventh?'

They open the bottle. Then she takes cola from the refrigerator.

Mix them the rum with the cola. They consume. 'De 11th September, not? God, what seems that long ago. What I was happy when. In Love. Young i felt myself, I do not know, I felt…'

The sardines are ready. He puts them on a dish. Do not look he reciprocates her.

'20. Eighteen. Sometimes also sixteen,' she whispers.

He throws there parsley over it. Looking at its sardines can it tends to smile hardly suppress.

'You know,' he says, while his apron prejudice, 'You know why they are you and me and the neighbors hate? Because we believe in the happiness. Not in God but in the happiness. Because we are individuals with an individual identity. No group of animals.'

They drink its rum-cola as a child, the glass omklemd with both hands. She looks at him, her face presents the traces of the dancing, the hustle and bustle, the heat in the living room. Overrun is her make-up not earlier blurred and dried. Its wrinkles are visible.

'Jörgen, you do not at all in the happiness. Your God has always been the accident. You wanted not much else of life than unfortunate. And you have it served God, you're never become him, even when infidelity you could feel betrayed right by him, you are the god of the accident. You was his most dedicated servant. You deserves our applause. Why do you think I am with you on the phone? I also wanted to ever come first. I also wanted to be next to someone are responsible for the accident not honored. I could no longer be able to. Against You. Well, against everything you glorified.'

She is walking with him. She wants him pillow, he feels it. He knows.

He pushes her away. 'Go away,' he calls. 'Touch Me, dirty wife.'

She picks its glass. She pays at. 'Who are we?' she asks. "Now that we have discussed it, who we are that they hate us? Who are we, Jörgen? What are we actually doing?'

She is coming toward him, the glass in her hand.

'You need there is ice in do,' he says. 'Rum-cola without ice cream is not to drink. You have no style?'

They saves her arms around him. He pushes its not road. He has the power not.

'You Know Who we are?' she whispers in his ear. And also insert them her tongue in his ear. 'You know what we are, with the two of us we? We are broken.' She speaks the word from as something geils and fijns, as though it were incredibly exciting is to break. The most beautiful and best thing in the world. Something that is usually reserved for models and movie stars. Broken.

'but you must to tell anyone. It is our secret, you agreed? No one should know. We only know.' She remains but a whisper. Even though there is no one else in the kitchen. Then let them finally.

Ship's steward makes his ear dry with his handkerchief.

He picks up the dish with sardines. 'They must now be eaten, they should be eaten warm,' he says, more against themselves than against the wife.

In the living room he calls as a poor imitator of a 'sardines market Koopman:, so fresh you get in Portugal not.'

The guests are afraid for the sardines, or they do not pull out more. With difficulty he wears his fish.

The boy with the name of one syllable notes a. 'It is happiness,' says ship's steward noting the fish, 'it is pure luck.'

He looks at how the boy eating.

And if the boy have second sardine in the mouth, says: 'Contact me ship's steward forgive me, but i forgot your name.'

'Bas.' He talks with full mouth. But 'Bass' is a name you even with full foot well can say.

'Bas,' reiterates ship's steward. 'Is a fun party, Bas?'

'Yes,' says the boy, 'there are also of that tasty snacks.'

Ship's steward nods. 'I have the fish this morning in the morning at the hotel and catering industry Dealers Ven in Diemen purchased. That you can taste.'

Also they stare out to each other, the old and the young man, they look at each other, skeptical though what they will now say. The old man thinks of catering Dealers Ven.

Than the call to conclude, says: 'on ship's steward ven they have the best fish, Bas. Remember that. Do take advantage of it.'

Without awaiting a reply, he runs to Tirza. They still speak always with lady Veldkamp, like lady Field Camp is her best friend. In fact you not Veldkamp lady. A MS is the. He does not understand why they do not themselves against him has said: 'I am lady Veldkamp not, I am Mrs Field Camp.'

'De last is for you, Tirza.' He keeps the dish among its nose so they can smell how fresh they are.

'No, PAP," she says, 'I have still not hungry.'

Mohammed Atta stands behind Tirza. He does not participate in the call. While she speaks, he plays with the fingers of her right hand. Ship's steward sees a few seconds. He is an abomination.

In the kitchen to eat the last sardine yourself.

The wife is still at the worktop, exactly as he has left behind her.

'they found the nice?' she wants to know.

He remains silent. He loves the cup under the tap.

'What are we going to do about it?' he asks.

'Which?'

'Which? Which? You listen when I speak?'

'I listen. I listen today are better than in the past. You also says more interesting things than in the past. To us?'

He dries his hands off.

'to us. No, not for us. I am ready with us. What are we to do Mohammed Atta? How much you hate her may have, it is your child. It is my Tirza. But it is also your child.'

They mixt still what cola with rum.

"Create your yet not so crowded," she says. 'It is a whim. Tirza is still not ripe for a real boyfriend. She is still far too much with himself. It is simply that we have very sweet for Mohammed Atta. How do we have for him, the sooner he has disappeared.'

He shakes his head. Sweet for Mohammed Atta, only the wife can think of something like this.

The Racket in his head is stronger. He goes to the top. He now has to focus on to the rest of the Party, on the snacks, on Mohammed Atta, on the guests.

In the bedroom opens the balcony doors.

Ship's steward takes a deep breath. It is twenty past eleven, he sees on his watch. The feast is nearing its destination. As between twelve and a half are the two half celebrations on their height point he recalls of the parties that the wife previously organised. Even when Tirza was a few months old. It made its nothing. The celebrations went for, its celebrations went for.

He looks at the garden, the houses, the lawn of the neighbors. He thinks of Tirza's travel, that they are going to create together with Atta. Atta, so that is her boyfriend. Atta, so that is the man to whom they think it is better to have him than. He tries to propose those months in the large and empty house. For whom he will buy wine, for whom he will do our shopping? For whom he will in the kitchen? He remembers her illness, as in the case of a person who was a time when the Hofmeesters lived in the house. A uninvited guests. First he had had nothing. The wife of course not. He brought Tirza to its celloles, when an older lady who with an eye diease understaffed, he brought her to the swimming pool. They swam very good they swam competitions, she had champion can be if they had gone. He took her to the pool and in the evening he read her for from the world literature, especially the Russians. Tolstoy that his own art their petty because he sees her as insignificant, if a fun that does not contribute to the happiness of the people that he found Nice. So Nice, that he was not tired from Tolstoy for reading. Loved it, the man who made his own family unhappy, which makes his own wife crazy, which specify his talent to the happiness of the people after hunting.

And all that time he had had nothing in the holes. Perhaps he wanted nothing in the holes. Until he was called by Tirza's classes teacher Mrs brunt.

The wife was in her studio, they had a studio, God should know what they uitspookte. What did they actually at that time except for a lie? He had also met a woman who said: 'I sleep now much, because it will be the children and will no longer be.' The wife had done otherwise, which was going to sleep after the children.

'Maybe,' said Mrs of mining by the telephone, 'want you and your wife have come to talk about Tirza.'

'I meet you only,' he said. 'My woman has the pressure.'

He made an appointment for Friday afternoon half-five. It meant that he slightly earlier of the publisher had to leave, but on friday afternoon there was at that time still bubbled mainly.

To ten about four that Friday afternoon he did the manuscripts that he was planning to go that weekend reading in his briefcase and he peddled my way to the South.

For the Vossius Gymnasium he made his bike with a lamppost and he wondered why we wanted to talk with him, what Tirza could have done.

He ran through the school with the briefcase against itself. There was almost no one more. Uneasy he felt, as always when he the role of father in the public had to fulfill. He played that role ideally as no one could see him.

At the coffee machine were three boys. 'Please excuse me, I find the local of Mrs Of Excavating,' said ship's steward. A small and rather dingy boy with an earring pointed out to him that he could come and while he walked up to the first floor, the briefcase still pressed against, he realized that he was reviewed and that he was ridiculous. Not ridiculous as man, it was to live with. But ridiculous as a father. A ridiculous father, that he was. Someone also always a deep unease had felt when he was in the school yard, when his children are still on the Amsterdam Montessori School, and he is in the middle of the other fathers and mothers had waited to retrieve them. Other parents chatted with each other, knew each other, wanted to get to know each other better. But he had to be hidden behind a tree. And if he is a baby heard Tirza declare: 'Look, there is your father', he had the tendency to look behind them, as if they had about someone.

The door of local nine was closed. He knocked soft, and waited a few seconds. When he was still a times harder. 'come within,' he heard.

He opened the door.

The local was empty, it smelled of sweat and chewing gum. An air that he could not remind you of his own school time. But what he could remember them? Little. The tool shop of his parents in Geldermalsen, which granted him better for the spirit.

Mrs of mining was at her desk.

On the board was something about them and their.

A chair had they already put ready for him.

Mrs of mining was a woman of final fifty, well conserved, sensibly dressed without too frumpy to come about.

They shook hands, smiling, not lavish friendly but inviting, at least inviting for a call.

They had already met a few times on older evenings. Mrs of mining inquired after his work and they called the names of a few recently published Dutch novels that he had not read. Apparently she was forgotten that he foreign fiction did. It forgets that often. As politely as possible he reminded her that he was fiction translated writer and then immediately she said: 'Tirza, let us also about her.'

'Yes,' he said, 'is not doing well? Are there problems?'

"I wanted to correct at questions. There are problems, Mr ship's steward?'

He outlined the briefcase, which he had in his lap time account, on the ground.

'Problems? No. Not that i know. Yes, they are now in the puberty, she is in the puberty, she is fourteen, but problems, no. She goes to celloles, that they will find nice, they sit on swimming, she has a good few girlfriends. I have the impression that a cheerful child is Tirza, she is a bit closed, but that…'

He made his meaning not. He took the briefcase and continued to be in his lap without having to know why. He was looking for something he did not only more what.

'Yes?' asked Mrs brunt. 'What did you say?'

I am also '. Closed.'

She smiled, but according to a ship's steward not wholeheartedly. Why should they?

'Is nothing you noticed?'

He shook his head and nip lightly into his briefcase. What would need to be struck him? He had overlooked something? He could not invent anything.

'No'.

'Dan i will have to say,' said Mrs brunt. 'Our is something seen and although perhaps it is, we have decided, in the light of our experience in the past with other pupils, also to warn you.'

He continued his briefcase should get back on the ground.

'Yes?'

He thought to drugs, or dealing with false elements, all he had no idea what for false elements that would be. Were there any false elements in the south of Amsterdam? There was on the Vossius Gymnasium thing as false elements?

Mrs of mining tapped gently with a ballpoint pen on her desk. 'We think,' she said, while they got on with taps, 'dat Tirza is to develop an eating disorder.'

Ship's steward smiled but only from nervousness. The word alone. Eating disorder. In a manuscript he had there with a pencil a line below. And then in the margin: 'consult with the translator.'

Ship's steward had as its views on what ugly words were.

'And on what basis you this presumption?'

The teacher was with tap. 'We have our experiences,' she said. 'If said, there are symptoms, there is a pattern of behavior that we know of.' She lifted her hand on and showed him in her lap fall as if they wanted to say: 'nothing I can do, that is the way it is.'

'us?'

'My and some of my colleagues.'

He nodded.

'True' he said after a short and fairly tense silence, 'and now?'

'It is not directly our responsibility to take action in such cases. That responsibility lies with the parents but we do believe that it is our responsibility to inform the parents. I have done on this.'

The parents, that he was. She had about him.

They looked at him. Apparently she was thoroughly discussed, because they remained silent. And they did not seem willing to say something more.

'And now?' asked ship's steward.

'Is there really is nothing you noticed?' She could clearly not believe. But it was nothing noticed. Yes, there was anything but it went on to the conclusions which it covenant.

'Eat them for example? And what if I ask you? How many? When?'

He kuchte.

'They has never eaten many, if not, they baby is a small eater. We are in the family almost all small eaters. I, her sister nowadays they do not eat more as much as in the past, my wife, all small eaters. But I will ensure.'

Mrs of mining leaned back. Her look was skeptical. 'Are you not of the opinion that they graat lean is? For a girl of fourteen?'

'Graat Lean.' He had never thought about it. Now he went to do so. Consider, dealing, in deepening of course thoroughly.

'and your wife, what is it?'

My wife is…' He kicked his legs on each other. My wife is an artist, as you know. She is much in her studio. Very much. To work. Painting, drawing…'

Mrs of mining stared him discouraging, he found. In fact without any hope. So they stared at him. Without hope. If on a funeral. When looked at its watch.

'Well,' she said, 'I have informed you. It is now up to you.'

He took his briefcase, he stood up.

'It is now up to me. Yes, of course. But what do I have to do?' he asked for her he hand shook. 'What is expected of me?' It sounded as though he waited a job description and perhaps that is so.

'What is expected from you? Well, you agree with Tirza talk. That to begin.'

'Over the eating disorder?' The Word was difficult, it stood against him. Deep Inside he believed that Mrs of Mining is digested.

'Yes,' said Mrs Of Excavating, 'over the eating disorder. If she has. And if not, then it can also do no harm to talk to her.'

'I talk much with her. My youngest daughter and I talked a lot.' ship's steward felt that he did not have to leave to how he was proposed here as a silent, absent father. He had to its correct.

'and which I ask you? Available to talk you?'

'Available? The last time a lot about Tolstoy. His rejection of the art of the literature, perhaps you know that fascinating essay by him, is unfortunately the only available in German, Was ist Art? In which he sums up the art as "eitle Kurzweil müßiger Men".'

Ship's steward was a bit harder to talk. He was always excited when he began. Eitle Kurzweil müßiger man.

'Daarover you talk with a girl of fourteen?'

He nodded and spent his briefcase from one hand to the other. He opened the lock but he was looking for nothing. He did it without reason. 'They is a very talented as you know. High-high gifted.'

Mrs of mining looked at him, penetrating, and its face was met with — he could not pretend that he did not see the — horror.

He greeted her unintelligible. Despairingly about its sentiments, but just as despairingly about its insensitivity to Tolstojs dilemma.

With the briefcase under his arm he walked through the empty school building. The echo of his own footsteps sounded him in the ear. unpleasant He knew just how you had to talk when it came to matters other than Anna Karenina or notes from the underground, everything outside the world of the translated fiction fell he acted prefer to in a phrase. Let alone that he knew how you had to talk about eating disorders.

On the stairs jump the briefcase open, manuscripts, the four pencils and an apple fell on the ground. Someone walked past and ship's steward dared not to bend down to pick up his belongings. It was only when the sound of the foot steps was faded away, hastily he collected his property.

That evening he climbed the stairs to Tirza's room. With Anna Karenina in his hand, they were kept to page three hundred and ten.

When he came in her room, drew the blankets over them. 'Please,' she cried out from under the blankets, 'tonight Tolstoy. A double portion of tomorrow but not tonight.'

He went to her foot end, the book in his hand, but he did not open. And he does not streelde to calm down, as on other evenings.

He was there and asked: 'Has Tolstoy you nothing to offer?'

'Dear is not,' shouted Tirza, from under the blankets. 'nobody of my age is aloud. Ibi also says that the ridiculous. Ibi says that you love, dad. She says she can prove it.'

He is looking for her hand under the blanket and after some searching he found that. He took the hand of his youngest daughter and showed him not more. Somewhere he felt a pain, a presumption, more was not a light suspicion, and he decided there is no attention to this. He just said: 'Ibi is in puberty, Tirza, so they are a bit rebellious. She is on a difficult age. I am not fond. I am your father.'

When it was quiet. They apparently waited until he would go where they had remained yesterday, page three hundred and ten of Anna Karenina, but he did not continue, he was due to speak.

He looked, with her hand still in his, to the ceiling, to posters on the wall. To the books he had given her, and that they in alphabetical order in her bookcase.

'I was present at Mrs Brunt.'

'De trut,' sounded from under the blanket.

'You will find its not nice?'

'Ah, nice, she seems nice but they simply like a trut. Everyone knows that at school. If you get to know her, you see it.'

Ship's steward waited, he waited for himself, he waited until he knew what he had to say, but it was not. On her desk was a notepad. He had the temptation to open it and read. Perhaps this was all in what he had to know.

In a corner of the room was her cello. The music stand.

'Tirza, is there anything I do not know, but what I should know?' is something…' He had to take the road, he schraapte saliva his throat, but the tickle he felt not disappeared. 'Is there anything I should have asked, but what I for one reason or another have not requested?'

She came half way under the blanket away.

'No,' she said, 'nothing'.

In his hand he kept her hand and in the other he kept Anna Karenina and he pinch in Anna Karenina and he thought: I can't, as this is what fatherhood means, I can not I shall stop, then I have to an alternate search. Someone who can do so. As this is going to be me not succeed.

'You know you sure?'

They nodded. 'Yes, certainly. Why? Has someone told you something? Why imagine this kind of questions? Otherwise do you never do.'

He explained the book on the bed. With his finger he tapped gently on its upper lip. 'There are people,' he said almost whispering, 'die think you a eating disorder.'

She went to sit up straight. 'A what?'

'I know that it is nonsense, I know that you just a small eater, I mean…' and ship's steward remained but with his finger on its upper lip tapping gently. "The True food is knowledge, that is the only and the real food, you know, I know, but I found that i had to discuss with you. That…'

'What?'

'Well yes. I started to think about it. I have given some thought. You are of course also very, how will I say, Tirza, you're lean. Not? May I say?'

'You mean I no breasts?'

'No, no, that is not what i mean. Which come. That are on the go. They have delay. Perhaps that is the. You must use your proposals that they sit in the train, your breasts, and that they are a bit delayed because somewhere a change was wrong, but they come, believe me, no, no, I am talking about your belly, the surroundings of your abdomen; women, girls, have a stomach, a belly, and you not, you have nothing, Tirza, nothing at all.'

He did not now more on its upper lip, but on his forehead, soft and rhythmic and he thought: I can't, I go to broken.

She went on her bed.

'You will find the not nice?' she asked.

She did her nightdress up. A gift of the wife did not want Tirza Tirza pajamas more, wanted a nightdress.

The wife had bought one. Bright pink, candy pink. A terrible color was the ship's steward, the worst kind of pink that there was, the color of the rendez-vous house. But Tirza found the beautiful. She was too old for pajamas. She had said.

'You will find the not nice?' repeated them. With her nightdress up, her belly to her father returned, she waited for an answer.

Ship's steward tried not to look. He concentrated on the music stand in the corner of the room. There was sheet music. It was recently played here.

'I think you very nice,' said ship's steward, 'Tirza, you are the most beautiful girl that i know, but you are too lean. People come to me and complain how lean you are, we have to do something about it. We need more to eat, we must go better food. More regular.'

'Papa, look at me.' They interrupted him with hard voting, as they sometimes could interrupt him if he read out. A few times she found the beautiful. Don Quixote had they partially beautiful found, the hunters stories of Turgenev had talked to her imagination.

'Look,' she said. 'Look.'

And he looked.

She was on her bed. On the blanket. The ridiculous pink nightdress that her mother had purchased in a ridiculously expensive shopping kept them up. Ship's steward stared at its navel. A yellow pants sat underneath, a yellow dots. White dots.

'I am not a girl,' she said. 'I am a woman.'

She showed the nightdress. They explained its hands on the place where her breasts.

'I am a woman with tits,' said Tirza.

They explained to her hands on her belly.

'I am a woman with a belly.'

Her hands went to its upper legs.

'I am a woman with long legs. I am a woman, papa.'

Ship's steward stood up. 'You're very talented, Tirza, high-high gifted, but you are not a woman, that you should still be, and that you will also be, you are a girl, and you have to eat.' When he went to the corner of the room and moved the music stand a few centimeters.

And it insisted on her bed, she was there but they had Tirza, nightdress ripped up again. 'say that I am a woman, papa,' she said.

He remained standing. His hand on the music stand. 'Tirza,' he said.

'say that I am a woman,' she shouted. 'Say it, papa.'

The book was still in bed. The book from which he should have read aloud. 'You're…'

He walked back to the bed, he went for her.

They took him in his hair. That she could easy now on the bed was. She pulled him to his hair. 'krijste say it,' 'papa, they say it, dare to say so. Tirza, you are a woman.'

He showed himself to his hair. It made him. He picked up the book on the bed.

'I am a woman,' krijste them. 'Say it, say it, papa.'

Harder took them to him on his hair, but he felt not he stood there as in trance as if he saw something else and heard something else.

'Say it,', 'Tirza krijste them, you're my wife. Say it, papa, say it.'

They not only krijste more, tears ran over her cheeks. They fall on the bed, her face hustle and bustle in the Laeken Declaration.

'Tirza,' he said, 'You're my daughter.' Now he shouted too. 'You're my daughter, Tirza, my daughter do you and my daughter you will continue.'

Then he ran down the stairs. But he heard her to shout: 'You have no woman, dad. I am the only woman who you have. The only.'

In the living room he went on the sofa and he rocked his upper body back and forth. Just as he had wanted to cry, Tirza but failed him and he could not understand why the failed.

The Monday out during his lunch break, he went to book trade Scheltema. Between the departments philosophy and psychology he found at last a sales star that time had for him.

'I find books about eating disorders,' he said as discrete as possible.

'What?'

'eating disorders,' he repeated, now slightly harder.

'What exactly are you looking for? Novels?'

'Information'.

They took him to a cabinet.

'This row,' she said. 'All eetziektes. And also this row. And it is also still what.'

Ship's steward bent down. But first he had looked or nobody saw him. No vague acquaintances, no colleagues. The offer was overwhelming. Only of supply was already you ill.

It took him more than twenty minutes to find two books which appeared intelligent it slightly.

The cashier asked: 'Is a gift?'

'No,' said ship's steward, 'it is for myself.'

When he went quickly back to the publisher. 'A long lunch break, Jörgen,' said the receptionist. He loved the bag with the two books firmly and snickered inept.

That evening he nest located on the bank of the two books are pencils and a pencil sharpener, because he loved the pencils like sharp.

Tirza entered the room and asked: 'What are you reading?'

'Nothing,' he said and put his hand on the books. 'Nothing major. Rubbish.'

'Papa,' she asked, 'You will find the not very that mama there is so little is that?'

She had her nightdress already, the color made him nauseous. He was the thing on a day secretly ablaze.

'I am only interested in,' he replied, playing around with the sharpener. 'I do not like crowds. Noise. Too many people.'

'But do you think it is not strange that they so little is?'

'We have good agreements with each other, Tirza. It is, I am pressure. Now you need to go to sleep.' He streelde about its cheek.

'Have you actually had a woman?' she asked.

And how much he also loved her, the question forward him. The question was put to him become more sophisticated than in its age paste, so much nastier was that question than its character, so much more insidious than the solar queen that she was and that they would always are.

'MAMA is my wife, Tirza. That You know as well as I do. Now you need to top, I read you tomorrow for further.'

They bow down and bite in its nose. As they did when they are also very close to her father wanted. A relic from its earliest youth. She was started him in the nose to bite. According to a ship's steward because they searched the breast, but it was not very logical, because where his nose also seemed, not on a nipple. And although they all fourteen was, climbed they are still governed by her father on her lap and bite it in its nose.

"You have no woman, papa,' she whispered. 'I am the only woman who you have.'

When they still have a bite times in its nose and controlling them upwards. He stayed behind on the bank, he doubted whether he behind her had to go to her to speak against. He doubted that as long as he could continue to sit but better.

Ibi was in a cafe with friends, the wife painted in her studio and received since its almost exclusively male models, Jörgen ship's steward was sitting in the living room and emphasized the one after the other paragraph in the informative book about the disease of his youngest daughter and in her bedroom next to the cello Tirza was preparing itself very talented starving to death.

So did the family ship's steward at the beginning of the new millennium.

4

From the bedroom balcony where he already had a pedigree, ship's steward the light in the barn. And again. And again. And from.

Someone plays there with the light. Only then he recalls that he Ester without h in the barn has left behind and that he had a glass of orange juice has promised.

A promise is a promise. Soon he goes to the kitchen. He may not so guests was negligible, even though they close up in the barn.

Tirza stands for the sink. Also he thinks that they give in.

'What do you do?' he asks.

'I eat a tomato.' She bends over the sink because of the drool.

'There are so many tasty snacks. There is everything.' It sounds desperate and accusing it at the same time.

'I had meaning in a tomato.' She takes another bite, the juice drips along its chin. Ship's steward gives her a piece of cloth.

'You shirt,' he says, 'it's a bit skewed, I see your bra strap.'

He wants the right, but Tirza says: 'hear so. How do you find him?'

He gives a glass of white wine in, still the Italian gewürztraminer. Each time the Italian gewürztraminer.

'Who?'

'Choukri. What do you think of it?'

The tomato is now eaten.

'Would you also what?' requires a ship's steward. He likes the bottle up. 'This is your favorite wine.'

She shakes her head. 'Later. What did you think of it?'

Ship's steward looks to the ceiling. The must be gewit really necessary. It counts with the naked eye three large brown spots. But the money is. The hedge fund has taken the legs. Everything in Hofmeesters Environment takes the legs. Only in the much-needed invests it now and according to a ship's steward are white ceilings not urgently needed.

'What can i say? I found him rather hesitant. Do not open, not social, difficult to contact. But that is a first impression of course.'

'Of course he is shy, PAP, you would also be shy in such a situation, and identify with it you also shy, that is not exactly an ideal combination.'

'I am not shy.'

He fills his glass with Italian gewürztraminer and drink in one breath of empty, then immediately.

"You're shy,' says them lovingly but emphatically. On this subject they tolerate no contradiction. 'I know nobody who so shy as you.'

'I am discreet, Tirza,' he says. 'Discreet, that is something different than shy, I will not go through to the boyfriend of my daughter. I remain in the background.'

'Pap, you are extremely shy, you know that too. As we were on vacation, than you pushed us the restaurant within to look at how the looked inside. And you stayed outside. You know that not more? You do not remember whether? And when we got to the lower school would put a piece of theater and all parents after proud to the dressing room, plugged you just about behind me. But what did you think of it?'

He claps his hands. Why does he know not. He looks at the label on the bottle.

'DIFFICULT. If you want to know to be honest. Difficult. I could no height from him. It made me think to someone. No, he reminds me of someone thinking.'

'An actor? He seems to be an actor, not? A French actor? You will find it more fun than the few last?'

'De previous?'

'De few last.'

'there were few last? I thought that was not taken seriously.'

Occasionally the music fragments of calling from the living room to him by. He feels he must bins. What sardines There are still many sardines. What is a man without job? Nothing. The buckets of sardines, that is his task tonight.

'It was also not seriously. But they were still there. I have proposed them to your dad, you have seen them all.'

'I have seen boys, here in this House, that is true, now and then I have seen boys, in the last few years, also boys who have continued to sleep, but no favoritism. You said that it had not necessarily mean anything.'

'No, that was also so. It was just for fun, but it was certainly boyfriends.'

He had not understand something. What was there a lot of what he had not understood, and yet he would not want to define itself as naive. Shy nor naive. If something else, but what?

'Tirza,' he says, and seeks his hands to her as toddlers do when they want to be lifted.

Cautious, perhaps. Jörgen ship's steward, a prudent man.

'Tirza,' he repeats, still with arms outstretched, 'Have you got the than not having regard to?'

'What?'

'Your boyfriend. That man. To whom he seems. It is you not noticed?'

She shakes her head. 'a French actor i said, don't you think? An actor?'

He let his arms to lower.

'No, no, no French actor. No actor. No actor in the usual sense of the word. Mohammed Atta. Same face, same eyes, same jaw. Same her.'

She shakes her head again.

'Papa," she says.

And the father, leaning against the worktop, reiterates that two words, Mohammed Atta, as though it were only now starting to penetrate him what he sees, what he thinks, what he feels.

'Doe this well not," she says.

'What?'

'what you are doing.'

'What do I do next?' requires a ship's steward. 'What do I do?'

Tirza goes to him. They discloses him. 'Please,' them in his ear whispers, 'don't. Gun for me that my happiness.'

'But I do not begrudge you your happiness, I do not begrudge you more by luck than anyone else, I wish you all the luck in the world, only: he is your happiness not, he is your accident. Mohammed Atta is your accident.'

Tirza let her father do not disconnect. 'He is my boyfriend. That idea you must get used to it, PAP. Please. That is surely you succeed? Do not you think that you will succeed? That will surely you will succeed?'

Her hair tingling sensation against his forehead, he feels her breath, which vague to peppermint smells. He cannot be allowed to continue, not on its party. There could be any moment someone coming in.

'Listen Tirza, I do not begrudge you the best, most beautiful and sweetest boyfriend of the world, but Mohammed Atta is neither the best nor the most beautiful and certainly not the dearest. He is just about the worst candidate who i can imagine.'

'hold on him to as Mohammed Atta. It is called Choukri and he is my boyfriend.'

Ship's steward is loose from its embrace, He turns around, he looks for the cork screw another bottle of Italian gewürztraminer note to open.

'Everyone sees what else,' he says while he was looking for. 'We are talking about a reality but what do we mean by that, do you know the? You can see in which man your boyfriend. I see in him Atta and I know what Atta wants, I know to which he is, I know what his plans are.' He has the Corkscrew found, finally. He is talking about but by, it makes him not more out against whom. It must be said. It should look like. The truth, the terrible truth.

'I am concerned,' he says, 'I do not want my daughter with Atta treats. Even the most unstable, the most progressive father would say: "My daughter may deal with everyone, a Negro, a junk for my part, a Vietnamese can also still be at, but no terrorist."'

They stores with her hand on the worktop. 'You are going too far,' calls on them. 'It is no fun. Hold on, papa hold.'

He opens the bottle. He has succeeded in producing an open and honest conversation with his daughter. He will treat themselves to a glass of wine to calm down.

'Hold. What should I stop?'

My boyfriend to as a terrorist. That to begin.'

'How should I call it? A freedom fighter? A antiglobalist? An anarchist? An enemy combatant? The victim of a fallacy? An unfortunate?'

'He is interested not for politics. Choukri makes music and I hold of him.'

'What do you love about?'

'What do you know about that, Papa? What do you mean by that? Who do you have in mind?'

He puts his glass down. He rubs his lips dry. 'You,' he says after a while. 'I have to keep yours.'

They look at each other. He hopes that they are now going to mention it, but has nothing. And he understands that it is inevitable that there is nothing more to do, that his life is about, without ever has begun. It is for it began. One thought that it would have to do smile. If you think about it is the insane, and what is a better response to madness than the smile? But the smile does not.

'I thought,' says he eventually itself but, 'in any case I heard that you no longer do so, that the passé, about. Your generation has invented something else.'

'Who told you that?'

'someone here on the party.'

'O. I also still have to meet. I LOVE Choukri.'

Now he smiles. Now if it.

'He used you.'

'I wish him. That is keeping. Mutual use. Respectful use.'

It sounds like something they often said, what they hear others has, what she has read somewhere.

'I have an eye for the people,' says ship's steward. 'I have lived for longer than you, believe me: use is no account of and keep is no use and he is Mohammed Atta. If not the Mohammed Atta of the 11th september, than his successor, His descendant, reincarnation, his rebirth, his alternate…'

They set aside with her hand that he must stop, they interrupts him. 'Dan i of Mohammed Atta. That is the way it is. This is also something you will get used to it.'

He looks at her full understanding and rubs his lips once dry.

She runs to him. 'Papa, please," she says, 'create me this evening is not for the crying.'

He picks up its both hands. 'I do not meet the cry, I try to avert a danger. I would like you never make the crying. Not right now. Never at all.'

'But there is no danger. You think it only.'

'O Yes, it is there. I feel it, I smell the, I see the.'

He let her hands and they purr him about his cheek, his chin.

'bucket continues what sardines for us," she says. I think 'fine. If you have a large variety of the buckets are. This reminds me of the past.'

'I do, Tirza. I shall go deeper into the sardines. In the future. But now… Now I must warn you. Now I need to protect you.'

She shakes her head. 'Not protect, dad. Please, do not protect.'

She goes back to the party. He looks at her after, his glass in the hand. She has changed. It cannot be denied. The wife has the same. But it is not the one on the other day. After her illness is started. During the disease al. All he saw it not. There are so many things which he has not seen. He remembers the books he had purchased for his youngest daughter to cure. But when it became clear that Hofmeesters study of eating disorders and related matters his daughter not helped, was to two psychologists simultaneously Tirza sent. The second wanted to talk with her parents, and as often happens in such cases ship's steward went there alone.

The psychologist was a strict man, but not unfriendly, found a ship's steward. Business, what he had not expected of a responder.

'What are the causes?" wanted to ship's steward know. He was, he had decided not only come here to answer questions, he wanted them. He even had a note book in the inner are required to write stopped what he was going to hear. And that he picked out now.

'There is not one cause, there are always many causes. And the causes are at this moment it is not the most urgent. All is not well with your daughter.'

'But…' ship's steward sat in the armchair and he was looking for words, to hope he sought. He was told that it would turn out all right and that he had not yet heard. 'What we do error? What do I do wrong?'

He had the pencil in the stop.

'It is not about errors. Although within each family, also yours, things for change and improvement.'

Ship's steward looked at his shoes and then to that of the psychologist.

'Where is it doing?' asked ship's steward. 'You have talked to her, what is going on in there to her? What moves its?'

And while he that early shook his head as if he wanted to make it clear that he did not understand what they were doing, that no one could understand that. It was outside of the concept, and hence outside Hofmeesters world.

'Well,' said the man, 'that is not so easy to say, they is control over to get her life to regain control. Her illness is in fact a means. I think that you are to be proposals, control.'

'Control?'

'Yes,' said the psychologist. 'Control'.

'Control' repeated ship's steward, as if it were a word in a foreign language was the interpretation which he did not know, and so it felt also. He did not know more what 'control' meant. He wrote the word in his note book, without that he would understand why, and he underlined the a few times.

'And what should I do? What can i do?' he asked when he was finished with writing and stress.

'to support her.'

I 'al.'

'Maybe not enough.'

Not enough, that was a possibility that ship's steward had not yet considered. He had previously thought: too much, but it was so: not enough.

So they were also silently opposite each other and then said the psychologist: 'Oh, are you, Mr ship's steward, eetziektes will almost only for the white middle class, nowhere else. It is typically a disease of the white middle class.'

It sounded like that everything had to declare as If now everything should be clear.

And while the psychologist got up early, ship's steward will wonder what the man had to say.

'It may be,' he asked, while his note book in his pocket and his jacket attracted the stopped, 'date the there has something to do with that they high-high gifted?'

'Who says? Who says that she is that?'

Ship's steward shook with his hands and arms. The question stricken him. 'Everyone,' said he eventually, 'Everyone has always said, everyone says it.'

'Mmm,' said the psychologist. 'Mmm.'

And it was the consult ended.

A strange man, found a ship's steward. Not unfriendly, at most evasive. When he made his bike lock open and thought about the call, he got the idea that he was that the illness of the white middle class: he, Jörgen ship's steward, in Private person.

And later that day he saw themselves reflected in a shop window and then it was him. This was the disease of the white middle class, this was Jörgen ship's steward.

This realisation was new and also overwhelming, but could not ensure that a ship's steward did something else than he had made the weeks before. He bought more books about eating disorders and that he studied in the evening, with the pencil in the stop, and the sharpener within easy reach. If there was a solution which would be found in books. Where else?

How much he also aankruiste aanstreepte and and from his main taught, Tirza emaciated, its weight dropped, approached a critical limit. There was talk of forced feeding. Hospitalisation, nursing.

And when the wife on an evening just before midnight came home, was a ship's steward at the dining table, surrounded by books all went on the same subject. He looked to her, the mother of Tirza, and he said: 'We are working to make our child death.' Without her coat to do so she went to the dining table. They took a cigarette. When she was standing on and gave itself a drink in.

Tirza's disease not only Tirza destroyed itself, with her illness began the destruction of the family ship's steward, and the more the members of the family should oppose it, the faster it seemed to continue.

The drink put them on the table. She went down again. Also her hat had not disposed of. A Wooly Hat.

'We?' asked the wife. 'We? You say that? We? No, not us. You.' She took her index finger to ship's steward.

He putted the book close that he was reading.

'I? And why I get when I ask you? I do something. What do you think? What have you done?'

The wife inhaleerde.

'You,' she said, 'You have that child poisoned. At no time did you have the left alone. No time had the rest. If it were not to celloles, then it should be called to swimming lessons, if it were not to swimming lesson, than it had to be read out from i know what book from the Russian Library, had to be read out the not, then it should be in order to buy wine. You have destroyed her as you tried Ibi break, but Ibi was too strong for you, thank goodness. Tirza not. For Tirza is everything you say where, Tirza idolized you and you let you know that only too happy to close, you will find the wonderful to finally for someone a false goddess.'

Ship's steward picked up a pencil and began to grinding. 'What You Say,' he said when he was done, 'is as far from the truth. It is such a nasty lie. It is oergemeen. I am concerned about her, because you have neglected her. Someone had to its concern, someone had to its collection of swimming lessons. Someone had to bring her to celloles.'

'But nobody had to force her to swim, forced to do this, force to do that, no one had to say all day how high-high gifted them is. How do you think you would react if you want the whole day would hear? You would therefore not be a little crazy? Would you then also not turning? You have destroyed that child, you and anyone else. You have of her to try to make a colleague, and a friend and also your wife, yes, also your wife. Everything you do in the real world could not find have you tried to get her, and the only thing you can accuse me is that I have to happen, that I have done nothing in any case not enough I have made to you, but I also have a life, I am also but a man, I also have the right to a little bit of luck. Yes, I am also only human, Jörgen.'

He mass by his sleep and when he said: 'If you once said: "I am also but a man", if I need to hear one more time that you also but are a human, than stall out i you.'

'Doing it,' she said, 'stall me.'

He stayed on his sleep rubbing and finally he said, quieter than therefor: 'I do not have the whole day said how gifted she is, I have tried to stimulate her. That is not a crime. Yes, I have of its account, i love her, I may have a special relationship with her than with Ibi, but also that it is not a crime. And I do nothing. Because what I get back is enough, more than enough. How they will come to me laughs, what they tell me her company. If I have done something wrong, I do not know what.'

He broke one of his pencils by middle, it took him a lot of effort and that effort led him from his anger.

'Is that everything you can say?'he asked. 'I have made its broken? Is that everything about our marriage, who is the fault of Tirza's disease?'

They doofde its cigarette. 'Yes,' she said it is what it is about. I am sorry, you are never a father for Tirza. A friend perhaps, a lover, but a father is no lover, Jörgen.'

He stood up. 'What an assumption you?' he asked. 'You are too cold cold and touching her does not mean that someone touching her a criminal. People have need heat. Then they live. Thereof they live. The heat is not a criminal offense. The lack of it is the crime.'

They stood up.

'Where are you going next?' he asked.

'To my studio.'

'What are you going to do there?'

'Slapen.'

'Dear is no bed.'

'There is a bank.'

He came to follow her. In the vestibule he pressed his wife against the wall and nip with one hand its throat close.

'How dare you this against me to say?' he siste. 'How dare you to say what you have said? How dare you? You who do not know about what it means to have a mother, you which no parent evening, you who cares about anything, how dare to say that I am no father? You do not need to keep me, that you do not do I know this for a long time, but you can at least respect, appreciation for what i do here.'

She ran red to, but he did not loose. They miniseries him, but he was not.

It was only when his hand pain began to do, showed her he.

He remained in the vestibule and they ran to the kitchen. He heard her cough, he heard how they ran the tap. Even more coughing, he heard her call.

After five minutes they came from the kitchen.

'What have you done?' he asked.

'I have called the police.'

When she went out the door.

First he remained in the vestibule, then he went back to the living room, he explained the books about Tirza's disease in three equal stacks on the dining table and emptying the ashtray.

He played a time with the two halves of the broken pencil. He neuriede.

When the quarter for had become a, he went to the top to sleep. Gently he opened the door of Tirza's room, he wanted to know if they slept. She had her eyes open.

Ship's steward went on her bed. He could not look to her. If it up to him by realized what he saw there, he had the tendency to hang himself. He was furious because he could not deny the feeling to have failed, and he hated the wife, he hated everyone he recalled that fail.

He took Tirza's hand and looked at the furniture in the room. As he continued to sit. Until he said: 'it cannot go on this way, Tirza. This must stop.'

'I know,' she said, and it appeared that now also its voice was affected by her illness. 'I know, papa, but I can no longer stop. It is too late.'

He focused on her desk chair, on the dictionaries on the desk, an open skipped geography book. He focused.

'I have done something which I could not do better?' he asked when looking at the geography book. 'There are things that disturb you? Here in the house. To me or mama. Is there anything we have done wrong, what I have done wrong?'

He attempted to concentrate on something else. The curtains. Red curtains. Tirza had they themselves were selected.

'You know,' he said, and he talked now almost as soft as they, 'Well, you know, we, Tirza mum and i and Ibi, also of love you if you are not very talented, it makes no difference what you are. You do not have to be the best, you do not need to have, we love you as you are.'

He wanted no answer. But there was a reply. Harder than its previous answer. Loud and clear.

'No, papa,' she said, "If I am not the best, stop anyone of me.'

Still he silently sit also remained a few seconds. Humiliated by the carnival mirror of his ambition, are well-intentioned and really reasonable ambition. Reports by his child for whom he had wanted to sacrifice everything, because he was guilty. In which they can also stood out, they would never do enough to stand out for its debt to die.

When did he not more in the room. He fled.

He went back down and stayed for the dining table. With his finger he knocked gently on the table. A minute and then still a minute, a quarter of an hour he was so half an hour. To the voordeurbel went and he did. It was almost two hours. Perhaps it was the wife who had forgotten her keys? Tirza Ibi was home, also. It could only be the wife.

For the door there were two agents. Boys still, really.

'Meneer ship's steward?' asked the a, so to hear a foreigners.

'Yes,' said ship's steward, 'dat i.'

'We are called. Are there problems?'

'who called you?'

'your wife,' said the other agent. 'You will have a woman? Here you live with wife and children?'

'O THAT,' said ship's steward. 'A ruzietje. It is all over. Sorry for the inconvenience.'

He wanted to close the door again. He had no need for company.

But the immigrant agent early: 'Meyes we also arrive?'

'As you want.'

He had them within, showed the gentlemen the living room. They looked around. The foreigners picked up a book that was on the table and sheet was slowly.

'Your wife wanted to make a declaration,' he said with the book in his hand. 'Is they are at home?'

Ship's steward shook his head.

'No, not at home. You know how women are. Especially Scorpio-women.'

'Is a Scorpio?' asked the agent that no foreigners was.

'Yes, yes,' said ship's steward. He had no idea why he had said. He realized that he sometimes did not know what he was going to say and that there than things which he does not always poked up equally pleasant found. Scorpio-women, how he came out? She was a Scorpio, but who was that what? He had to concentrate. He had to deal is better control control.

'14 November,' said ship's steward. 'Schor peony. It is to her studio. She paints. Men in particular. Sometimes also fruit. Apples, a pineapple, a solitary strawberry on a sign. But mainly men. A single self-portrait, go only men.'

'They said by the telephone,' said the foreigners, 'dat you tried to its edges, maltreatment, since she had over. Can that is true? Have you and your wife have been attacked? Do you have her beaten? Of course you are not obliged to answer, if you do not want to have, if you think: there are problems of. You can make use of your right to silence.'

Ship's steward thought after. He could not more so well remember where it was all about the conversation with his wife.

'We play,' said he finally, 'my wife and i, we play, if two young dogs. We know our own force is not. The game gets out of hand. Please call the police. They can not against hair loss. But it belongs to its game. She is an artist. What I said, she paints. Apples, oranges, Forrest Fruit, but also men. Unemployed, I suspect. The long-term unemployed. They get nothing for a cup of tea, but they have to pull out all their clothes. Would you pull out all your clothes for a cup of coffee?'

The foreigners took the book back to the stack. 'DUS mugging, is doing you not? I ask again very clear: you will illuminate your wife was not?'

'No,' said ship's steward. 'No, of course not. As I say, it is a game. I am the assailant, they are the victims, our house is the park. I am…' he rejected on his mouth, his forehead, his eyes.

'Yes,' said the agent that no foreigners, 'Yes, continue? You Are?'

'I am the beast. And it is it is also a… beast. We are two beasts. That is our game. Two beasts. Two savage and vereenzaamde beasts. Our living room is the steppe, our breath the polar wind. But sometimes the out of hand. Please call the police. It belongs to the game. First stop the game has lost. It is always the first. We play… We play, because…"

Ship's steward recognized itself not more. He therefore had about social skills such as in the case of emergency and man came. Curious social skills, that but, you could only be described as: social skills. He talked.

The Agents looked at him scared, but also a tad speechless.

They said that there is nothing more, they looked around and maybe they saw in the living room of the family ship's steward finally also the steppe, they felt the polar wind.

'Sbeast,' said the foreigners, 'and keep it a little under control.'

Ship's steward had them off. He thanked for the door closed before the effort, but he did not itself on the effort he had and the gentlemen seemed not to know that.

In the living room he pushed the curtain aside a few centimeters and looked at how they wegreden. Then he did the lights off.

Above he sought in his wardrobe in the inside pockets of his jackets to the notebook that he specifically for the meeting with the psychologist had purchased. He has finally found it. There was not much in it. One word: control. Underlined twice.

He looked at his own handwriting, to the word itself, as if in that word in the two underscores, the declaration was for everything. For his life, the disease of his daughter, the disease of the white middle class, the disease that he was and that he no longer wanted. He usually dressed out and went to bed. But he could not sleep. He neuriede, he opened the balcony doors and closed them again. He waited, as is so often the case, to the wife would come home.

The next morning he drove Tirza to a clinic in Germany, specialised in eating disorders. He asked whether they wanted not or they like it, or they thought it would help after all that he had already tried, after all the books he had read, he drove her just get there. Without stopping. And without talking. She sat on the rear bench seat, or rather, it was on the rear bench seat.

He had been given the address of the secretary at the publisher.

Thus supplied ship's steward his daughter at the clinic, in the afternoon, if a parcel. And he himself took up residence in a nearby guest house.

In the evening he phoned to house, but his wife was not there. He was on the phone. Ibi 'I have Tirza to a clinic in Germany,' he said. 'Please tell mom.'

In the village where the clinic was located was one restaurant. There was a ship's steward strain guest. We knew his type of there. Parents who had their child delivered to the clinic, parents who are often at the end of their forces were more death than live. Silent, also against each other when they came with the assistance of another person.

After a few nights he came into contact with a sociologist from Frankfurt, which have just been daughter, three years older than Tirza, at the clinic had delivered.

A few evenings talked with the ship's steward sociologist about sociology, Adorno, Expressionism, the middle mountains, Tolstoy, the small boat of the sociologist with which he in the summer on the Baltic Sea enter again and again the small boat of the sociologist, because sailing was so wonderful. Everything was good enough if conversation subject, except the clinic, the child, the disease. But the fifth evening said the sociologist: 'You will find the well as I do not here this evening you sit at a table bowl?'

'Of course,' said ship's steward, 'no problem.'

He had obviously said something they did not like what the sociologist, perhaps too strong a shaded, but in the eyes of the sociologist unsubstantiated opinion about an expressionist closer. Or was his enthusiasm about the Baltic Sea is not large enough? Ship's steward did not know what had caused the separation, but it made him pain, this small, insignificant incident. The jar.

Also he had contact, as he had found someone, had for a long time the lasted not. And from the evening that the sociologist had said that he was not part of a ship's steward to table wild come together they knikten only, from a distance. Very polite, almost invisible knikjes for third parties were the. Failed fathers who each other on distance loved.

Weeks perished and what no one had expected, ship's steward altogether, happened. Tirza began to heal, slow, very slowly, with the occasional drop, but nevertheless, it was not to deny, they Genas.

All that time stayed in the guest house. ship's steward On his work they understood the. And if not, than they had bad luck. Two times per day he visited his daughter in the clinic. In the morning and at the end of the afternoon. Never long. Twenty minutes, a quarter of an hour. Gradually he dared to see her again.

And between by, whether it is raining or not, snowed or not, he walked through the hills. Now and then he came the sociologist against on a hiking trail and then they very briefly to the knikten together without stand still. These are the moments when I felt a calm and light ship's steward grief.

The clearer every day: Tirza did what her father is not willing or able to do, and he knew he felt. During the walks he thought sometimes I must ask: its how you do that, cure. Where you start and how do you know you are done. But he wanted her not to bother with difficult questions.

And after three months to have spent in the lovely, almost innocent landscape of South Germany, Tirza was acquitted. They should go home.

The father took her in reception and he had to think on its birth, when he her on a cold and rainy day in the hospital in Amsterdam of a sister in his hands had been pressed. A package. A bundle. A worm wrapped in blankets. And he had its cooperation with the wife in a taxi ride home. Was he been proud, but also anxious.

He had the idea that they are now as tar and was sensitive as an infant.

In the car back to Amsterdam she said not much. Only at the border she asked: 'denk you think I should do this year?'

'I don't,' he said. 'I think you all can catch up. Otherwise it is also not a disaster.'

He was no father for his youngest daughter in, that was what his wife had said. A friend, a colleague, a lover, a platonic lover perhaps, but nevertheless a lover, only no father.

Now he had to be father. In the world of the fathers he was a convert, and like all converts: a fanatic.

In the evening he climbed not more the stairs to read Tirza, he brought her more to celloles, it urged its not more to enter swimming competitions, he took away.

Sometimes he was just might for the bookcase, but now he was no longer in a position to read out her had Russian Library her charm for him to be lost. There was no one to communicate his enthusiasm and he understood gradually itself not what he ever to those books had been found.

It seemed like there a cheese cloth as it was implemented. As if the content had become dusty. As if the equal of Tolstoy now really up to him by urged. Eitle Kurzweil müßiger man. No longer a comical and at the same time also tragic conception of a writer on age, a mistake but a inescapable therefore truth.

Still less he went for his books box, there is a book in vain did he already fully never again. Read only he did for his work.

This was a ship's steward has become a man who was afraid to become what he never wanted to be more: the lover of the woman who was his daughter.

He wanted to paternity to properly fulfill, no parent evening he forged on, no call or letter of school he left unanswered, and yet he took measures is not all that much. If Tirza visit had he by the housing demolition, sometimes he went to the barn for its not to interfere in its privacy. He asked minimal where they had been and where they are going, he operated and cared for her, he loved her in silence and seclusion.

Only now can he that silence cannot be maintained. Even the most depraved father would say: 'No, baby, Mohammed Atta, it seems to me that this is not a good idea.'

Also he thinks that the bliksemt, he expects to hear a surprise. But he sees by the kitchen window that the lightning the light in the barn. To turn on and off the. On and Off. Than he recalls where he was doing. Ester a glass of orange juice.

He looks around because he no longer sure whether he already had a glass for pouring it. He can not find.

Ship's steward fill in a wine glass with orange juice. The light in the barn remains on and off. Would that child cause a short circuit? It is crazy?

With ferme steps, the glass in his hand, ship's steward to the barn.

He presses the door impetuously open. It is they, on the reverse bucket, the string of the light in her hand.

"Do you want to stop doing?' says ship's steward measured.

'Doe i something wrong?'

She looks at him sincerely surprised. As if they were never has understood that adults do not play with the light, like they are at home nothing else.

'Yes, you do something error. You play with the light and it has been a while. So we get short circuit.'

'I was in thoughts, sorry.'

She picks up the glass of orange juice from him. They point out, as if there sipping spirits is in.

'This is from a pak with pulp?'

'What?'

She takes another SIP.

'I believe the under a pak, it is the last remnants. Can that is true?'

'It is orange juice, if you do not like you leave the. Listening…' he does his arms akimbo. He thinks he radiates as authority. 'I do not know what you are used to at home, but as far as I am concerned, you now have long enough in the barn. Or you can go to home, whether you're in the party.'

They sigh. She looks tired. 'who are all on the feast?'

Strictly looks down on the ship's steward girl that in his barn on a bucket to sit down and have not more.

'Your classmates, your teachers, my daughters and my wife, Mohammed Atta. Go to see for yourself. Without you not so.'

That tired look.

'Who is Mohammed Atta again?'

Even of the history that they have experienced they know nothing. They have slept through it. The elderly who have not heard the call. Young eldery, that they are. To recoup before the start puberty.

'a rapper.'

'O Yes.'

'He rapte like a madman,', 'and further ship's steward he raps still. I escorteer Ester, you can now go to the living room and then you can take the call with your peers continue.'

It is found on the bucket. Slowly, tormenting dialog they slowly.

'I think nobody nice.'

'Dan you will learn the people but to find nice.' Now that he is in the role of educator shot, he is no longer there. In fact he thinks that role delicious. The character of the educator gives a ship's steward grip. The mild irony of the didactic tone is his stool, are reading glasses, hearing device.

'They find me also not nice.'

'Dat alright. Believe me. There are people who you are and there are people who you less.'

'They will find you nice, Mr ship's steward?'

She looks at him. Mischievous, challenging.

'Who?'

'De people?'

'If they know me well, yes. Usually,' says ship's steward as realistic as possible. It is a fact. The people find him. A certain low profile is perhaps together with nice found. We look at the cross by him. If someone is really too find unkind much trouble.

Her eyes start to unexpectedly sparkle. 'Is there cake in their mouths?' she asks.

'Where?'

'On the feast? Is there cake in their mouths? Have you also organized?'

They will open its mouth and she acts as if it is in their mouths.

'bite," she says, 'bite and even a bite.' than she starts to laugh uncontrollable crying sets in.

'There is no cake in their mouths,' says ship's steward. 'Sgames you have to organise itself but,' but it is barely above her laughter.

They will laugh. Hard and unflappable. Between by nibbles them in the air. Frightening, ship's steward this spectacle. Unpleasant. He picks up her at the shoulders, shakes her back and forth. 'hold on,' he calls, 'keep on with that hysterical fuss.'

Only after a minute shaking called up to him by that Ester not more laugh, but is trying to cry. Maybe it is a time to cry. He has not understand something.

He looks for his handkerchief. Better a dirty than none at all.

So lovingly possible press his damp handkerchief in her hand.

'quiet but,' he says, 'quiet but it is all so very not.'

'What?'

The wooed you is delayed. They also no longer nibbles an imaginary piece of cake in the air.

'Whatever it is that your troubles. It is not as bad. Well, you have failed, you eat no fish, nobody you will find nice, but about forty years, if you about my age you think, I made me pressure to do nothing. The worst was still to come.'

They rubs on her face with its dirty handkerchief, than she gives it back.

'Why do you like you know?'

'Not everything.' He folds the handkerchief. 'I do not know everything. Soothe now but. Do but also very quiet. It is not so bad. It is…'

He makes his meaning not, he knows he is once again not what he wanted to say.

She has red eyes of the cry, the takes pride of its not. Something to her was already a tragedy when they stood on the sidewalk, without gift. Even without red eyes she gleamed already from what he could not express, but what is now finally appointed: people find its not nice and they in turn can find the people not nice.

She picks him in the sleeves of his required. 'Meneer ship's steward," she says, "Is it true what you said?'

'What?'

'Dat you love have abolished?'

He needs to smile at the reminder. Almost a tender reminder is the.

'Ah,' he says, 'When? I was still a half-child. I had to what. God was already dead. The progress is also. The civilization. Democracy also. As a young man you have a project. A plan. A faith. I said the love death on my fifteenth, or my sixteenth. It was anyway summer. And I purchased her.'

He smiles again, even if it is only because he is not so long to itself has thought as fifteen years that it is almost as if he thinks to another.

'and how it was when you have watched her?' She still are sleeves.

He thinks after.

'autonomous,' he says, 'independently. The truth, I fear.'

'De truth?'

'I fear,' says ship's steward, 'I fear, I said. I fear.' that is that calm, bright sadness that he reminds of his walks through the middle mountains when his daughter in the clinic was to cure. So calmly, so light, and yet sadness. Strange. The had nothing hysterical, nothing of what you often see on TV, women who are the hairs pluck, men who powerless their fists balls.

"And when?'

'What do you mean, and when?' he wants to beveled, but he doesn't dare.

"And when, then? What have you even more abolished?'

'I have nothing abolished. What I told you before. It was a mistake. After God and the progress should love turn, but i have failed. I am my own learning infidelity.'

He should actually laugh at these words. He can hardly talk about himself without laughing. He does not know how to do it yourself, explain that to the other, comment on your deeds. A man is what he does and ship's steward is mainly what he has not done so. Its silence is an act. His career, the authors who he has left unattended.

"Now,' he says, 'Now I am old, and I must return to the party. It is all a long time ago and not really worthy of debate. I am also the most forgotten. Large words were it all. I remember that. To forget how small you are. I must sardines buckets.'

They pull harder to his sleeves.

'And if you had the same handing?' she asks.

'Dan,' he says — and now he is the one who must be sighing, because it does not make sense in this conversation, not now, not tonight, he is too much, he has meaning in Italian gewürztraminer — 'dan it was a worthless equal, an equal which nobody had something, nobody has something, you can not old can be an equal that better could not have existed. I must back. Let me loose.'

'I have its also abolished," she says, but still keeps them it. She pulls his sleeves.

'Dat does not matter.' He speaks so airy possible. 'Dat people will continue to do so. It is a club, a club of people who have abolished its, sometimes they recognize each other, sometimes not. I must…'

Ship's steward makes its meaning. He picks up her face carefully with two hands. Moist hands, the heat and the voltage. Of Gewürztraminer is a ship's steward extra sweating. He expresses his foot on its, he kisses. Long has he has not really nice gezoend, very long.

It does you good. It is, how weird that may sound a liberation. This kiss. Maybe the wife equal. The beast is not dead. The had only had blocked, thoroughly to Hofmeesters leash seized. Where was the all those years? In the cellar has the Netherlands?

While its remains kissing, it picks up his head and he feels how her tongue still moving faster, yes, they kisses him, they Kisses back and he finally experiencing something what suspiciously to happiness, he seems to think only: help. Screaming for help omklemt internally he the face of klasgenote Tirza's.

But he kisses by. He no longer knows what he is doing. His hands gliding under its blouse, find her bra, his hands with which he so faithful the weed has become weeding, too heavy branches has cut down, the grass has seeded and mowed. It does not. They let everything.

He pushes her bra up, with the fingers of his right hand and rubs her nipples, something to rough maybe, but what here is still rough? This is what you have to keep after the abolition of the love of a fiasco. An autonomous and sloppy suppressed require that is between all the conventions and agreements wobbles if a hose.

He pushes his hand in her jeans, he pinches. Then he with difficulty, and actually rather clumsy, the knot of her jeans and then also the knots of her briefs.

His hands from her. 'Ester,' he says. A word which suddenly a body stuck and what for body, a word of meat. 'Ester,' he repeats.

He is a man without memory without awareness of place and time. A man who is only what should have been no longer, the rebellious residues of stubborn desire. Nothing of what he was, of what he thought, still exists. What lives in him is a shabby remnants of desire that ever came something must be deficit

He she crouches down next and in one rebellious jolting it draws its nail and pants down. Fanatic, that is the word, rapt.

Forget the sardines, the sushi, sashimi, even Mohammed Atta. The Third World War, the hedge fund, they do not have a chance.

He stands on puts his left hand on her shoulder. With his right hand he bevoelt her sex part. Rough, again, but surely somewhere also tenderly, the echo of tenderness. And he thinks that it is wet, they is damp. He feels that he still influential, he knows: I disconnect its humid, I wind her. She wants to me. They asked me to be debited, but too early, the world has depreciated me too early. I may have lost everything, but Jörgen ship's steward still exists.

And while he thinks he is still exists, while it up to him that he is alive and he is the content of that life seems to see, this is the life, this, nothing than this, this overcome despair, vingert he her. Not very good, not exactly, not gently, about basket by his own desire but then again not very bad for a man of his age, late in the evening, standing in the barn.

After some searching and gropings he has found her clit and now he is not loose.

It is as a type of error in a manuscript, he does not fall off until he has found him. As he has sought, as Esters clitoris a forgotten quote, a Missing comma. With its old has fingers he dug in her as in his garden.

'You will find me, Mr ship's steward?' she asks.

'Very nice,' he says. He has respiratory distress. He is talking about as someone who has run too hard. 'Very nice, more than Nice, much more than just nice, are not nice. Sweet, sweet, awful sweet.'

And he rubs her clit like he does more often, weekly. As if it were his work. As well as working in the garden. Rakes, seeding, caps. Manual labor he never shunned has not at all after the disease of his youngest daughter. It leads him of that calm, bright sadness that actually never has disappeared after that walks through the middle mountains. He thought that life was, light and calm sadness. But no.

And then he bending, He kneels, with its good trousers, in the dirty barn, and he begins the klasgenote Tirza kutje of's to lick. He licked and licked, and remember more of the party, the sushi and sashimi, the time, the thirsty openings, the hungry stomachs of the partyers. For the party he always seems to have forgotten now. Only for him is still Ester.

So you can forget: kneeling in the barn, as licking as a dog, your hands on the buttocks of a klasgenootje of your youngest daughter. And is not forgotten heal? He is now finally on the cure not? It is not turn?

He expresses his face more firmly against her sex part, he expresses his nose against the clitoris of Tirza's klasgenootje which no one nice is found, it rubs against it with its old, molded nose, and he smells, he smells, he pants. If someone is too long has been submerged in water, and which is now finally comes and to breath nibbles. The odour, which smell only, that is the life, the more he that smell, the more he sprinkles it, the more he knows that he lives. Only those scent consists, the rest: reflections on the death, detours, leads.

'You will find me nice?' requires Ester.

He lifts a. Out of breath, saliva around his mouth, on his chin, a part of his cheeks, his nose. The whole of his face is wet with his saliva and esters moisture. He looks like a barbarian.

'Mewe,' says ship's steward, 'more than Nice. Much more than beautiful.'

He makes his pants open, awkward and with trembling hands because of the haste and excitement. But he still exists. Anything other than that he does not feel, does he not, he takes not true, the sensation of its own existence which all predominant, which through anything calls, which no convention quite late. The own desire that nothing and no one protects, who finally claims its place in this God abandoned universe. And then, while his trousers and pants down Kate rolls up, he has this ridiculous idea: my desire, it is God. It is the only living God.

He turns to, they vacillate Ester, is fixed to the handle of the mower and to a wooden board. 'How nice you will find me on a scale of 1 to 10?' she asks and he rubs his sex on its pubic hair, looking for its opening. He can not find the opening.

'How nice you will find me, Mr ship's steward, how nice you will find me well?'

They whines. They keep harping. Its Ester without h. It proposes to ask him at the time that he has lost all his voice. No more words, finally no more words. Deeds.

They should help him. His act requires assistance.

She pushes him to go to inside.

She helps him because she wants him, he thinks.

When he fanatically her jeans down, so fucking he also. Snuivend, gasping for breath. And everywhere it smell her. The sharp smell of her sex part, and vague also the smell of relief. Fresh relief.

He will hear someone in the distance 'papa'. And once again: 'Papa, where are you?'

In a second, in a fraction of a second, is his memory back. At least a part of it.

'Papa,' he will hear again.

He let Ester, abrupt, alarmed. Something called up to him by. Where he is, who he is, what he is trying to do so.

He staggered the barn from, the trouser still on his knees, it for Tirza.

She was already closer than he had thought.

'Papa," she says, 'Lady Field Camp will go home.'

Tirza looks at him, her gaze slides on his body. Its eyes are as two instruments of torture. He feels them.

Still breathes it heavy. He sees now also lady Field Camp. It is they, and she looks at him, initially still smiling, now more serious.

The teacher and the father. Motionless. Two people in a garden, on a warm evening in the early summer. Equally powerless to bring a word. In the living room, the final exam party by

Then recovers lady Veldkamp itself. They will be the person who order in the class maintains, even if unforeseen things happen. It continues to maintain the order. Even here. Even now.

'Meneer ship's steward," she says, 'When I arrived here was you half-naked and you are now the weather.'

He bending, it lifts his pants, frommelt to the belt, he can not find the holes. Where are the holes? What has he thought? Where he was doing? Where are the holes of the belt?

He is panting and everywhere it smell Ester without h, everything smells like her, the whole garden, even lady Veldkamp smells of Ester without h.

But also a ship's steward recovers itself. Now cross hidden from view, it goes back to whom he should be maintained, the host, the man of the sushi and sashimi, Tirza's father.

'I will you outlets,' he says.

'Does you no trouble,' explains lady Veldkamp, 'You seem to have enough pressure here in the garden.'

Then run away. Faux Fur Hemline. In this way they.

She looks even once and to her look he sees now that they do not at all like it. She looks as to a horrible accident. He wonders where it has remained Tirza.

'Tirza,' he calls.

She is the sanding went inside. He hears her talk with Ester, but he cannot mean what they say. And still he seeks the holes of his belt.

He gets closer. He is uncertain. Wank Elend actually. Dizzy the pleasures that he narrowly missed is Always very little of it.

This is Ester. Still with the jeans on her ankles. They state that if a statue. And he would be inclined to swear that they triumphantly looks. Maybe even happy. He would dare to swear.

'Papa, what has been done?'

He shakes his head. 'nothing', 'nothing he panting slightly.' He pulls Tirza the barn from, takes her note to the back of the garden, to the dark area where no one can see them, he thinks.

'Tirza,' he says, 'my Tirza.'

'What happened?' she insists. She is not satisfied with the word 'nothing', while that it so summarizing.

He takes her face between his hands as he previously held face has been esters. She pushes his hands away.

'What happened?' calls on them.

'SSTT,' he says, 'sstt.'

But they will not allay. Tirza do not silence. Not more.

'I know what happened. I know exactly what has happened. I am not fond. Do you think I'm crazy? She is sitting in my class, dad. Ester is to me in the class.'

They reply on behalf of him, she speaks on behalf of the Father who with the best will in the world do not speak can.

He wants its grasp in order to soothe her but she pushes him away.

They cries.

At the very least it began Ester if laugh, as nibble to an imaginary cake.

He thinks it is terrible as Tirza cries. And now even more horrendous than otherwise, this evening much more horrendous.

'How could you do this?' calls on them. 'To my party, how could you do this?' and then repeat them remains: 'Why on my party? Why on my party? Why on my party?'

As if it would have been better if he had let Ester back, on a thursday night if the worker from Ghana the housing side had made. As if the than all had nothing. As if it was fine.

He picks up, despite its opposition, its main, he retains it. He must now say something he must now remember something.

'They gave me seduce,' says he slowly.

'They has seduced you? She is as old as I am, no, they are under. They can not you have seduced. So someone can not seduce you papa.'

They yanks are loose. Tirza rubs her eyes. That now as red as those of Ester just now.

'And even if that were the case, what an excuse? What is that for a lame excuse? Do you know what you are? You are a dirty man, dad. A dirty man.'

They cries now harder.

He should be against a tree sit back, he is afraid that he falls.

'They gave me seduce,' he says again and he remembers how wet she was, was so wet they, as humid. She was soaking wet. He wants to tell Tirza, he wants to say: 'Tirza, my Tirza, Ester was soaking wet', but he is in, he says: 'They was…' He let the tree. A few steps in the direction of his youngest daughter.

'Touch Me,' growling them. 'Go away.'

He remains in place. A glass gewürztraminer from Italy would do well.

'I do not touch you, Tirza,' he says. 'I am… I am… I am also a man. I can do nothing, I am also a man.'

She keeps her hands for her eyes.

'You're no man," she says, 'You're dirty. That is what you are. How can I still looking at you? How can I touch you? How can I find your thinking when dad?', and they shout: 'go away. Go away!'

Why should Tirza well as rude and unkind do? As he knows really only Ibi.

He seeks his hands to her. 'But that is what are men,' he says, 'Tirza soft, that is what they are. Nothing I can do. I know there is no one that is not dirty. The man is his own filth.'

'Go away,', 'Go them whispers Road, dad. Please dont go away. I am sure it is a good one, it is good. But you must now leave.'

Indecisively, he remains a couple of centimeters away from his youngest daughter. He would like to throw at its feet.

'come with me to the celebration,' he says soft. 'We will go together to within, Tirza. It is so nice, you final exam celebration. I return to sardines buckets as though nothing has happened. There is also nothing happened.'

'Go away,' she whispers.

Is he for her, then he walks slowly in the direction of the barn. The Bright, calm sadness that thanks to Ester minutes changed in infectious happiness, is now carried out in something slightly nor calm, but as a disease slaughtered comes on, impetuous as a hurricane, deadly as an earthquake.

In the barn is illuminated light.

Ester still has its trousers on the ankles. But she is sitting. On the bucket.

Ship's steward state in the opening of the door. He looks at the girl on the bucket.

'Are you?' he asks.

'I am at the lakes," she says.

Then he sees the bucket not more vice versa. He also now smells of urine. He smells everything again.

Soon he runs through. As soon as he can, without overturning. That he wants to provisionally not shed more in.

In the kitchen serves himself a glass of wine. Also he thinks of nothing, there is only the taste of the wine.

Than he retrieves, more out of habit than out of necessity, the last scale with sashimi from the refrigerator.

When he enters the room he sees the wife climbed on the dining table is. The lights are still more darkened. The children are around her. It is being playbacken. Dolly Parton. Of course, who else. Its heroine.

One of the breasts of the wife is visible.

While they playbacken is they are doing to get rid of the clothes they her eldest daughter has borrowed.

In a corner of the room condition Mohammed Atta. Ibi has now taken charge about him.

'Jolene Jolene Jolene,,' sings Dolly Parton and ship's steward can not stand to singing.

He wants no Dolly Parton, no sentimental outbursts of the mother of his children.

'Come on,' he calls. But they do not hear. Ever hear him. The music is too hard. The light is too scarce and the wife playbackt if her future depends on it. 'But I can easily understand how you could easily take my husband, but you don't know what he means to me, Jolene.'

They think it is wonderful, the children. Hofmeesters wife on the table. They find the nicer and nicer than its sushi, sashimi and sardines. They encourage her to. They scream its admitted that they should be louder dancing, that they must devote more, and she has quite a lot has been pulled out. Too much. Ibi's nail skirt.

Something they have in their parents have not yet seen. Hofmeesters wife is the attraction of the evening.

With the scale in his hand he goes to the bedroom. It converts the sashimi on the ground, takes place on the bed. It supports his face with his hand and weather it smell Ester. Very good. It smells like its as if they were present.

As Tolstoy on the end of his life rejected the art, ship's steward the sexuality for: 'Eitle Kurzweil müßiger men'.

The Bright, calm sadness smoke to the conifer forests of South Germany.

Only the shame is now still light and calm.

But this here for which a ship's steward no words, this hurt if there is already a word for must be, than but pain, this smell of the genus part of klasgenote Tirza's.

No, smells like Tirza itself.

5

Ship's steward remains motionless on the bed in the bedroom. A prisoner in his own home. He hears the music, he hears the front door open and close, the voice of Tirza, votes of people he can not home. Guests must be let. The party runs slowly on his end.

Many he would make up a glass gewürztraminer be able to drink, but he doesn't dare downwards. He must remain here until everyone has moved.

He hears gestommel above it. The tenant is also still awake.

There are countless thoughts, ideas, but they can not organize a ship's steward. The only thing it sure is that there is no hope. He is lost Tirza, he has its discredited. If a player cannot let he has the best, the most beautiful what he had deployed, and why? What he expected? It doubled that could be?

He has the feeling that he is already days in his bed. Already have a half-life, seated on a bed for the wardrobe. A man who made his bedroom not dare.

Then open the door. He focuses his head on, he expects the wife. It is Tirza. His Tirza. The Solar Queen. They remain stationary. She looks to her father.

'What do you do?" asks them.

He observes his daughter, he is studying her, to the extent that it is still capable of. 'I wait,' he says.

'Where?'

He picks up his shoulders. 'Everyone is already left?' he asks after a few seconds of silence. A tense, unpleasant silence.

'De most. There are still a few. The latter.'

'And? Is it all merged?'

'What?'

'De snacks. The sushi.'

'I don't, PAP, I really do not know.'

She looks around the room. And ship's steward does the same. He sees the belongings of the wife who has its share of the bed has taken into the possession as if they had never been reborn. On a seat are shirts. Neckties. Shoes of the spouse. Sandals.

'Papa,' says Tirza.

'Yes.' He speaks without her to look.

'How should the Nou?'

'That?'

'Met you.'

'Met me?' now he looks to her. 'But Tirza, what is that for a question?'

'How should the Nou with you?' she.

He shakes his head. 'You do not pressure to make. How any odes must. You must make your pressure your future.' And he remembers how he, when she was sick, against her had said: 'You have everything for you, you have the future for you.' as if it were the decisive argument was not starve to death.

Ship's steward sweat. Under his armpits he sees wet spots. The moisture of a long night.

'What possessed you?' The voice of his daughter sounds not accusing but inquisitive. Almost curious.

'When? What I would have had to revitalize?'

'Met Ester. A short while ago. What… What about you?'

He rubs his cheeks, his mouth, his forehead. He would like to say something, but there is nothing in it. The beast in him had spoken, and the beast speaks without words. The language of the beast is speechless. The bite and licked, as well as spitting out and tearing open. But such as people speak, no, not.

'Date you think is bad enough, but that you do. To my party.'

He looks to the balcony. The doors are open.

'It was a nice party,' says he slowly. "Everyone has being entertained, i to all guests are concerned. Nobody is something deficit. There was enough sushi. And also the sashimi is not yet.'

'Papa, give answers.'

'What was asking you?'

'What you possessed? What you thought? What you came about? About did you something?'

He picks up his shoulders, a typical motion for him, and while he that for the second time, as though this movement must be sufficient response, they sit on the bed. In addition to him, but with distance, they do not touch each other.

'I WANT not," she says, 'i not more to you can think about when dad. Mama already exists. Not for me at least. I do not want to be rejected. I want you to papa continues. I am too young to be stressed.'

He would like to scream if a downed soldier who can only hope for a final shot but by his comrades is not found. Nowhere is a ship's steward. And to be honest: nobody is searching for him.

'I remain who i was,' he says with hoarse voice. 'Everything remains as it was. There is nothing has changed.'

'But I think you really dirty. You are dirty for me.' Despite these words she explains her hand in his neck and also does he think he dies, also does he know what it is: die.

'I,' he says, 'we are going down. We will go together to the bottom. It is not very. Ester and I played it. And it ran out of hand. That can happen. Certainly at a party.'

He tries to get up, but he must gather strength and courage. And while he is doing, he tries the word 'dirty' to understand. It is for him that he had always been dirty for themselves and for others, and that its attempts to come closer were nothing else than attempts to be less dirty. In that one word, expressed carelessly, it seems, at the core of its existence. The constant factor.

'What did you?'

'a game,' he whispers. 'a game, Tirza. Sometimes you have to play that you are someone else. That is healthy. You must be flexible dealing with your identity. Only lunatics continue all the time who they are. I am your father, and you are my daughter, my love and my youngest daughter, my love most daughter. But sometimes we play that we have someone else, that you for example the solar queen are and i the high priest. In order not to be completely crazy should we play. To make our sense not to lose. We have no choice. How savvy you are, the better you can play. You are very intelligent, therefore you can play so well.'

When he thinks of the word 'dirty' he thinks of the degree of fear, he thinks of itself: a man with the degree of fear, a man who has his own body looks like a filthy public toilet. And as the expiration of that body shall recover the fear, who actually nothing else than censure, larger.

'I understand you not," she says. 'But that does not matter. I think. It does not matter that I do not understand you. If you get it all but would not deny it. You can also say: "I'm sorry."'

'Yes,' he says, 'you understand me. You understand me very well.'

Still has its hand in his neck and much more than he has just now need a glass of Italian gewürztraminer, bacing alone would provide a solution, the smell, the opening of the bottle.

'I need you when dad," she says, 'you understand? I need you when dad.'

'I need you too,' he whispers, 'Tirza, I need you too." And he pushes his fist in his mouth and he bites. He bites as the beast he reports to have thought, the word dummy beast that lives in him.

Still he will hear the music from downstairs.

'Was you have drunk?' she asks.

'Yes,' he says relieved, 'the drink that was it. The drink.'

Now he can get up. Now he has the force. A simple yet powerful response.

But they do not leave his neck.

'DUS I do not need to worry when I am in Africa?'

'Of course not,' he says, 'Why should you care? To whom? For me? Why?'

'It all goes well, even if I'm not there? Even if mama weather goes away? That makes no difference? You stay here just for yourself?'

'Of course,' he says, 'i live further. As I have arranged for you, I will make for myself, even if you are in Africa. I have heard no necessary. I live there is simply a loose, you know that yet?'

'But papa," she says, 'You can't. Life. Manage that you not at all.'

To her hand in his neck he notes that they cries.

He is still a part of his fist in his mouth. It soothes. The tines in the own meat moons are thoughts for calm.

'Why have you actually made us?'

He has bitten hard enough. The printing of his teeth are in the meat of his hand. 'It was an idea of your mother,' he says, 'but as soon as I saw I was sold. I was sold — sold at all.'

'O.'

He is on, iron are smooth and stops the shirt better in his pants. Also he has the feeling that he has under control again. Now he is the father he wanted to be the last few years, the man who paternity as appeal, in which all its ambitions lead. Distant, but charming. In the word joke about the tenderness, in the flauwiteiten and mops which he and his daughter and her friends to confront is the love that must remain legally.

'And what happens,' he asks, 'if you go in Africa with that Mohammed Atta and you come to a two meter long negro against which you will find very nice? What then?'

'DAN I write you a ticket," she says. 'Dan i write: "Hey pap, I am a two meter long negro encountered which I find quite nice."'

In the distance they hear the sounds of 'bei mir bist du schön'.

They have started again with the music. Everything starts from the beginning.

He runs to the door. 'I,' he says, 'come.' on the ground still the scale with sashimi, but he let him.

Caution If a gray nature he goes down the stairs.

There are five or six people in the living room. Mrs of Mining is in a corner and talk with a pupil. Glass everywhere, serv plants with remnants of raw fish, on the basis of many rice, still more glass, beer bottles, remnants of garnish with which he had drawn up the shells. Against the wall, in the vicinity of the dining table, the wife against a boy printed whose face for ship's steward is hidden. They are involved in a kiss. Mohammed Atta he sees nowhere.

Everything in the room smells of celebration. Old celebration.

He turns to Tirza. 'Where is Mohammed Atta?' he asks.

'Choukri,' says they emphatically, 'Choukri is to house. I have said that he had to go but. I would not that he should have longer firsthand.'

She points to her mother. And in which one eight-free movement is the declaration for many. The mother who cannot. The parent who has never wanted to.

On the table next to the bank is a half full glass of wine. Ship's steward picks it and drank the hastily empty.

'I install your path,' he says. 'I bring you there. You fly from Frankfurt? I bring you to the airport.' It is a coincidence, but one that it gives energy. Suddenly he has hope.

'Dat do not need. We can also with the train.'

'No, no,' says ship's steward, 'let me well. And then we are still a one night stay in the Betuwe, in the house of grandpa and grandma. Then we still a weekend under each other. For you to leave. I mean that of Mohammed Atta did not so bad. It seems that he may be of little use to do so. Do not take it so heavy, take it all with not so heavy.'

'We will see,' says Tirza, 'we shall have to wait and see.'

Father and daughter to stare at Hofmeesters wife. She is in a different world. Which of the desire that goes hand in hand with bright drunkenness.

"Do you know the boy?' requires a ship's steward.

His daughter nods.

'Pap," she says, 'the celebration is past, don't you think? The is ready. We need to send the people.'

'Yes, to send. You are right.'

The final exam feast of Hofmeesters youngest daughter is over. It is somewhere a relief.

He shall do all lights, turn on the music softer and collects a few glass. His clothes sticking to his body, his hair paste to his head and his hands from sticking to the glass.

'Hugh, Jörgen,' calls on the wife, 'must that well, that bright light?'

With three in stacked beer glasses he runs to her. It is not absolutely naked, such as when she was put on the table and did like they Dolly Parton was, but you can still see that they have recently been half-naked.

'The Celebration is past,' says he was very clear. 'It is ready. It is about.' He looks at the boy, it is the boy who has ever meegegeten. The Boy With The short name. He is already forgotten him. One syllable.

One of those guys who had said Tirza: 'He continues to eat tonight.' But he had perhaps been misunderstood. What is actually 'continue to eat'? In the world of Tirza means 'continue to eat' perhaps more than just to eat. What is in the name of God the true meaning of 'continue to eat'?

'Young Man,' he says, 'please say goodbye to my wife. It was a nice party. But it is over.'

'Die formal tone, Jörgen. Please, you're not more fully of this time. And if he wants to remain a moment, he remains. This is also my house.'

He slowly shakes his head. 'No, not more. Your home is a living boat. And if you are on this houseboat is no longer welcome, than I can do anything about it, but this house is no longer in your house. Here you to host.'

While he says he recalls how he evenings hose on the wife has been waiting for, he remembers even that he loves her loved, sweet he found its, right at the beginning, and these memories verschuren him. They make him week, liquid. More fluid than all Italian gewürztraminer together. He tail to her and he has the tendency to its also, very briefly but touching, The wreck that she is. He recognizes the, that is the problem. Hofmeesters wife is the most recognizable wreck that he had ever seen in his life. And in that he finds wreck recognizable his own life.

The guy says nothing. He is to get drunk to even disparagingly or scared to watch. It seems as though the hangover normally until the next morning starts now have already been commenced. Bowled he runs away without Groet. He looks even to the wife. As if it already has forgotten what he did not have two minutes has done this.

Ship's steward hear the front door is opened. Tirza will be the last guests to the outlets.

'you could not leave it?' he asks. The 'give you others involved in our game?'

The wife rubs her mouth. Hair mascara is light, not even be disturbing. Ach, even in this bright light then it is still note.

If you do not know her, it is hardly a problem, if you do not have a past with her, you see other things.

'What game?' she asks, 'what game, Jörgen? Where did you take over? There is still only game and if there are only game, it is not a game more. We have for years been held up with our game. You walk once again behind the facts.'

The trip. Later in the house saves a door is closed.

'Let us do…' he says, 'Let us get carry on as before. The living room is the Vondelpark, it is night, anywhere is the night, and I am the beast. The beast that you come Verschuren, the beast that is on your raises, let me the beast.'

'No,', 'strongly urges them hold. Do you understand the than not yet? You can understand nothing?' she picks him with his required and shake it in so far as they are still has the power back and forth. Also threatens to drop the glass.

'We do not play that we are broken, we are, Jörgen, we pcoducer the. How often should I say something for you understand? I am just returned because I could anywhere else. Nobody wanted to me, Jörgen. Nobody wanted to me. Do you understand? It calls to you by?'

They release it and he panting slightly: 'No, no, I do not understand that.' as if he were just a strange phone message has been received.

Then he walks to the kitchen. On the bank to sit still remaining two children, they seem to sleep, the front door is open, he hears Tirza's voice from the street.

Soon he pays a glass of wine. Then he goes to the garden. The torches are based. He will get rid of it tomorrow. Only the light in the barn is still alight.

He wants the knocking down, but then he sees Ester, on the bucket, albeit not more with the jeans on her ankles.

Ship's steward tail to her, not more if lover, but as a host. The father of the successful. A friendly father.

'The Celebration is past,' he says. 'Everyone has had to go home. You can now go better.'

She takes him in smiling. Arrogant, so she looks. As if they are above him stands, far above this old man who is still not able to reconcile with his own body, who has been able to reconcile with nothing, maybe you should say.

He does not know how his actions should explain to her, but he would like to see it. Even at this hour of the night he continues to search for declarations, ending in apologies and compliments. A man who declares itself, is a man who has congratulated with their own mistakes.

'Allows you to call a taxi for me?'

'Where should you going next?'

'Amstelveen.'

'Amstelveen.' He repeats the word as if they had said: 'Mars.'

Then he walks to the kitchen and call a taxi.

The front door is still open. Tirza is on the street with someone to discuss. As in the past. If they friends or girlfriends spoke after they were to eat she was hours on the sidewalk, even though it was cold or motregende the.

'Jörgen,' he hears. 'Jörgen.'

The sharp and at the same time the hoarse voice wife.

She is wearing glasses, plates and empty bottles to the kitchen. When she was young, when she really was young, she had worked in the catering industry.

She opens the trash can. Residue sashimi, whole sardines and peuken he sees disappear.

'I bring them away,' he says, 'Tirza and its… her boyfriend.'

'Where To?'

'to the airport of Frankfurt. That is cozy. We will continue to have a weekend in the Betuwe. I must still be going back.'

She nods, but he does not have the impression that she has listened to him.

'De rest we do tomorrow," she says. 'And tomorrow is also the worker. We simply ask whether they remain a little longer. In the past is that they are also sometimes have stayed longer. It was no problem.'

He opens the last bottle of Italian gewürztraminer.

'howlong are you?' he asks.

'Here you mean? In the kitchen? In this house?'

'Here. In this House, yes. I would now like to know ever.'

She gets her shoulders. 'I don't," she says. 'I have the you already said: I can nowhere. Where should I go? As far as that is concerned we resemble each other. We can not going anywhere.'

She picks up his hand, are warm and slightly wet hand. He knows now that they can no longer play that they are broken. They are the, but what he is taking proposals, he has no idea. Was he ever something else?

'It is," she says. But he does not know how it is still that he does not know what it is.

'If you want,' she goes further, 'if there is no other women in your life is, can i am slowly undress for you. Then you can look at me if you find comfortable. As consideration for room and board.'

And there is the wreck, just as recognizable as before. He wonders when they started, wreck. And this is, or that they no longer can.

And if they are a wreck is, what is it? Why is he not succeeded in old to be as other people old? Quality and more or less gradually. With that as a matter of course that all animals. The fact that the same thing will happen, the own body and that of others.

'Pap.'

The voice of Tirza is so beautiful, he says.

They called on him, as very earlier when she was potty training. Or in her room and had a question about her homework.

'I come,' he calls back and he thinks: that will be the taxi are. That is why it is called him: the taxi has arrived.

He runs to the barn.

'You taxi,' he says against Ester, which is still in its bucket.

They are not. She looks at him do not agree.

'Have you money for the taxi?' he asks. 'How much is it actually to Amstelveen?'

They are silent.

In his pocket he is looking for his wallet. He takes a note from one hundred euro. He wants to give to her, but it is not.

'Dat is too much," she says.

'I did not less. Come and change but also along, if you coming to dinner. Or simply if you have time. Come and along.'

He lifts her on the bucket. And also state they are close to him in his arms. Also it smell its, an intoxicating smell. A smell that more than anything else young and healthy and feminine. Everything he is not and will not, therefore, he is so.

'Does not hurt your buttocks,' he asks, 'an entire evening at a bucket sit?'

'My buttocks do no pain. Not more than otherwise.'

As if they are injured, as though they themselves can not run, he brings her by the kitchen to the street. The last part he has its only by its upper arm. As you hold a child that is delaying when traversing. The father is afraid of the approaching vehicles. Something to securely, slightly high he holds the child.

Tirza state on the street with a boy and chat. They will ignore her father.

The taxi is not there yet. He has no idea why Tirza called him. But he dares to ask her. She is on a call. He must leave her with peace.

Mrs of mining comes out. She gets her bicycle of the lock. To swing Tirza they still have some time but they pretend they do not see a ship's steward and Ester. The contrasts him. The invisibility, forced invisibility.

'However, Mrs Digging Home,' he calls.

There is no response. They lock depends on its steering.

'However, Mrs Digging Home,' is called a ship's steward again. 'Thank you for coming.'

Again no reply. They ride away as if they were not at the Hofmeesters but at the neighbors.

This is not a calm and light sorrow, but hard pain. The pain of the redundancies, the rejection, the failure.

'a likeable woman,' he says to the girl as Mrs of mining the corner. 'And well conserved.'

As they wait on the street, ester and ship's steward. Its Street, the Van Eeghenstraat, the best of Amsterdam, and the best in The Netherlands. He has lived there. He still live there. But it has not helped.

If the taxi at last, and is already Tirza inwards.

He pushes Ester the carriage in.

'Where do you live?' he asks.

Again no answer.

An arrogant gaze. But not, how will it say so, love-free. In the eyes of the girl he recognizes something of his own desire, and as soon as he has recognized this desire he should think of her sex part, on his hands in that sex part how iden and grazing wet she was. For him. Wet and from him.

And it seems as if all the dignity and humanity that he still held is located in the damp sex part of that girl, as if he were in that moisture, in that horny, has found his dignity, as though he were Mrs of mining and the others is emerging, even if it is only for a moment.

'Where do you live?' he repeats. He squeeze in its upper arm.

'somewhere in Amstelveen,' says Ester without h.

'They must to Amstelveen,' says ship's steward against the driver. The man looks at him, dubious. Disparagingly for Hofmeesters feeling.

'Amstelveen,' reiterates Tirza's father with the smile of a man for whom nobody need fear.

The driver gas.

Ship's steward swings the taxi after without knowing why and without even thinking that will look at him Ester. He waves her after, as he imaginary passengers on Schiphol swaying, not to fall.

If he wants to go to the inside, he notes that the front door is closed and that he has no keys. He must ring the bell. First does he briefly, then if there after half a minute still no response, longer and harder. Impatient. Although he does not want to.

He shivering.

Tirza does open.

'Ibi sleep all," she says. Warning, but not unfriendly.

'Everyone is way?'

'Everyone is way.'

It is not one side. They lean with the side of her head against the tiles in the hallway.

'Did you a nice party, Tirza? You say that it was a nice holiday in spite of everything?'

There is no answer.

They only says: 'Despite everything', but they say it as if they were asked. 'How do you mean: despite everything?' sound.

'Papa.'

He wants to within, he has the cold.

'Papa," she says, "If I do not here more living, how should it be? I would like to know.'

'Let me to within,' he says.

"How?'

Ship's steward thinks of the time that he was in a guest house in South Germany lived and they were working in a clinic to cure. He thinks of her cello. The music stand. On the versions on the music school. He was always on the first row. And he looked at his daughter as if he had its hypnotising, as if he thought that they would play a wrong note if he would take to watch.

'Speel what to me,' he says.

'What?'

'On Your cello. Play what to me.'

'Now?'

'Now'.

They laughs. 'You're not good.' as if he has made a joke, to table, while two friends have continued to eat. A not very successful joke.

Always if friends or girlfriends were eating or play, he made jokes. According to a ship's steward of the father is a struggle.

'It is important.'

They must play for him, as previously, on her cello. That is what he is now still can think, that is all that can save him. His youngest daughter and her cello.

'I have not played for years.'

'Dat does not matter. You are not forgotten. Something rather imposes not.' You

'Everyone sleeps. Mama is also already up.'

'They sleep through it. They are used, of the past.'

'Papa," she says, and with the side of her head leaning back still against the tiled, 'You're not good point. It is true what Ibi me told years ago. You are really not good.'

Between all its other thoughts by he also wonders how it must have been a father that will not good point is, but because he did not reply to that question, he says: 'I am healthy, Tirza. Just as healthy as you. And I ask only or you what to me. A Sentimental question perhaps, a strange question in the middle of the night. But not not properly.'

She looks at him. Its lips curls itself. He has no idea whether it is a smile. 'Papa' whispers to them. She looks to love him, understandable. 'I want best one more time for you to play but not now.'

'No, Tirza. So immediately. This evening. Tonight.'

They are silent.

He does not understand themselves why this is so important to him is a neck now all other matters have been resolved, neck disappeared. What else could still be important in his life?

He picks up his wallet from his pocket. 'I pay you sure,' he says. 'I'll give you extra spending money for Namibia.'

It counts the most of what there is to paper money in it. 'Here,' he says, 'over five hundred euro. You can use the good in Africa.'

'Papa.'

They fingers with the back of her hand on his cheek.

'Papa, why do you want that i for your play?'

He is there with the paper money in his hand. More he has not. Perhaps he has never had more than that. Paper money had to conceal the fact that he had nothing else to offer. It pays. Pay is freedom. Pay is dignity. 'Because it makes me happy,' he says. 'Because it makes me so happy.' He wants its money in the hands push, but she still makes a defense gesture.

He likes to pay for the happiness. In the happiness is an unsustainable debt hidden. A mistake. Something he must be paid as a lump sum.

Now he has not more cold, he has the hot. He feels the sweat resistance along its spine. It seems as if he has fever as if he were cold is trying.

Tirza looks at him, but no longer as the daughter to the father is looking even if the caring daughter who looks at the man who has brought for her, she looks quite different to him. In her view he sees the alien. The tenant to the landlord looks while he is considering the offer.

She turns around, she runs away from him, he hears her up the stairs to run. If a Levite, do ship's steward.

In the kitchen it a glass gewürztraminer in. There is not much more. Cold is the wine even though not. It does not matter. Still shivering he. Of the fatigue, the emotion, shame.

Than he hears the earth orbits the sun. The stairs Tirza He is going to look at. She has the cello. She drags him. As if it were a beast, a recalcitrant cow which should to the slaughter. They will pass without her father to watch him. They put the cello in the living room.

He looks in the opening of the door with the empty glass in his hand how it will do so.

Another time she goes to the top. She is coming back with the music stand and sheet music. Install them all for the window. She picks the cello bow response.

'Are you sure you want to do this?' she asks.

He nods.

'This is what makes you happy?'

He nods back.

'Sit down," she says. The bow in the stop.

And He whispers: 'Elgar, that you could well, that you also played on the music school. Elgar. It was nevertheless Elgar?'

He knows the self not more. He shall take place on the ground. Between the remnants of the feast, between sticky rice grains and chunks of gherkin from a foot are flown.

There are no more. Little is more. The money he explains on the coffee table.

She agrees the cello.

'Papa," she says. 'You're not good point. Is that hereditary?'

'hereditary?'

'I? Should I be afraid that I just as word as you? Should I be afraid that i love word?'

Then begins to play them.

Her shoulders and upper arms are visible, and one of its bra straps.

He looks at her and he remembers everything. He is a shivering body that hear music are daughter sees and everything reminds. And while a ship's steward listening to the music and to his youngest daughter looks for him, for him and for him only, he starts for the first ask why food hurts so much.

Why the actually always so much pain has done.

Not all life. There are people who are not affected. Many have not affected. Presumptuous life. He has thought of everything she does not always thoroughly, but never about pain. That was something for sissies, he had always found. And now he is there for the first time involved, discerns he still somewhat reluctantly. Disgust.

He had everything he has now received nothing more. Even when he had everything, did the pain.

Of the existence he recalls an uncomfortable silence, a rigid dexterity, a nerve pull, a barely suppressed desire. The Eternal need under all circumstances to come over to civilized.

This means Tirza on playing.

They shall submit to the cello down carefully. As you a baby in bed captures those on your arm is asleep. In the hope that he will continue to sleep.

She is on, they get about her father, which is on the ground is just a child that is not yet on a seat or bench seat can sit.

'take it,' he says.

'What?'

They remain stationary. She looks down. There she sees her father, its old father, which may not be children had to begin if disaster him not had forced, as he himself so like used to say: the fate in the form of a woman.

He has done for others. His children, the house, the renting of the upper floor are course, maintaining the home of his parents, also after their death. And that he never that reference work on expressionist poets wrote, also that he has done for others. A life lived for others. On the assumption that you are the only then alive, if you for others it, nothing you as self-catering individual. Have enough on yourself, have enough to your work, have enough to Schiphol, that is the real shame.

'The money. Take it.'

She looks to the notes on the coffee table.

'take it,' he repeats, 'Tirza, you have played. Please, contact the. I have promised you.'

He sees that they hesitates.

He does not dare itself. It is all of her. It is located on the coffee table. They must also tackle the only. That is all. Only suits.

'take it, Tirza,' he says. 'take it well. For you and Mohammed Atta, if you are in Africa.'

'Choukri.'

'Choukri. Also good. For you and for those of you who Choukri once again want to eat.'

She shakes her head.

'We do not go to Africa to enjoy going out to eat papa.'

'You can almost everywhere good food, also in Africa.' He remembers how he suffered an hour or twelve in the kitchen was to the raw fish to cut.

'Please,' he whispers, 'Please, my solar queen.'

They bending itself.

She picks the money. Then run away.

He wants to do something already fleeing her, he wants to say something, but the only thing it is to mind: 'Goodnight.'

He hears her footsteps.

'Goodnight, Tirza,' he calls. 'goodnight. It was a nice party.'

He rubs on his head. He still shivering. If a sick.

'You have played so beautifully,' he whispers.

From the hallway calls on them gently: 'Sleep tasty, PAP.'

He hears her to run up and down stairs.

Ship's steward will still sit back as he was. Then he goes to the cello. He tries to lift up on the music stand.

The attempt failed.

The music stand is now on him, or better said: he is located under the music stand. Not able to stand, or even to move in this direction.

As he continues to lie, he has no idea how long. He realizes only after a time that he will go to the feet of his daughter looks. Tirza's feet. A few minutes, maybe longer.

They are exhausted its hands, she pulls him up. With difficulty. It certainly seems to reluctantly.

He loves her.

Whether it.

Because he is likely to fall.

Finally he is back on two legs, as a man. As a host, supported by his youngest daughter.

'You're so dirty, papa," she says. 'You're so horrible dirty.'

They coast him on his nose, his cheek, his forehead.

They are almost as large, father and daughter.

He lispelt a word, but she seems to him not to mean. Five or six times he must repeat for he sees that the to her by calls.

'Solar Queen,' he says. 'Solar Queen. Sun Queen.'

They do not let him loose, afraid if they seems to be that he will topple, that he will no longer be able to stand up, even with its aid.

And now lispelt ship's steward anything other than that one word. He has a question, he has finally found a question for the solar queen. No opinion, no cheesy joke, no practical application or they would like to let us know how she comes home, no, a real question.

'Solar Queen, why does everything so'n pain? Why does everything so very much pain?' he lispelt in her ear.

They say nothing. She shakes her head gently. The only answer she gives is that they are continuing to hold a ship's steward, in the living room, in addition to the cello and the cases music standard, while the light slowly.

They also can not. Release.

It is in the family.

Part Three — The Desert

1

On sunday evening in the third week of July will Tirza with her boyfriend from Frankfurt to Wind Angle fly. The ticket of Air Namibia is the cheapest that has been able to find them. First it was they plan per train to Frankfurt to travel, but a ship's steward has its convinced that the faster and more cozy as he taking her with the vehicle. And if they are still together a weekend in the cottage in the Betuwe, it is welcome. A weekend in the Betuwe, that is only a decent start of a trip around the world. And a nice farewell. Once all really together. Well, all, the wife does not of course. She is not invited, and IBI is long weather in France, in the inn with its dark man.

After what against sputtering Tirza has agreed. It had to ship's steward promise that he no Mohammed Atta Choukri would call. Also no Atta. With that promise she took pleasure. Anyone who goes on a trip around the world, gives his father a special surprise.

On Friday morning they leave from Amsterdam.

Ship's steward is already got up early. He wants, now it will be a weekend, performing work in the garden of the house that now over a decade acts as the home of the family ship's steward.

There are already months, he has not been the case. There are fruit trees which he in the spring due to a lack of time has not reduced. That he will now be able to do so. The grass must be mowed and here and there he will again sowing.

In the barn are looking for ship's steward the tool that he wants to carry, because it is not present in the Outdoor, or because it is actually there, but must be repaired. Or simply because of age is that it has become unusable. The parents of Jörgen ship's steward were collectors from miserliness. Discarded was fundamentally sin.

The weeding, the machine saw, a bag of seed and a spoon dragging his from the barn where he three weeks ago an evening with Ester spent, and brings them to the kitchen. An evening is too much said, a half hour, the more it will not been. Not with nostalgia or regret he thinks of Ester back, earlier with a light unease and at the same time a vague desire to its resistance to smell, which sharp fragrance of happiness.

Ester was no longer come to the change. That money could ship's steward doesn't really care about, but he wanted her to speak for Tirza's departure. He wanted to see her again themselves to declare, but is now better, more accurate, more convincing. Why he ever want to abolish the love and why that abolition for him now no longer had such a priority. But that he wanted to wish her every success with everything they abolish went. They would be saved. She was clever.

Presumably he wanted her again to give himself to convince Something, though he knew not exactly from.

Until he understood that they are not more, it would be no shopkeepers to bring back or get a bite to eat. Initially he explained himself to the inevitable. They had to do without any representations. Without a final call. He would remain in her life represented as a father who could not. A man who also no longer knew what control was, and strangely enough this is precisely that we fortunately had felt. At least felt alive. For the first time in a long time: really live.

He dared not to ask Tirza 'Say, how is it actually with those Ester without h?'

About the incident in the barn has been met with silence, over the whole party was omitted. One and a half day after it was as if it had never taken place.

But a few days after its decision to engage in the inevitable, entered in the evening he Tirza's room — she was at Atta on visit — and he searched in her stuff to the phone number of Ester. In a tray he found a list of pupils of the Vossius Gymnasium, Class 6a. Esters name sat there, with the address and phone number.

That same evening when the wife was in the bath, he phoned her from the kitchen. He was first a man on the line, probably the father. 'Met ship's steward,' he said, 'I find Ester.'

No questions were asked, no comments. He heard only: 'one time.', and a few seconds later he had Ester on the line. I really am not good point, he thought.

'Ester,' he said, 'met Jörgen ship's steward, the father of Tirza, perhaps you know who I am?'

'Yes.'

'Sorry I you interference, but i get some money from you.'

'exchange money?'

'of the taxi. I gave you a hundred euro. And you had to Amstelveen. That costs a hundred euros, not even with a taxi.'

He rubbed the worktop with his finger.

'O yes it was something of eur 40. So you will receive the 60 euro. I will talk about it?'

Also felt that he heard Tirza coming home, but it was the wind. They probably remained at Atta sleep. They always remained with him more often sleep.

'You can also give me in cash. That is why I actually prefer. Tomorrow we will drink coffee? Here in the near maybe. Opposite the old Municipal Museum is a nice cafe.'

Silence.

'Hello? Ester?'

'Yes, is good,' she said, 'morgenmiddag?'

'Four hours?'

The next day to five for four he was sitting in the cafe opposite the old urban, he was previously for from Schiphol. On the seat next to him lay his briefcase, he read the newspaper of the day before. Even old newspapers were bored him not.

To ten about four she arrived, also this time in jeans and a somewhat user axles blouse.

There was a chair next to free him. But she took place opposite him.

He had a different cafe you can find out, he now realized, further away from home, ach, it was innocent. It would remain innocent. A final and explanatory call, could more innocent?

As they were against each other — the girlfriend of his daughter which is not really a friend of his daughter was and ship's steward.

'it is still my grandfather.' She picked up the substance of her blouse and instep between its fingers.

'O. Wear your many clothes of your grandfather?'

'I wear does sometimes clothes of my father.'

They looked at him, cheeky, but not challenging. Hautain, but in a natural way, as if the hair is almost sorry that the world could not endorse its approval.

'How is it?'

'That?'

'Met you,' said ship's steward. Of course you ', Ester.'

'good'.

'What do you drink?'

'Doe but red wine.'

He ordered red wine for Ester, and although he had been determined to let the coffee, he also ordered for itself but a glass of wine. It was late in the afternoon, you might say. He folded the newspaper carefully. The war against terrorism lasted.

When they are both a sip of their wine taken had he felt, to his own amazement, quiet. Calm. And yet again a very small amount of live.

About the incident in the barn was not discussed, and that was perhaps but also better. About events there is little to say once they have occurred.

'How are your plans?' he asked. 'The love to abolish it, how is it?'

'I have holiday. I do not do anything. I have a lot of time. My agenda consists of white spots.' She took a large sip of wine, licked its lips and asked: 'And how is it with Tirza?'

He nodded. 'Good. Excellent. She is in her boyfriend. They will soon travel. To Africa.'

The call was otherwise than he had hoped, otherwise than he had imagined.

'Maybe you know,' he said, and he always went softer talk as if he was doing a secret any spoilers, 'that i ever have been also plan to abolish the love to declare, death. It was a project, a marketing had to be, a thick marketing with footnotes. Scientific. Substantiated. With evidence.'

'Yes?'

'In my vault still material, if you are there for you, if you want to have access to it.'

They slowly shook her head, again a tad hautain. 'No, sir ship's steward,' she said, 'I want no trading letter. I know just how it is, that is enough.'

They looked at people. The trams. A taxi.

To his own consternation he said: 'I am happy in your company.' He improved itself. 'I find your ideas refreshing, interesting.'

They again shook her head. 'I have no ideas. I know just how the sitting.'

From the breast pocket of her grandfather's shirt she 60 euro and placed on the table. 'The change,' she said.

'Yes'. It was… it is not important.'

'But I am." She looked at him light reproachfully.

'I wanted to explain to me, I am of course Tirza's father, I am almost exclusively Tirza's father, that is the main thing, but there are special Aachen, small, insignificant ancillary. I am also happy to someone in your company is in.'

He could say it better, but it could also be said pieces worse With this version was to settle them.

He did not now more of his own words. This good call a weird way him.

'I must continue,' she said. 'I think it is nice to many be alone. When I stand up I go first half an hour on the floor and then I myself.' Aad As in the barn evening streelde her own arms, concentrated and accurate. 'I hope not that I am sorry to disappoint you set.'

'We said not "you" against each other?'

'I do not disappoint you set.'

'not at all. What I said, I wished to say. That is all.'

They stood up.

'I have brought something for you. A trivial matter.' He opened his briefcase, took a small black pocket. "I have unfortunately only in German can be found. Was ist Art? It is called. It is a marketing of Tolstoy, you need the word "Art" just by replacing "love", it is actually his farewell.'

'I do not read German.'

'Maybe later'.

She took the booklet, he kissed once on the cheek and walked the café. He looked her after, how they are in the direction of the Concert Hall and meditated. The Shirt of her grandfather was its really too large, he saw only now.

Then he charged bought from delicatessen Pasteuning three bottles of Chilean wine and walked to the house.

'They Have your released?" asks the wife, lying on the bed while a ship's steward required for the journey.

'I have freely taken,' he says. 'They do nothing to give me.' He will take a few seconds of thinking to the director who had said that soon also lower educated men the road to the book would, they are not necessarily through the book trade. It surprised him that his office with views on a tree and a garden which also can be called courtyard, his colleagues, the routine, Monday production meeting, has never missed.

For mid July is the cold and rainy.

He draws a blue required that slightly worn but that he likes to wear.

Ship's steward goes to the kitchen and looks happy to the tool with which he is the garden of his parents will go to tackle. From the fridge he retrieves the food which he has taken to remedy Tirza still one last time before they go to the third world is a good meal for.

In the back of the Volvo loads everything in the ship's steward garden tool, breads, four different types of French cheese, old Gouda, steaks, lettuce, raspberries, cherries, apples, radishes and cucumbers. There is still enough space for Tirza's backpack and the backpack that will undoubtedly bring her boyfriend.

For as long as a ship's steward children, he drives in a Volvo. It is a vehicle that fits in his address he says. As he himself at that address, or perhaps he should say: paste.

Than he knocks on the door of Tirza's room. She is currently developing its backpack in which they specially for this trip has purchased.

Ship's steward had suggested that they have a solid boot of a good brand had to buy, but they laughed him out.

'I go to Africa, PAP,' she had said, 'not to the Cote d'Azur.'

Ship's steward loathes of youth hostels and backpackers. The lack of privacy that radiates backpacking gives him chills. It is no snobbishness. It is a deep, almost animal fear for the dormitory room and the bunk bed.

Time of his students, and especially of the few months he in a student house has lived, he can remember how other students him came after a night out 'Return'. With mattress and was already you than reversed. Then they walked a while over you as if it were a special form of Thai massage. Other students found that is not such a problem, it. He opposed, tooth and what it all made things worse.

'You're almost done?' he asks. He pushes without waiting for an answer the door open.

The room of Tirza is one big mess. Everywhere clothes, toiletries, a passport with its vaccinations, its iPod, her note book, underwear, a bathing cap, a diving goggles.

'I can not choose," she says, 'and there is so little in. It will be somewhere in Africa also be very cold, you think you are not, pap?'

'Fixed,' he says, 'somewhere in Africa is also very cold. Antarctica is not far away.'

'But a warm sweater takes place as much in.'

'I have you said that you had to buy no backpack.'

'still keep on," she says. 'You do not know how people go on a journey. When are you for the last really been traveling? Not a few days to the Buchmesse. Really travel.'

She reduces what from its backpack and crams a sweater in.

'Or is a coltrui better?' she asks.

'A coltrui prickles.'

He goes to the kitchen. The coffee which he has put a quarter of an hour ago gravity. Ship's steward pays for itself a head and calls on than to top: 'Tirza, would you also have coffee?'

There is no answer.

He has the feeling that Africa already in his kitchen begins, that Tirza is already there in the middle of Africa, and it is thus there is also a little, in Africa.

At the greengrocer had a slightly older lady who works there have for years been said: 'Your daughter takes on the world huh? My son is a year ago moved to Asia, but i get each week a long e-mail from him. So I know exactly where he is and what he is doing. So I enjoy with him.'

Ship's steward said 'yes' and after a pause: 'Yes, yes, of course.' Then did he kindly smiling. Join in the fun. The word has a half day chased.

Although they did not reply to his question, he pays for the security of a cup of coffee for Tirza in. They drink in the morning like Hofmeesters coffee. For them to school peddled had he always together with her in the kitchen. Or rather: he looked how it at. That was the essence of the fatherhood for him: encouraging the sidelines. And if there girlfriends were at a little struggle, you out of your best side. On that encouraging and watch it was faded and he could have life.

With his elbows leans ship's steward on the worktop. It is going to motregenen. Africa, he thinks. He hopes but that they the unholy plan to by public transport from the south to the north to abandon will reassure but is he not.

Tirza coming back down with the backpack and a small shoulder bag.

He looks at her luggage. The wise old man. The role that he so like to play. To assign and too old to somewhere to be too. But as he was already at its fifteenth.

'Dat you on a trip around the world," she says, 'does not mean that you need to be clumsy.'

'I say nothing,' says ship's steward. 'I look only.' He wonders how the will to someone terrible to miss. It is a question that he is already a few days. The wife he never missed, he has waited on her. The harder they him how he fiery's, on its waited, but really missed, no. His parents, he also never missed. He has never missed.

He gives his daughter its coffee. They drink quickly and simply.

'Would you have breakfast? I will make toast?'

She shakes her head.

'I do not take jewelry note, only these two rings. That surely? Do you not? And if I lose them or if they were stolen it is also not a disaster.' She shows her left hand.

The one ring he has given her when she was seventeen, the second ring has bought them yourself. Or perhaps they received from a friend, but she wanted to not tell. An older boyfriend with money.

The latter can not imagine a ship's steward, in view of its current choice. Tirza loves men without money. The poverty withdraws its. They fable books about the poverty in Africa, the nature is for her on the second place. Malaria find them more important than a decent sunset. The misfortunes of others gives her a purpose of life.

Ship's steward tail to the rain. 'You're right,' he says, 'no disaster. If they were stolen. Absolutely no disaster. What are rings well at all?'

He had offered Tirza's boyfriend to retrieve, but they had said: 'No, he is here. That is easier.'

About a quarter of an hour, perhaps even less, he will no longer be only with his youngest daughter. About a quarter of an hour begins the rest of his life, the epilogue. The epilogue of an insignificant life because it was insignificant, doubt he is now no longer, in so far as he that in the last few decades has still did. A man who is in the barn on the final exam feast of his daughter a of her classmates is first and foremost insignificant. Unnecessary and supernumerary, without anyone can give the debt. Somewhere in his life must be the fracture have scarcely of promising to insignificant, but he may not break out. The fracture has witnessed unnoticed.

She puts one hand on his shoulder. Together they looking at the garden in which he Africa sees, what he does not even feel uncomfortable. He thinks it is at most strange that he has not previously noticed that Africa in its garden begins.

'We are going about a quarter of an hour away,' he says. 'He is punctual, which…'

Would he say Mohammed Atta. He gulps in.

'Yes, papa," she says, 'very pünktlich, for a Moroccan extremely pünktlich.'

They rent to top, like they forget something. Ship's steward serves a cup of coffee.

In a small leather bag has he what underwear, socks, two shirts and trousers that attracts he if he works in the garden stopped.

He is nervous as if he, himself, on a trip around the world.

For the umpteenth time that morning it counts the money in his wallet, the flight schedule of his daughter by, and consider a list of activities which it intends to carry out in the garden that has ever been of his parents.

If he is ready, the wife in the kitchen. She has her dressing gown. A new. She buys a lot. Still. They cross the arm out.

'goose bumps," she says, 'you see? So cold i. The heater can not?'

He becomes unemployed its arm idea, embodied his wallet again than

'When you are back?' she asks.

'Sunday night. I drive in one flick through from Frankfurt. Their aircraft to eight hours in the evening, so I will be at 7 p.m. the children have waved goodbye.'

'To seven hours you will they have waved away," she says. 'How long does that uitzwaaien gone completely? And then we are under each other, Jörgen. We have to face up to the two of them have to rescue.'

'What do you mean?'

'As I say, than we are. Than we are again à deux. As in the past.'

'As in the past? À deux?'

He runs to the corridor. Tirza comes down the stairs, retrieves its luggage from the kitchen and tighten who already outside.

'Your boyfriend is not there yet,' he says. 'Why should you today outside? On the street, in the rain?'

'I am not in the rain.'

He picks up Tirza's backpack and bring them to the Volvo. 'Jesus, what heavy,' he calls. 'What have you been stopped? A funeral?'

He opens the tailgate, and after he the backpack as good as possible in the boot has eliminated, he remains a bending. As if he were a little to the amicable settlement is, the saw that are not well located, a plastic bag with the seed for grass. But he does not want his daughter sees how he goes down. That is what he is doing, if a machine: failed.

After he has restored he runs back to the kitchen and now also brings its own leather case to the vehicle. An old, worn bag that still of his father.

The wife is to the outside world.

Than they were three in the porch. If a unit as a — there is no other word for it — family. The family is just one more time in the porch.

I get the cold,' says the wife. 'It is not summer. Is this summer? I would like to mention the winter.'

And Tirza replies: 'Go but to top, I am now saying goodbye to you.' She coast her mother once on each cheek.

It is a step back as if they were its still as good wants to watch, the woman from whom they eighteen years ago is playing it. The woman who hated them for many years.

'Write down something,' says the mother, 'or call. Collect call may also. You will find that father laid no problem.'

She goes back to the house and ship's steward looks at her after. Not very elegant is, in spite of its age. By all the expiration back does she always think of the woman who they long, has been a long time ago: the woman who does not wrongly thought that the world was at its feet. Its got to know when a ship's steward, instructed the world on its hands. And now? The hands were tired of wearing. As somewhat abrasive is that world.

Now they are together in the porch, father and daughter. The father more nervous than the daughter, playing with the car keys, friemelend to its required, searching in his trouser pockets. He picks up between the hand of his daughter and squeeze.

'Can you not call him?' he asks.

'He does so.'

So they remain there, two minutes, three minutes, ten minutes. Silently. The man who is to be filled, the daughter of a trip around the world.

Until they called upon: 'You have him!' She looks to the right, the side of the Jacob Obrechtstraat, and ship's steward looks with her.

He sees a man in a tracksuit by the rain, a sports bag casually on his shoulder. Mohammed Atta, he thinks. There you have it. He is back. He is there. That they do not see it.

Tirza rent him meet. Ship's steward remains in the porch and looks at how it discloses. He follows her movements, he is studying the basis of Atta that on the back of his daughter remains lie. He'll wince.

Then walk them together in the direction of a ship's steward, just next to each other.

Atta indicates the father a hand.

'I have you not to wait too long?' he asks.

'A QUARTER,' says ship's steward. 'More not.'

He opens the tailgate of his car and crams the sports bag of Atta in addition to the scoop.

'You have not much to you for someone a long journey. Not even a backpack.'

'What I miss i can always buy, and drying clothes fast in Africa,' explains Atta like he is perfectly aware continent.

'That's where.' ship's steward nods. 'In Africa dries quickly everything.' He remembers vakantiewasjes in Italy. He remembers the holidays when they were a family, a family that was more or less intact. More or less.

Ship's steward crawls back the steering, he put the windscreen wipers. Tirza does alongside him. Atta remains only on the rear bench seat.

The call is cumbersome. To Utrecht they have but two sentences changed. Tirza has set up its iPod. Atta doze off intermittently, ship's steward in his mirror.

The last piece is the better. There is developing a civilized debate on the pros and cons of development aid.

Install After Arrival Tirza is in the room that has already been used as guest room at the time was Hofmeesters parents still lived. Atta runs through the garden and smells like a flower to sporadically. After a quarter of an hour he is sitting in the living room. For the fireplace he plays a game of Scrabble with Tirza.

Mohammed Atta scrabbelt. Interesting. Who would have thought?

Ship's steward itself works in the garden. He must be the tension of the drive to see the voltage of what feels like an unnecessary and dishonorable rest: the last part of his life.

Occasionally he raises a look in through the window and sees his daughter and her friend embroiled in a party game. It allows him not reassured.

Now his children are out of the house, he must learn to die. But he does not know where or to whom he les can take.

Half an hour or two he goes to within and asks: "Have you hungry?'

'hunger is not really,' says Tirza, 'but cold we have it.'

'I will create the fireplace,' says ship's steward. 'I actually had hoped that we were able to dine in the garden tonight. It is more winter food.'

With some effort he receives the fireplace. The bending, causing him to pain in the back. Pain is probably exaggerated, he is aware of his back. A consciousness that he knew not earlier.

If the fire is lit at last, he has good must revive and pokers, he remains a few minutes with the gear lever in his hand. It is nice. He forgets his surroundings. He is a man who, while he is busy trying to enter the, to fire watch and that fire calls memories with him at the time, vague and onsen tele memories of his parents, his youth, his study time.

Only when he his daughter pap hear it said, if him in extricating themselves from his mind.

'Papa," she says, 'I'm a sandwich, I will also make a for you?'

'I do,' he answers. 'Keep you but sit.'

He is the shift lever in the standard, wipe off his hands on the old trousers that he used for in the garden and looks for a few seconds for the word that his daughter is to impose on the board.

'To me only with cheese dates,' says Atta.

'O, do you also want a sandwich?'

'Please, but only with cheese.'

'That's no problem,' says ship's steward while he looks to the game. They may well, Tirza, scrabbelen. 'We are eating the sandwiches with cheese and tomato in our family, we are not fond of ham, we do not hold of sticky meat.'

In a frying pan toasts he three sandwiches with cheese and tomato. The parents of a ship's steward have never purchased a toaster.

At the table in the living room to eat his sandwich on, while Tirza and Atta continue with scrabbelen. With a paper towel wipe it every three seconds off his mouth, afraid if he is that there crumbs sticking to his lips.

"Do you like to peelt scrabble?' requires Atta.

'No,' replies, 'I can ship's steward not good.'

'But pap, you have very often in the past with me gescrabbeld.'

His daughter looks at him surprised. As if he is lying.

'I think it will be a disaster to do, but i found it more fun for example if we played risk, or monopoly or farmers bridge.'

'we will play monopoly tonight, Mr ship's steward?', Atta for.

Ship's steward looks at him, the man who is making, even flowers smells to the father of his girlfriend to vote favorably. But for a ship's steward will not need it. He would like to say to him: 'Doe you best not. It helps not.'

'Well,' he says, 'if I can find the game, we play after dinner tonight monopoly.'

Then he goes into the garden and he concentrates on his work, in order not to have to think.

For an hour or five, while he is dead branches of an apple tree to saw, Atta toward him.

Ship's steward put the saw off. He climbs of his ladder.

"I wanted to ask you what,' says Atta.

'Go Ahead.'

'You don't that i with your daughter on one room sleep?'

Now the father laughing, for the first time he really must laugh this man.

He moves the cutting of his left to his right hand.

'What are you going to do in Africa?' he asks. 'on two different bunk beds are? Two different youth hostels Book? Where do you see me to?'

'Not. Of course not. But here in your home is something different. Maybe.'

This house is just so much of me as Tirza. If it has no objections to it with you on one room to sleep, I think it is excellent.'

Atta looks at the apple tree.

'You do it well,' he says. 'I mean how you the branches saws.'

My parents had a tool shop.' ship's steward can still not say without a light feeling of embarrassment. A tool shop. But it declares a hope. He saw juggling.

'Yes, Tirza told something. Anyway, I just wanted to have asked, my parents are also…'

'Yes? What are they?'

Ship's steward tail to him. Tirza's boyfriend. The man that he not only too old for his daughter, but simply uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in his politeness, uncomfortable in his presence, uncomfortable at first sight.

'You will not find a man good enough for Tirza,' the wife had said. But that is not the case. It is intuition.

My parents are also very conservative.'

'I am not conservative,' says ship's steward, 'I am realistic and practical. Are they religious?'

'My parents? Yes, also that.'

'That,' reiterates ship's steward.

The young man stays procrastinating, while a ship's steward back to top klimt and continuing with saw. If Atta there after three to five minutes state, he comes for the second time down and asks: 'Would you also agree to try?'

'What?'

'Branches refraining. Pruning. In the garden work.'

Atta laughs. "I have never done before.'

'Have you parents are not Garden?'

'They have a balcony.'

Ship's steward wipe with the back of his hand over his mouth, his chin, his cheeks. 'O, but a public house with balcony can also quite nice. Well, if you want to try it?'

Atta hesitates.

'You are going to Africa? You are going to the jungle? A fruit tree in the Betuwe is no obstacle. Beginning but with these small branch.'

Ship's steward pointing upward, to a branch which he can just as well. Not what you would call a dead branch.

Atta hesitates, he saw to the machine.

The weight is not him. So much is clear. But anyone who is such a thing for the first time in your hands, must get used to the weight. With tool that you, like with a man, slowly to be intimate. The better you know the, the more it does what you want.

Ship's steward shows how the saw on. How to get it off. The emergency button. How you must hold him.

'It is a Stihl MS 170,' says ship's steward, 'in its kind the best available.'

The young man climbs the ladder. If he is above, he calls: 'Is this a good idea, Mr ship's steward?'

'It is an excellent idea. If you get the hang of it, have you got your whole life fun of. The MS 170 is very safe.'

Tirza's father stresses once again the branch on which must be cut off. 'You need not be afraid,' he calls. 'You need just your wits.'

Safe, that they had told him, in the shop where they were selling the saw him. Safer than an electric with a cord, easier to use.

The friend of Tirza condition on the ladder and he saws. Soon the branch on the grass. It is a little one.

Atta climbs to below. He is found.

'Was you afraid?' requires a ship's steward hopeful. 'did you think of the death-eng?'

'a little,' says the man who now more on a boy seems than ever. A friendly boy, all with al. If you do not know better. "I believe that I simply not so nice am. And also tired.'

'It is a question of exercise.' ship's steward takes his cutting back on. Satisfied he looks at the tree. His life is in the epilogue, but he knows how a fruit tree has to deal with. He knows how he must face with a garden. That nobody can deny him.

'My parents,' says ship's steward, 'loved fruit trees. They kept more of the trees than of each other.'

'And they had a tool shop?'

'Yes, as approximately,' he says, curt now. 'De shopping was of my father. My mother sang in a choir.' I regret that he has extended the call unnecessarily. What are the boy his parents? He bending is to what weeds under the tree road to reap the benefits. The last thing he needs is that this man is approached. No proximity. Everything except that.

'And they wanted to not that you would take over the shop?'

'They wanted that i went to study abroad,' says ship's steward with the weed in his hand. 'they found important. That their only son would go study. Therefore they worked. And I studied héb.'

'Yes, yes,' says Atta. 'I know. German and criminology, yet?'

'I have never killed criminology. By circumstances. I was offered a job as an editor at a very reputable publishing. I could not refuse the offer. It was in line with expectations that i would be publisher.'

He runs to the dustbin and throws it.

When he comes back, Atta still at the apple tree.

'Is this really the time to saw?" asks the young man.

'Not,' says ship's steward, 'but I am now, therefore i saw. I must take the opportunity. I saw when I am there. Where is Tirza?'

'Die sleeps. She was also tired.'

Atta runs back inside, but just before the House he turns once. 'Meneer ship's steward, can I will help you in the kitchen? With Dinner?'

Ship's steward shakes his head. 'Date i do all itself. The most has already been done. The only thing you need to do is to eat. You are my guest. Remember.'

He remains a look at how the young man to walk in. Through the curtains he sees how Atta in the living room with its open fireplace. The bright euphoria that ship's steward just felt is again disappeared. He has not won, he has lost. And win is the only thing that counts. Everything not win is an excuse, a skillfully disguised as an excuse, but an excuse. Ach, almost everything high is famous in the world, art, politics, is an alibi for losers.

Ship's steward has the dining table for the open fireplace and three steaks baked — for him and Tirza red, for Atta well by baking — which he serves with bread, lettuce and fresh fruit.

The fire crackles, ship's steward opens its second bottle of red Bordeaux from that day. 'What do your parents actually,' he asks to Atta, 'dat you with my daughter to Africa?'

'You mean that I go to Africa, or that i with Tirza go?'

'Both.' ship's steward cuts a piece of bread and dab it carefully in the gravy on his plate is a lie. In fact this may not, but in such a different rules apply outside the home.

'I have not much more contact with my parents. I see very little.'

Ship's steward chews on the bread. It tastes like him.

'Choukri has broken with his parents,' says Tirza and they squeeze her boyfriend in his shoulder.

Broken, the word calls him, but would Ibi has not broken with her parents, who has just pulled back. That is easier than break.

'And why I ask you?'

'They had other ideas,' says the boy. 'Other ideas than i.'

'Other ideas?' ship's steward has its bread. It cuts a piece, offers the Atta but which refuses to polite.

'Other ideas?' reiterates ship's steward.

'Other ideas. As that. Other thoughts. About the life. You will also have other thoughts have than Tirza. About the life. About what is good. About how one should live. About what you need to do a good man.'

Ship's steward looks his daughter. What will they have told that Atta? About him, the wife, the lessees that he has worn, such as the wife lovers.

'I have no ideas,' he says. 'I look like a man with ideas?'

Atta vist with his fingers a last leaf lettuce of his board. 'Well, ideas, I mean that you might be a representation of the life of your daughter. What it would need to see. Later'.

'a representation? Later? If I am dead? I look like someone who knows how you should live?'

Atta laughs nervous.

Ship's steward feels that he is the boy in the close to float. It drives people would like in the closely. Because he fears for them. Because he is not a council with them know. Also his children has he previously in dire straits. Agreed Minute, only minutes, they should be strong. Their vocabulary to extend their the art of argumentation. For it is language is first and foremost a tool to get people to encircle them in the close to float, their to deprive the last resort. The language, one large attempted humiliation. Perhaps he is therefore also going to mention. Out of respect. By way of a refund. The silence is its white flag.

'Dus you think that I have made a representation of the life of my daughter?' ship's steward purports a gentle smile. 'I know what to do to get a good man?'

'I mean… what I wanted to say is that all parents have expectations. Sometimes a little too much. Perhaps sometimes also wrong expectations.'

Tirza has already said nothing time. They still on its beef chews.

'Wrong expectations? How do you know whether expectations are wrong?'

Atta shrugs. 'Well,' he says.

That is why a ship's steward itself but further. 'I have had expectations. I have drawn them back. As your soldiers to withdraw them, because I have time for claiming that expectations were not as good for Tirza. Also a father learns. I have no expectations, not of Tirza, not on its behalf. I do not expect anything.'

'I want some bread.' The voice of Atta sounds now even reroute arising.

Ship's steward cuts the. 'You're a good eater,' he says, and Atta begins at the bread to chew without the dipping in the gravy.

'And now?' requires Atta.

'And now? Now part i Tirza's expectations. In so far as they have. I have perhaps occasionally a View. Often not even. Why should I? I trust in its opinion. How to get a good man should be, I know it is not. I doubt whether even must aspire to. Is it not more important to remain a live human rights than a good man be? And you? What are your expectations of Tirza actually? Except on the sexual plane?'

'Papa,' says Tirza, 'we will skip that tonight and simply play Monopoly?'

The father serves everyone still has a glass of wine. 'It is a rather important subject,' he says, 'especially if you go to the magical center of the Aids epidemic.'

Previously talked often ship's steward sex life of man. How less sex he had, the more he talked about it. Not on the vulgar manner that most men own. On the information campaign, almost scientific way. He Ploos van the sex life of the man. Especially if Tirza's girlfriends remained a snack food, note he forged to thrash this out.

'I do not know what i expected Tirza,' says Atta soft. 'If you of someone, you expect something of those?'

'Are you ready with food?' requires a ship's steward.

Tirza nods.

He stacks the signs on each other and portrait he says: 'us you love Tirza?'

The sarcasm in his voice can not escape anyone. Here it is again, the man who love went, abolish the man who knew that he is going to pass.

Atta nods and ship's steward must think Ester feast at which he had welcomed, where he had lived go, even more than Tirza itself.

'that is nice that you love her. That is very good.'

'Papa,' says Tirza.

He also discusses silently.

At the rear of the cabinet is he Monopoly game.

It counts the money, gives everyone a pawn.

They focus on the game. The conversation is limited to the bones machines.

Only when a ship's steward is trying to win and Atta a mortgage should take on its streets, ship's steward: 'Have you actually read the Koran?'

The dice throws Atta. 'The most,' he says. 'also out of curiosity.'

He has two fours thrown.

'Curiosity?' across the board and bends the father to the boy.

'interest'.

Ship's steward looks at the hands of the boy, with which he holds a blue icon.

'8,' says ship's steward, "You have eight thrown. You come on my hotel.'

There have been previous he played monopoly as he the rent inde, ashamed and yet eager, at the end always bloodthirsty. As if he were then suddenly be reminded that everything that could be called a win was an excuse.

'I have him at me.'

'O YES?'

'Tirza was curious.'

'What?' requires a ship's steward. He knows it is no longer what it was all about. His answers are automatically, his thoughts are elsewhere.

'To the Koran.'

'Oh yes. I am also curious,' says the father. 'Forever. Not only to the Koran. To all of the man. For the other. The other has always fascinated me. Because the other determines who i am.'

The boy shakes his head. 'I determine who i am,' says Atta. 'I am Choukri. I like to play guitar. I love your daughter. That is who i am. It has nothing to do with other.'

They still play a minute or twenty further. The voltage is off. Who is going to win is now clear.

Tirza and her friend as first to top.

Ship's steward remains the same down to the fire in the fireplace to go out and the last glass and dishes to the kitchen. Slow chestairbag his game on, as though the movements hurt him. He let it on the table. Perhaps they can do a game tomorrow, it is a way to meet in the evening.

In the bedroom where his parents have slept well he opens the wardrobe, which is still a few suits of his father. A forgotten shirt.

Also it smell to the bale before he goes on the bed. Now he knows he is nothing sure, a black hole that also pent if the others look at him. As a presenter who has exercised too long only come to life when the red light on the camera starts to burn.

He will fall asleep, is to half three awake at night, he dresses civilised from, it lifts located in an old pajamas and sleep is again.

The next morning it is still rainy and gray. In his pajamas cooks ship's steward three eggs, but because Tirza and her friend lie in and he does not want to give them, eat it the eggs detached in the kitchen yourself.

Before he starts in the garden with the cutting of the grass, but if at eleven Tirza and her boyfriend still sleep, the insult both to him. He knocks at the door of the guest room. 'Tirza,' he calls. 'Solar Queen.'

He opens the door carefully.

His daughter still asleep. The blanket is only half on her. She is in so far as he can see completely naked. On the other side of the bed is Atta. Also completely naked.

Ship's steward remains in the door opening are watching his daughter. Tomorrow they fly to Africa. More than twenty-four hours he is on the airport of Frankfurt.

'Tirza,' he says, 'it is already eleven hours.'

Its only response is that they turn around. On the bedside table is the iPod, which they so happy, a black booklet, which they make notes about her life and in which they sometimes things such as jamming cinema tickets and train tickets, a single time also the account of a restaurant, a recipe for honey cake, but the label of a wine bottle.

He goes out of the room and close the door. Soft In the kitchen washes his hands. Then he in his Volvo. He puts his head on the steering wheel and if someone would have seen him, would certainly those have thought that ship's steward slept. After five minutes to have sat, start he the car and drive to the village. Although he has purchased already in Amsterdam, does he groceries. In the pastry shop he is recognized. We want a conversation about his parents start, but a ship's steward keeps the. Then he drinks still quick two glasses of white wine in the cafe for it to the outside house travels back.

Tirza and her friend are now awake. They sit down at the dining table. Tirza has a long T-shirt, nothing else. Atta wearing a jeans and a shirt that ship's steward can only be described as old.

He offers to eggs to cook for them or baking, but they want only fruit and a tea and coffee.

'Except what I have taken from Amsterdam,' he says, 'there are still grapes which i just bought in the village.'

He washes the grapes and brings them to a scale the living room.

Without that they say anything against takes a seat and sits down. Occasionally also eat he thought a grape. The pips He gulps.

If the bunch is eaten almost empty, he says: 'Let see him.'

'What?' requires Atta.

Not without satisfaction in the bubbler ship's steward notes the voice of the boy. The inconvenience. It is the inconvenience that the other human.

'You Koran,' says ship's steward, 'Let see him. You have him with you?'

'Top in my bag.'

Ship's steward shall examine the tros on a cool grape. 'I have my children agnostic raised, but I have read them or from the bible, like Tolstoy, and also from Turgenev. Do you know that beautiful meaning on the last page of Anna Karenina? "I will with my sense cannot understand why I pray and i will nevertheless continue to pray." You know what I am talking about?'

'I know Anna Karenina not.'

'Dat does not surprise me,' says ship's steward. 'Get him but also. Your koran.'

The Guy goes to the top.

Since they are sitting at the table. Father and daughter. 'You do a little hostile,' says they are soft.

'I? I keep the call is in progress. I show interest. I do my best.'

She shakes her head.

'Pap, do you think that you ever have a girlfriend, a real? I mean: do you think that you ever really good falls in love?'

He thinks of the wife, and to the worker from Ghana with whom he some time on a modest scale has had sexual relations. Nobody knows that further. Such things depends we are large clock. But the worker is him all those years girlfriend enough. In Love he was not on her. In Love. It is really something for Tirza to him to demand that he falls in love. As if it had all not difficult enough, it must also be in love. To whom? And furthermore: he has its yet? He has the solar queen. A real father, one that deserves that word is in love with his children. Life-long. To death. And even then.

'Must i a contact ad?' he asks. 'Is that what you say?'

'I do not know. I think that you know someone must search. That is surely mom continue. You just love again be, as I.'

Atta is downstairs. He has a green paper in his hands. What a ship's steward still wanted to say but He gulps.

'De bilingual edition,' says Atta. 'Special purchased for Tirza. In fact I am also agnostic.'

Browse the father also in, reads a piece. 'Nice,' he says, 'quite nice. But it is not a Tolstoy.'

And in an attempt to be less hostile he asks: "What can I do for you?'

'nothing' says Tirza. 'You can also nothing at all for us.'

He picks up his shoulders, then goes to the garden, starts again in its work. In any case it is dry. He picks up what browsing, pick weeds, retrieves the cutting out a few branches to pruning which he has seen over the head. The time goes quickly if you concentrated in the garden are at work.

Occasionally he thinks of the epilogue that his life is, to the worker from Ghana, which is naturally not as a friend can apply. A friend is someone with whom you have more than just what physical handling on a fixed date. But still.

It was gradually, unexpected and to everyone's satisfaction. On a day she was not only Hofmeesters lady, but also his mistress. It goes without saying that he had from that day also paid a little more. The woman from Ghana did not only Hofmeesters home clean, they also liked his body in order, they regul characterised the juices.

In addition he had her brought in contact with a lawyer who he knew from his students. The lawyer could mean anything from its. She was illegal, as all women in Ghana, but they made good clean. Ship's steward realized that there is a correlation between her willingness and its not completely legal status, but that didn't bother him not further. It is the illegality which people willing. Maybe it was he himself also called illegally, without knowing it. A certain willingness could not be denied him.

At sixes it starts to rain. He brings all the tool to the kitchen. He must tomorrow packing and travel. First to Frankfurt, then back to Amsterdam. This is also something that the garden maintenance. The grass, trees, shrubs.

He opens a bottle of wine and drinks a glass. 'Tirza,' he calls.

Ship's steward drinking his second glass. 'Tirza,' he calls again, 'Where are you?'

He runs to the living room. His daughter is now on the table.

A FRACTION OF A SECOND he needed to the scene. They have heard him nor given.

In the door opening tail to the animal, to the terrible, to the incomprehensible. The Koran is still on the table, and a bowl with the remnants of a bunch of grapes. The Monopoly game. He knows that he should go away, but he can not beveled, it seems as if he is highway hypnosis. He also understands why they cannot see him or hear, why are they not that there someone else in the room. It takes him effort in his daughter is still to see his daughter now with them as is, used, open is being torn. They Keep murmurs something.

He must hold. He is queasy as if he ate something wrong, a damaged oyster, a acute food poisoning. He is dizzy, he does a step backwards, is fixed to the gear lever next to the fireplace in its standard depends. Jörgen ship's steward pants as a cold dog.

The room is running him for the eyes, but they do not hear him. They do not see him. They go on to their game. So hot it yet? Love game.

Eventually he sneaks back to the kitchen, where he three glasses of wine and his face and hands.

Then he walks to the garden and despite the rain he begins to weed out the earth. Especially among the trees and along the edges of the lawn is a lot. He works as a madman, as though he were twenty. Without a pause to award contracts without wiping his hands. So he worked when his parents still lived, when he was still living at home, he worked as a dog, because his parents had taught him: only work makes happy. After a half hour he is wet of the rain and the sweat, everywhere is earth. Even in its ears.

He is the kitchen within, wipe off his hands on a tea towel, which black immediately. It does not matter.

Now he will hear them anymore. The game is delayed. Can it be called sex game? Is that not a mistake, begins where the not correct sex game ceases? Yes, that's it. In the event of sex keeps the on, there begin something else. The fact that what is no game more can be called. The death. There is sand in his ears.

'Tirza,' he calls. 'Tirza.'

He is going to the living room.

The iPod is on the table, the Koran, a dice yesterday evening that he has to appear to have forgotten mountains. The Monopoly game. He picks up the book, scroll back in. He shall submit the dundruk, which all the holy texts own but also some older parts of the Russian Library, back on the table.

Let his shoes large, muddy spots. He must pull them. But he does not work. From his hair dripping water. His shirt sticks to his back.

'Tirza,' he calls again.

He is going up the stairs, but halfway he remains. In the bathroom he hears the shower running, but it can also be the sound of the rain. They will have to take a shower. After the love game showering. The wife will always immediately jumped in the shower after he had practiced her love as if a ship's steward a kind of mud bath was. Tirza is even nicer than the wife in its early years.

He drops the stairs. In his hand he holds the die of the Monopoly game. That touch you always lost. Especially the earlier Ibi still was playing. Who could not do against hair loss. If they were lost them with the dice, and months later they did you than under the heater against.

In the kitchen he opens a new bottle of wine. This does he tastier. Italian gewürztraminer. He drinks two glasses of wine, makes his shoes clean. He drinks detached and think also, although he did not understand why, Ester which love wants to abolish.

Ship's steward decision to go and get food, he has no meaning to cook this last evening. He wants to be with her, with Tirza, only with her, enjoy the time that they were together. Still he will hear the sound of the shower, they do not stop with shower and they want to be hot. That you get from that fuck on the dining table.

'No,' says ship's steward soft against himself, 'it is the shower not, it is the rain. They are doing an afternoon siesta.'

He washes himself in the kitchen, his face, his hands, he feels so dirty. Top clothe he still quickly. He pulls a shirt of his father.

With a plastic bag over his head to the car he runs. Soon he drives to the village. It travels by ponds. The water splash high.

Although it is in this time of the year until ten hours dark, he drives with large light. The roads are deserted. In some he sees opblaasbadjes gardens. It has on something else.

The woman behind the counter at the Indonesiër recognize him.

'You are Mr ship's steward?' she asks. 'I know you have been in the past.'

He nods.

'What do you out.'

'I have worked in the garden.'

'In this emergency again?'

He ignores its note.

'I have for three people eat necessary, make it something tasty from, a little of this and a little of that and what additional Prawn Chips. My daughter loves Prawn Chips. And they will be back tomorrow to Africa. Namibia, Botswana, Zaire, they want to see everything.'

'Oh, Africa.' itself must to see they not think, and rightly so. There are so many beautiful things to see in their own country. If you have an eye for the small. The ants, the beach tents, the roads. The houses. The Birds, the dunes.

'I make it a small rice table of. Always Nice.'

'They are but a few months away. Next year she comes back to study.'

After a quarter of an hour he received two plastic bags containing hot food for three persons and extra Prawn Chips.

It travels to house, with the radio on. An artist he can not bring home sings in Dutch.

The rice, the meat and fish anytime he was on the table from. Really festive are not containers plastic, but to compensate for that he plugs candles. There is also in the lower plastic cutlery, that he decides to use but now he has suffered greatly from it.

'Tirza,' he calls, 'food'.

He brings the bottle of wine to the dining table and opens a new one.

They are still above, they are being so. They are back in bed, he knows he reminds of the past. Sex, excellent. But why then remain so long? Or even worse: fall asleep. If you are already in the middle of the day have sex, then move than do something, roll up your sleeves. Ibi was at least as very. How often he had not at the end of the afternoon her room door open and see her sleep with a guy in her arms? Sexes and sleep, and if he said some of it replied: 'You're crazy.'

But he was not mad he was concerned. Ship's steward knew the future as an all too frequently visited camping.

On the table Tirza's iPod. Idea free starts to play with a ship's steward Just as he does so without thought the caps in his ears. He is listening to music he can not home. It on and starts to dance.

As dance Tirza sometimes also with him in the kitchen or in the living room. The silent disco calls them the.

Normal dance ship's steward not, but now he is not afraid to be seen. He loses itself.

The rain is not delayed. The grass that he has sown again yesterday has been changed in a mud hole. He shall submit the iPod back on the table and runs to the garden. Sin, he thinks. Everything is washed away, all the seed. Road. Disappeared.

He puts a hand in the earth. They must learn to die. He is also in the process of doing just that. Ship's steward is a self-taught in the die.

And while he is, she crouched in his garden, he tries to imagine what will tomorrow. The last day, the day of Tirza's departure. The last day for the epilogue of his life begins.

He will get up early, as always. He will start the day with the making of a nice breakfast for three persons. He himself will the detached in the kitchen food, much hunger will he does not have. On these days he never hunger.

The breakfast for his daughter and her friend he will bring their in bed. They will sit upright in their bed, without saying anything. If they find it strange and uncomfortable outside, such a last day in the old Europe. Such a last day with a ship's steward, and his hand will tackle Tirza, for he is turned over to back down to continue. 'You need to think about love, PAP,' she will a whisper. 'Really good in love, just as I.'

At eleven they will start. To err on the side. Perhaps there are files, wegopbrekingen. You do not know. And you want to have to worry in the car, you would not of the nerves and the voltage at the airport arrival. Far too early they will arrive in Frankfurt.

They will have a cup of coffee in the Departures Hall, hastily, without too much to say. He will sweaty hands.

At check-in, he will leave them alone, the set that is not set, but a mistake. He will continue to wait at the sign which says 'meeting point'.

For them by the customs, will they once come back to him. Shy.

As far as he had to say, but if the moment he will be nothing else than to know: 'Beware. Only well on each other. Carefully do.'

Atta will cause him to hand.

It will ship's steward Tirza against itself and pressing.

Atta will polite a few steps backwards.

Ship's steward will fight against the tears, he will win the of the tears, he has always won by the tears.

'Does your mobile phone out there doing?' he will still have questions.

'Papa,' she will say, 'die do i really not that is much too expensive. If he already doing.'

He will squeeze in her arms. He will squeeze and pinch, he will despair squeezing out of her as the last remnants of toothpaste out of the tube.

'call me if you arrived. No matter how late. Call me. Collect call,' he will say.

They will release him. 'We need to the gate,' she will say.

'You have all the time.'

'It is still a final walk,' she will say.

He will tag along to the customs.

There will be a long line.

If the policeman will have its passport viewed, it will again have to turn around to her father to say goodbye. And he will continue to hold sway wave back and even if he is unable to see them, swinging and wave and even more enthusiastic. He has seen on countless occasions at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. He knows how to do it.

If it is almost completely dark, he understands that Tirza and her boyfriend in a deep sleep. He runs to the hallway and calls yet again to the top, but they do not respond. He will be the rice table should only be eaten. So rude is Mohammed Atta: everything to recline, use all, but nothing to contribute to the Community. Never social. Ship's steward reminds of Ibi and her friend. That appeared in the last no longer for dinner. That is the influence of the color handling. Anti-social behavior.

For he begins to eat he still pays a glass of wine. He is going to sit around the table and tail to the garden which has been of his parents, the garden where Ibi and Tirza have played and he is experiencing once again the day which will come. Because, prepared and well, he can better fight against the tears, the tears which he himself does not permit which are superfluous. Disgusting.

For two hours at night he state. He could not sleep. Careful nobody to wake, he sneaks down the stairs. Ship's steward opens a bottle of wine, Italian gewürztraminer, and drink a glass of hastily, as if someone could catch him.

He is afraid that he loses his understanding, he must do something to calm down. In his underpants off he goes into the garden. It is stopped raining. The fluorescent tube in the kitchen gives him enough light. And he starts the garden on order. Everything he makes on the side. The grass, the flowers, the bushes. He distributes the earth, he sows again in the grass. Yes, this is it. He works so hard that despite his scarce clothing does not feel the cold.

After an hour he is the kitchen within and still open a bottle of wine, although the previous still for three quarters full. He must not be afraid, Tirza will come back from Africa. The Tirzaloze episode will a short episode. He will survive that episode.

It is already light if he stops working in the garden, if he clean the tool and in the kitchen on the ground to dry.

Conceived as he is he still makes the overflow and the living room clean as if there were any time to come visit high. He is also in the browse Koran. A wonderful book for wonderful people.

Then he lying in bed. She wants that i love word, he thinks, they want that i love a good word, but I am already well in love, I already exists.

He sees a chance to sleep over two hours.

That Sunday everything is exactly as he thought. For once the future it proposes not to disappoint. He is there on Frankfurt Flughafen wielding, exactly as it is the day before has proposed.

As a ship's steward has proposed it remains swinging, initially only with his right hand, than with both hands. It stretches from, so that Tirza his hands is still to be seen, above all those other swinging hands.

Until it the evocative feels that he is just like Schiphol is to no one to say goodbye.

Slowly, almost wandering, he runs to the parking garage. He must also to his car search.

If he has found him, he is sitting behind the wheel and noted that there are still earth under his nails. He has a weekend dug in the mud. In the mud lived, you might say.

At the time that he wants to start the dashboard he sees on the iPod of Tirza. He wants to run the vehicle, to the Departures Hall, but he realizes that time he has not by the customs.

Also he remains indecisive with the little thing in his hands. The charger is also at. You call it. Perhaps he can they send to her youth hostel. In any case he wants to let it know that they will not have to worry that her iPod is lost. It is so attached to that thing. But it is already not more. He gets her voice mail, he hears her voice. "Hi, this is Tirza. I am also not. But let but a nice message.'

He is doing the caps of the iPod in his ears and listens to Tirza's music. Very occasionally a number comes beyond that he knows. The Andrews Sisters has also put them on. For him. He here.

With nearly one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour he drives on the motorway in the direction of Amsterdam.

In the vicinity of Oberhausen he must stop at a gas station. He can no longer.

If in trance he walks to the toilet. All toilets are busy. He certainly wait five minutes until there is a free. Than he gives. Prawn, wine, more prawn crackers.

In the middle of a few lorry drivers refreshes he ashamed for the mirror. It is not much help. Uncertain he runs back to the car.

He is sitting behind the wheel. Again he takes the iPod in his hands. He is looking forward to Africa while he thinks. They are now an hour or two in the air. Where will they be? Somewhere above the South of Italy.

Without thought he plays with the iPod, he wonders whether he out of the house has locked correctly, he turns the iPod to only now and see that on the rear slightly engraved.

He must endeavor to be read in this light.

'Solar Queen' condition there. Divided over two rules. Sun Queen.

He shall submit to the device on the seat next to him and leave the vehicle.

Again he walks to the toilet. No, he rent.

He must give again. Everything is now off.

Hanging above the pot, still not in a position to move in this direction, panting slightly: 'Solar Queen. Sun Queen.' The word suggests to reassure him. As long as that word, there are still world.

Back in the car he stops the iPod and charger in his briefcase.

Minutes he remains so. Perhaps a quarter of an hour. For someone to hard on his vehicle is correct. He is right about the end of. Yes, he is not sleeping, he may not sleep here. He knows.

Ship's steward looks at his watch.

Italy, they also have to leave. Libya, they will now are. They are all above Africa.

'I have the of the tears won,' says ship's steward against the steering wheel.

2

He is at half back in the Van Eeghenstraat. Only his bag with clothes he retrieves from the vehicle. The tools tomorrow he brings to the barn. He opens the door carefully, in the assumption that the wife has fallen asleep.

But it is sitting in the living room, at the dining table with a newspaper and a bottle of wine. He looks at her.

They will ignore him or them has not heard him. A minute he remains so, the bag in his hand.

'What are you doing?' he asks eventually.

Now she looks at the newspaper.

'a Crypto grams," she says. 'I have been there for the whole day. It is a difficult.'

They touch with the pin on her arm.

'What happened?" asks them. They will not sound alarmed. Previously bozig.

He put the bag down, he gets closer. The taste of vomit is still in its mouth.

'What do you mean? What would have happened?'

'how you look, You looks so… So… How I will say, you looks so screwed out.'

He is going to sit around the table, rubs his hands against each other. 'It is the emergency. I have worked in the garden. There was a lot of work to be done. I should there more often. The perfunctorily there. Dead branches, weeds, still more dead branches, more weeds.'

'You stinks," she says.

'What you can smell then?'

He travels to the bottle of wine, but sees that time is empty. He would make sense in a glass, but well at this hour of the night to open a new bottle.

'Stank. Nothing special. Just unpleasant odours. How was it? The uitzwaaien?'

He nods, as if they were almost relieved now back to him by calls that his child has taken away. It has swung such as parents that do if their children leave home for an extended period of time. It is only now as though he knows what he is doing here. Coming home, that is what he is doing. Come Home.

'Well,' he says, fast and good. You know how those things go. In an airport. There is always in a hurry.'

Than he is on the table and he feels how they leave him while he is viewing. He knows that they shall examine him, that they are wondering why it took so little mangy alongside looks like. But not for long. Not really. The crypto grams calls. How much interest you can really understand another, especially if you that other know so well? And especially as long al. So terribly long. Half a life.

In the bedroom clothe he. He takes a shower. After he has dried, he retrieves with a pair of scissors the earth under his nails away. The he succeeds not entirely clean his nails. He is doing a clean pants, spraying deodorant under his underarms.

In his underpants off he goes to the bottom. Without real aim. The watering plants, that is a possibility. The provision of everyday actions that must be sufficiently objective. The reassurance that this entails. More he also not necessary, more he seeks not now.

The wife is still at the table with its crypto grams.

He is going to sit on the couch, on the other side of the room. In fact he would want to create music, but he can also not move.

'Are you the door not been out?' he asks.

'Only a quarter of an hour and in the garden," she says, without her gaze of the newspaper to avert. 'Why should I? With this?'

Ship's steward shall examine his feet. His toe nails would once again may be cut.

'I have showered,' he says.

'MEWE.'

Now he can find power to stand on. He runs to her.

'I am chilly again. I no longer off season.'

'Dat is nice," she says. Emphatically.

Ship's steward at the dining table, in his underpants. He does not crypto grams. He has no patience for. Crypto grams are for people who do not take seriously the language.

He feels the need to defend, but he does not know what. He knows only that the proof is that you are alive and that you feel a need. No desire, that sounds too romantic, no desire, that smacks of meat. A need. For example to talk with the wife. To make its voice heard. The voice of the mother of his children.

'I did you know that… that I AND THE WORKER?' he asks.

'De worker and you? What? The old?'

'De new, from Ghana. Did you know that they, and I… that we had something? I have told you that?'

She shakes her head. 'No," she says, 'I did not know. You have not told us. Is it important? Do I need to know? Would you like to say something about it?' There is a light irony in her voice.

'Not important. I thought only: I tell you.'

They shall submit to the pin. 'Die woman from Ghana?' she looks at him unbelieving. Now also surprised. They will find it, he sees, a most remarkable story.

He is going to sit. 'Yes'. In Ghana. I said it. On Thursday. Between the afternoon I rode of my work home and then… than i took her. That is what you do that? Not?'

'Yes, so you can say. If that is what you did, I have no idea, but if that is what you did, then you should mention so.'

'On Thursday afternoon. To twelve hours. I usually took care that I was absolutely on time. It has started once when i was ill. A nasty flu. In fact accidentally. By coincidence. You were already road. You were on the houseboat. It then became a ritual. It is not that we do not speak. You must not think. But they barely speaks Dutch, her English is also mediocre. I therefore took her. Here on the bench. We went to the top. Such a bedroom is so… So intimate. As personal. I also had all books and newspapers on the bed. I thought it was easy. And I thought: if it comes up, do i need to remove. As it was over, Undressed i. Sometimes I took a shower. As I very gezweet had. There are days that you have as sweat, that it takes so long that the difficult. These days, you know them. She went on to the House and I peddled my way back to my work. It is not that I was in love with her, although of course that might have been possible. It is beautiful. It was… it was sex between friends.'

'Between friends. Aha. Why you tell me this?'

He gets her to. Her hand, her arm. Only with his fingertips. If a blind.

'I thought: it is good if you know it. All those secrets. Why now? Why should we ignore the? For each other? We are strangers, yet? Friends, but strangers. Acquaintances. Exen. Maybe we friends, maybe.'

'Maybe.' She smiles. 'Maybe," she says. 'but the last month have you done nothing. In any case I have noticed anything.'

'No, no, we do nothing for a while. She understands the. She has not called for. They may also be without. But I give her yet its perk.'

There is a cork on the table. The shower has the taste in the mouth cannot delete. Vomit. Prawn crackers. Old, wet Prawn Chips.

'I actually find your normal?' he asks.

'Normal?' she looks at him, again surprised, non-ya. 'Why? Why do you do that?'

"Just. Without reason.'

He picks up the cork on, let him turn around.

'Am I normal?'

"God, Jörgen, why do you want to know? I mean is that not a bit late? You are almost retired. You have until now been saved, so it will be loosened. It does not more. What you are. I mean it is over. Your life is ready. The viewable not.'

The cork fall to the ground. He grabs him.

'But When can you say,' he goes further, 'I have a normal sex life? If you do not have sex? Once or twice per week, in a further monogamous relationship, in the bedroom and one in the quarter after a party for friends, in the kitchen. When it is normal, the sex life of human beings? When can you without lying to say: 'I have a healthy sex life."?'

Still groped his fingertips her arm, her shoulder, its neck and now also her face.

It stores the newspaper close. 'I do not know. I do not think that you should ask me whether you are normally. And what is normal. Do you mean what is the standard? What is the average? How often they do it? The other people? I know you too long, to good, I can say nothing about you, ask your colleagues. Ask your daughters maybe. Ask the others.'

His head is true as an infected wound and yet it can not be called a headache.

'What stands are normally?' he wants to know. It is now no longer from what he says and what he does not say. What he betrays, what he does, which secrets it involved the grave in will drag. 'What are not normal? If there is blood from the anus, is it still normal? Where does the abnormal? Where is the border? Where is the moment you realize: Damn, i am somewhere, I have a limit is exceeded, and I can not return, even if I would like, I can not return. I am on the other side, but what is the other side? What is it?' His finger rest on its nose.

'There is blood from the anus? By whom? In the event that woman from Ghana?'

It sounds like a joke from her mouth. A Pointe. But he has not heard the beginning, and now that he does not know why he must laugh.

Ship's steward is silent, he has no idea what he should say more. Half does he expect the wife will now have to get up and move to the top, but they are stuck.

'Maybe,' he says after a time, 'is the most normal ultimately not have sex. Or only with yourself in the bathroom. You early in the morning, lying on the bed while i coffee. Only with your thoughts and half fantasies, indefinite, onuitgeleefde fantasies for which no one can punish you.'

She picks its glass, where even a glimmer of wine in it. The empty them.

'I was your imagination," she says, 'You know yet? Your imagination, that I was.'

He nods. He is tired, his thoughts fade. 'My fantasy,' he does so. 'Yes, that were you.'

They state. 'I go to bed.' She folds the newspaper on the glass. 'You must just not there so much to think about," she says. 'What you do with that woman doing. It is but the worker. There is no in. I mean: hello, that woman comes from Ghana, which will certainly have experienced worse things. And she is our work star. Your work applicant.'

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?'

'First by the Departures Hall. Then by the arrivals hall. I swing people.'

Now they sit upright. The wife is fully awake.

'Who sweep you off?'

'people. No one can be waved goodbye. That swing me.'

They rubs on her face, by her hair.

'Why do you no longer?'

'They had me no longer necessary. They went to the war with the new soldiers win.'

'What war?'

'No idea. The war for the reader I suspect. The books War.'

'And you could find no other work? In the event of another publishing house? In a book trade? A library?'

'they charged me to my pension. I am too old to still be released. But I did not have more. I am no longer usable. I am sitting in the way of their only. The new soldiers.'

They get off the bed and walk to the bathroom. He hears her puddles.

As she goes back next to him and asks: 'And now?'

'I go to Schiphol Airport, I said anyway. It is interesting, so'n airport. You see everything, but actually see you always the same. It is a type of industrial process. An abattoir. There something disappears and there is something else in return.'

He must sneezing.

'Why she phoned not?' he asks.

'Who? Tirza? Jörgen, hold. This is a form of terrorism. Your unrest terror. Your concerns are terror. It is infectious.'

'I go there,' he says after a few seconds of silence. 'I need there.'

'Where To?'

'To Africa.'

'What are you going to do there? Looking for work? Do you think that you are not suddenly become unusable?'

'No work search. I go for Tirza. It is not normal, as long as we have heard nothing. I would myself the rest of my life remonstrations.'

'Do not hysterical, Jörgen.'

'I do not hysterical. I know myself. I want to make myself not to reproach. Later'.

They stacks the cushions behind better.

'Where do you want to search? In the youth hostel they have never heard of it. Where do you start? Are you on the street with a board? Are you cafes with a thumbnail?'

'Wind Angle is not large, says it. People will have seen her. She is a striking appearance. Perhaps it is superfluous. Well, then I have a few thousand euro discarded. Also no disaster.'

She picks him with his arm. 'helps not.'

'What?'

'It is eight to ten. She is with a man. Jörgen, she is no longer a child.'

'beginning not about which wipkip. I save you if you about the wipkip begins.'

He holds his head. He has more memories than good for him. They walk through each other, are reminders. His thoughts confused him.

'It has other things on its head than to call us,' says the wife now quiet. 'And it does not help. She is on a trip around the world or how you want to name. And then they study. Or they will remain forever on a trip around the world. Or she begins as Ibi an inn, but they will not return here, Jörgen. Take a pet if you too quiet. Go to work in a home for the elderly If you need to claim and caring about, but it would be pointless to go to Africa. You make your ridiculous. And even if your hair, will give you a faltering steps. She has gone. I mean it is out of the house. She begins her own life, without you. You will not want to believe. But they can. People can live without you. I have been. Ibi can. It will also be Tirza. And furthermore: I am again. You have now had no longer Tirza?'

'and if there is something happened?'

'and if there is something has happened, then you are now too late, Jörgen. If they by ten negroid is raped and murdered, than it doesn't matter whether you take the plane or a week later'.

They squeeze in his arm as if that her words.

Ship's steward is quiet. Its arguments are convincing and yet they can not calm him. He has the evocative feeling that they themselves do not completely by its own arguments convinced. He must be there. Peace of mind is that not what counts as the epilogue of your life is started? He must for his own peace of mind. And for those of the spouse.

'Let's play,' he says soft.

'What than, what would you like to play again now?'

'as before.'

'What we played in the past?'

He takes a deep breath. He must concentrate. Who wants peace of mind, should first and foremost create order in the head.

'De living room was the Vondelpark.'

'Yes, yes," she says, 'i know.'

'You was the girl on bike. It was night. Everywhere was the night.'

'Can I further recall.'

'And I was the rapist with the knife.'

'But Jörgen…' They purr about his hair. 'We played when we were in love. It was a fun game. Now is not a fun game. Now it is a sad game. We must not play. That is not good.'

He picks up its pulse. 'Let's play one more time,' he says, 'one more time. Let us do as if it is earlier.'

'Dat does not.'

'Why not?'

'It is not earlier. It is now. It is summer. You are discharged, at least not really redundancies, removed, that is what you are, on non-active. You are unusable, you yourself said to me, and I think you always was unusable. You may in your hands that they are squeezing the rear voile. And Tirza is in Africa and we hear nothing from her, I am… I am someone who can no longer. That is why I am here. What should we play? For whom?'

He loves her wrist more firmly. 'One More,' he says, 'for i go to Africa. As in the past. Please.'

On non-active. The words in his head. That is the so that is what they have done with him. It feels like it is only now up to him by calls.

'Please call first for you to nou long journeys.'

'Met whom?'

'Met the Dutch embassy in Namibia for example, perhaps they know something.'

He let her, they get out of bed, she pulls the curtains open.

'If something has happened, they know it,' she whispers, 'but I am almost certain that they just want somewhere in the desert or the jungle. That they are happy. It is Africa, have you do not go anywhere telephone cells.'

She turns around. 'Well," she says, 'well. We play one more time.'

He comes to her. She picks him in his neck. He puts his hands on her shoulder. 'but only because we are broken, Jörgen," she says, 'the only reason. Remember.'

In the afternoon he receives the Dutch embassy in Windhoek. They have heard nothing of an accident or a crime, so everything will be in order. The man on the phone says that he is not worried. The public telephones in Namibia working with maps and that are not widely available. Certainly not in the desert.

Almost literally gives a ship's steward the by the wife.

They live as if nothing has happened, no houseboat, no departure, no return, no final exam celebration. They live as on a float boat that loss making. Waiting for wind them in a certain direction will push.

Each morning a ship's steward to Schiphol and leaves although the wife there a few times something of said, calls they do not meet that he should stop that idiotic fuss. He has explained to her that he is really the house, that he would otherwise be crazy. That is why he departs in the morning with his briefcase and he runs by the departure and arrivals hall and browse the in-between in manuscript of the author in Azerbaijan. In order not to be crazy.

Spacious two weeks after he has Tirza taken away, says the wife in the evenings in the garden: 'Maybe we should call one more time?'

'Met whom?'

'Met the embassy in Windhoek. Perhaps cease the public transport there and they sit somewhere. Or there is a sand storm. About Namibia read you will never do anything in the newspaper, have you ever read something about?'

He is on his garden chair and begins to polar bears. 'What can i say?' he asks. "Sorry, but cease the public transport with you? There is a sand storm? Who says that the embassy to draw up reports on each miniscule zandstormpje? They explained to me mad. In addition they can naturally only lifts, learn to know me that color performances. We are talking about Africa. Not on the Alsace, or the Austrian Alps. And I have already used the embassy called. We know that they are going to continue to.'

'sit. It helps nothing when you as defeats. Since it is not better.'

He gets into a scale with nuts which the wife next to its seat. It is a nice evening. Hot and not too humid.

'call you,' he says. 'call you. Or else I go there. Perhaps I should just get there. This does not make any sense. This waiting here. This wrangling. This wait. The panic nothing likely.'

It is a time, they bending the nuts from the container to collect his cases.

'Yes,' says they as they are ready, 'maybe you there.'

'What do you mean?'

He is of his piece.

'As I am doing.' She eats the nuts that have fallen on the ground. 'Maybe you there. What can we do?'

The garden chairs on which they sit are old. Ship's steward at that time was a shame to have to invest a lot in garden furniture. He will be pleased to make a good impression, and he is mainly because of its surroundings of a certain style but the garden furniture has no priority.

'And then,' he says, 'if i go?'

'You began it. It was your idea. Then you will find her. Then we are reassured. So it will continue. And then… Yes, then I do not know.'

He leans back on. 'You,' he says, 'You have you not to its concern over the last few years you have not even more called. Not even called. You had to pressure. God should know that. And now you play here to the concerned mother, the woman who could not sleep because the unknown is where her daughter in Namibia exactly whereabouts, if they still is. Maybe they already in Botswana. Or Zaire.'

'I still had a life next to my children, yes. That is not a crime. That is my right.'

'Next? Do you call that next to it? It was not next to it. It was over them, there cross through it. Not next to it.'

'What I also have done over all these years and not done, and what I have said about her, and also what they said to me, I keep her mother. I am no longer your wife, but I am still her mother.'

He is. In the kitchen he keeps his wrists under cold water. He shivering.

Slowly dries his hands.

He sees how they the garden chairs folding and into the barn. They are cold. They put the wine glasses and the nuts on a tray. She runs to him. She looks at him.

'Well,' he says soft, 'I go there. You are right. I should do it. It is better. The unusable goes to Africa.'

They put the tray on the worktop and picks up his hand with a tenderness that he will find provocative. In this phase of his life is tenderness shocking.

'probably find them the fun too, if you were suddenly to emerge in Africa. You know how fond Tirza on you? She is really terrible love you.'

'probably,' he says, 'probably she likes. It would not surprise me. She loves me.'

He raises his hand, he holds his wrists back under the cold tap water.

The next morning he buys a ticket, via Zurich and Johannesburg to Wind Angle, with South African Airways. He must still be waiting three days before he can leave. The next few days are the flights completely full. Cheap tickets are not more.

That last days it does not go to Schiphol. He works in the garden, does groceries, runs a round by the Vondelpark.

The evening before his departure to pick up his suitcase in, a small blue suitcase that formerly he has taken a few times on mission. New York. Turin. Ach, many missions he has now also been created.

He picks up not much of a pak, what shirts, two summer trousers. Long he will not continue. Ten days should be enough. In ten days you can do a great deal.

On a Saturday afternoon in August for half an hour or two state he on the point to leave the Van Eeghenstraat. The wife is in the garden a ladies sheet to read.

'I go forward to outside,' he calls from the kitchen, 'I have called a taxi.'

'Wait," she says, 'I have in front of you.'

She goes to the bedroom and comes back with a packet.

'What is this?' he asks.

'grasp but from.'

He makes the packet of open. There is a dress in a blue summer dress.

'For Tirza. He was in the offer, and he is precisely its size. I thought: a raised, they will be able to use it properly.'

He smiles. 'What nice of you. What kind.' He watches the dress. 'He will continue its good,' he says. 'It is its taste. She loves simple things.'

Carefully pick up the dress again.

Soon he opens the suitcase, under his bag is still fit for the package of the spouse.

'I call you,' he says, 'When I am there.'

He gives her a volatile kiss on the right cheek.

But it does not return to the garden, she runs to go with him to the front door.

'It will well," she says, 'it is good. It is that we have become old, therefore, we make it our concern for our children. Because we are old and our bored.'

'Yes,' he says, 'That's the. Because we have become old. Go back to the garden. Soon the rain starts again. Enjoy the sun also.'

'Here," she says, "it should also bring you.' She gives him an envelope.

Hesitant to pick up to him.

'What is in it?'

'a photo. I thought: it is good if you have a photo with you.'

He takes the photo from the envelope. Tirza, not long before her graduation celebration, a few days before, two weeks perhaps.

'Dank you,' he says. 'Dank you. Where did you find it?'

'In her room. You never know. Perhaps he comes in handy.'

'You know the never,' he says and stops the envelope in his pocket.

'Have you actually told Ibi?' she asks.

'I not,' he says. 'I am not. I have her the last few days not more.'

It goes back to the garden and he goes in the porch. He has his suitcase at his briefcase, containing the iPod, the charger, Tirza's agenda and its notebook, the manuscript of the author from Azerbaijan and its four pencils.

There will be at least ten minutes wait at the taxi. A neighbor says it in passing goodbye. He runs for his own house up and down as a beast in a cage. There are baggage is in the portico on him to wait. Such baggage appears to be something to say against him, but he does not know what.

On the flight to Zurich he has no one next to it and if it to sleep, but between Zurich and Johannesburg next to a he sits French couple. During the food is developing a call. They are going to explore South Africa and he? They want to know.

'I go visit my daughter,' he says in moderate French.

'In Johannesburg?'

'In Windhoek.' He cuts in his chicken. Bleed the call death.

After the food he retrieves the manuscript and his pencils and he begins to read routinely.

In Johannesburg he must wait nearly four hours. His head hurts of fatigue. He orders coffee, sit by the window with a view of the aircraft, but he has no rest for a long time to continue.

With the briefcase in his hand he runs on the airport, which is not great, especially if you compare it with Schiphol or Frankfurt.

A few times he retrieves the envelope from his inside pocket and he looks at the photo of the solar queen. In a shop he buys an adapter plug for South Africa and Namibia, and a hat against the sun. The sun there will be bright. He puts the hat and looks in a mirror, and decision to keep him. He takes pride of ship's steward not, he gives him a little extras.

Now he is a man with a hat.

He runs well in advance to the gate.

A ground air hostess says: 'We have not yet started with boarding, sir. About a quarter of an hour.'

He is doing a few steps back and remains so wait.

She looks at him, the air hostess than she asks: 'Are you going to spend your holiday in Namibia?'

He takes the envelope from his inside pocket. 'I go visit my daughter,' he says in reasonable English. He shows her the photo.

'a nice child," she says. 'Congratulations. And of that lively eyes.'

He looks itself again to the photo, perhaps to the liveliness of Tirza's eyes.

In the bus to the airplane is the human him at that have changed. Still blank, but otherwise blank than him. Other garments, other faces, even other movements. He hears German, Afrikaans, Italian, a little English.

In the plane to Wind Angle he sits next to an Italian who belongs to a group. The Italian examines a travel guide. With a pin striped he occasionally something.

To Hofmeesters surprise they also get on this short flight food. Meat with beans. He eats a few beans, he has not hungry.

'First time?" asks the Italian in almost inaudible if the trays again English are retrieved.

'First time what?'

'Africa? First time?'

'First Time,' says ship's steward. 'My first time.'

'To me,' says the Italian, 'second time. I hold of Africa.'

Ship's steward nods.

He will fall asleep, he wants to sleep, Long and deep. A winter sleeping which is gradually transformed in a total absence of everything alive of life itself.

The landing is accompanied with a great deal of turbulence. Ship's steward is not afraid, but the shaking back and forth makes him nauseous. Afraid if it has been that he will have to give in, he is securely fixed to the seat.

If they are landed almost looks out of the window in the expectation something of a city, or at least a few houses. But he sees only desert. Desert in different colors. A little red, a little gray.

The airport of wind angle is small, on the endearing af, ship's steward.

In the overhead baggage compartment he retrieves his hat. He let others lead courageously. He has no rush. The others do.

There is only one other aircraft at the airport, a large, gray aircraft on which 'Luftwaffe'. If a ship's steward the staircase is descended, he remains stationary. He breathes the warm air in. Here is landed Tirza, here she seized. This is Wind Angle. In the nearby area should they are, here they wanted.

He looks at the air. Sheep clouds, very many sheep clouds. The heat is still inform him. It is dry heat.

If it after a minute or ten waiting in a row is arrived at a regular sums owing, give it the form that was on the plane has already completed.

'What is the reason for your visit?' she asks.

'Tourists' he had nevertheless underlining it on the form? They believe him?

He takes the envelope from his inside pocket. He let her see the photo. My daughter,' he says, 'I come its surprise you.'

She looks not to the photo. They put a stamp on his passport.

At the baggage band in a small, somewhat cramped hall is only really him that he looks slightly different than the other passengers, with its neat trouser from Amsterdam, are slightly worn but neat required, his hat. He is the alien. It cannot be denied. It is a state that it is not concerned. The temporary that the alien is stuck him. The actions of the alien beyond never far, the consequences of his actions are limited, the alien is so gone again. He is naturally light. If a leaf. If a plastic bag.

When he has his suitcase, he runs and determination to the arrivals hall. On a determined step in such cases. In fact he always has been temporarily. A temporary man, so they could also him so easy on non-active.

Also the arrivals hall will see it endearing. A doll house. In a corner he sees an ATM. He tries to get cash, but it is not possible.

The exchange office is closed.

In his pocket he retrieves a handkerchief and wipe clean his face. He takes a deep breath. In vain he looks something on a tourist information point appears.

Then he walks with determined step out. His shoes, which he still in Amsterdam has polished, Glimmen.

A young man called upon: 'Taxi?' he has Hofmeesters suitcase already and for ship's steward good bite and can understand what is going on, he sits behind in a blue Mercedes from the seventies.

'Wind Angle?" asks the young, dark driver.

'Wind Angle,' says ship's steward.

'It is over forty kilometers, you know, boss?' The driver speaks English with an African accent.

'I do not know. But it does not matter. I have to go to Wind Angle.'

The vehicle is started. Ship's steward is running the window open.

'Where in Windhoek, boss?" asks the driver.

'I do not know yet. I find a hotel, a good hotel, you can recommend something? And call me a boss.'

He takes the handkerchief back from his pants, but he will receive his face not dry.

'I will call you not a boss. I am Jefried. You do not hear in the event of a group?'

'No, I am not one of a group. I travel alone.'

Jefried Runs fast. But there is no traffic so that saves. However are looking for ship's steward sitting on the rear bench seat to a belt. That they must learn to die does not mean that the à la minute must be done.

There is no belt. Or rather: the seat belt is broken.

'you will view the country?'

'I come for my daughter.'

Ship's steward retrieves the photo come out and leave it to see Jefried him from his hands and grabs.

Jefried kicks hard on the brake pedal. They are silent along the side of the road in the sand. The driver opens the glove box of the car, retrieves a dingy booklet from, vist a scraps photo from the booklet and press that ship's steward in the manual.

Ship's steward tail to five black children.

'My Family,' says Jefried. 'My children.'

Ship's steward opens the door. 'I need to go outside,' he answers, 'Want a bite to eat.' He gets the car from, with his hat and his briefcase.

He puts the hat on, binds the briefcase under his arm. No traffic on the road. No houses. Sandy and withered grass. Here and there a half bare tree. Gently rolling hills. The sandy seems to the kilometers to change color. Where am i? Calls on ship's steward, what am I doing here? What is this?

It is now also Jefried disembarked. It is next to a ship's steward.

'Not afraid, a boss,' says Jefried. 'I believe in Jesus.'

'I am not afraid, i had to get a bite to eat. And call me a boss.'

A GUST OF WIND does Hofmeesters afwaaien hat. Jefried rent after that. As a dog. He gives the hat back to ship's steward, which he set up but not more.

'Jefried, where are the beasts?'

'What beasts, boss?'

'Call me a boss.'

'What beasts, gentleman?'

Ship's steward points to the empty, half withered plain.

'De wild beasts. Where are they? I see nothing.'

'Die are hiding, sir, it is in the middle of the day. It is too hot for them. They are there, but we do not see them. But of course they see, Mr. They see us and they smell like us."

So they remain. Two men along the side of the road. The first is waiting on the second, the second waiting for something he cannot appoint itself. On a brainwave. A reminder. The reminder of what he came again.

'Meneer,' says Jefried after five minutes, 'You will find the very if we continue the drive to Wind Angle?'

Ship's steward shakes his head. 'no problem at all. To which hotel you go me? I searched on the airport to a tourist information point, but everything was closed. What is a good hotel? Do you know the hotels in Windhoek?'

'In Windhoek. There are many good hotels. What exactly are you looking for? Great hotel, small hotel?'

'The best hotel.'

The best, why not? Such a first night in a foreign country wants to ship's steward take any risks. And duration will not be here. Now the financial independence is destroyed, it may also be wasted. something best

Jefried starts to think out loud and ship's steward feels how are dry mouth is. He gets into the vehicle. On the rear bench seat is still the photo of Jefrieds children. He gives it to the driver and in return they receive the picture of his youngest daughter back. Also he looks back to. Lively eyes. Yes, perhaps that is the first thing you notice if you go to Tirza looks, on this photo. Lively eyes. In a peculiar way of reassuring eyes. As if the world has reassured, and they in turn now to do the same with the world.

'Heinitzburg,' says Jefried.

'What?'

'Heinitzburg.'

'What is there with Heinitzburg?'

'Dat is a good hotel. Really something for Mr.'

Heinitzburg. It sounds like the name of a village forty kilometers across the border in Zevenaar.

'Heinitzburg,' reiterates ship's steward.

'Are you German?'

Jefried starts the vehicle.

'I? No, Dutch.'

'but they speak German there? Where you come from? Huh?'

'They speak Dutch there.'

'but you speak German?'

'I have studied German. And criminology. The last study never killed. I was offered a job on a publishing company, an offer which I could not refuse to do so. It was in line with expectations that i would be publisher.'

Jefried seem not to listen to them. It travels fast. He turn the radio on.

If he is the first houses of Wind Angle, asks: 'You accept ship's steward also euros?'

Jefried looks at him through his mirror. 'prefer not to sir, but there are banks, we can stop.'

'Atms?'

Jefried nods. 'It is a modern country, Mr. We have everything. In addition to work. There is not enough work. Everything here is further.'

In a street which gives the impression to be the main street of an abandoned village, they stop at a gas station. Small Wind Angle is called the here, has a ship's steward on a board. Small, say that to.

Jefried points to him an ATM.

Tirza's father is there.

There are only blacks on street. Perhaps it is the district, perhaps the hour of the day. The few whites who he sees, sit in cars. While his Post Bank Card in the machine stops, he looks again at the blue Mercedes of Jefried.

Jefried can now pulling away. With Hofmeesters stuff. It is not much but it would still be annoying.

Despite the fact that there is little value vols in his luggage, the idea that benauwt Jefried there with his suitcase fleeing. A color handling remains a color handling. Whereas for the machine status, he tries the car unobtrusively into the holes, which he observes that a three to oblige the petrol pump aanstaart him.

He presses the hat more firmly on his head.

Here if he would withdraw money, he just has no idea what the rate is of the Namibian dollars. Against his habit in he has badly prepared on this journey. Say: not. He decides to thousand Namibian dollars, that will be enough for Jefried.

From the petrol station are within a 5 minute walk to the Heinitzburghotel, that a castle on top of a hill.

If the vehicle is parked Jefried, two young men on the Mercedes. They mantle Hofmeesters on luggage. They also want to his briefcase from his hands, but that he will not allow it.

'How much I owe you?" requires a ship's steward to Jefried.

'Four hundred, sir.'

He gives Jefried four hundred and fifty. And Jefried says: 'If you need me, Mr. I drive safely. That you have seen. Where you want to go. Walvis Bay, Swakopmund. Or beyond. To the north. I know the country. If you need me. Call me.' Jefried gives a business card ship's steward.

The business card of someone else. Eight out Jefried has his name and telephone number written.

Ship's steward runs up the hill, he follow the signs to the 'receptie'. The ticket in his pocket.

Also shoot the by him: What if they did not have a room for me? But then they will need a taxi to call him if he should go somewhere else. It does not matter. He is there, that is what it is all about.

The reception looks neat and clean. A scale apples, a rack postcards. A man in a white shirt would welcome him and asks a ship's steward under what name he booked.

'I have not reserved,' he says, 'I am sorry, it came there are not more of. It was all quite unexpectedly. Do you have a room for two, three nights?'

'For how long exactly? Two or three?'

'three nights. It depends.'

There is no prompt which. The man begins in a large book to browse.

On twenty meters away are the two guys at Hofmeesters suitcase. They look at him. They are waiting.

'you are lucky,' says the receptionist. 'We have a room free. A beautiful, spacious room.'

'Fine' says ship's steward. And then: 'Dank you.' as if it is a privilege granted.

Ship's steward picks up an apple and bites. He has dried out.

'If you want to enroll here?'

A guestbook is laid down for him. He fills everything neatly in, where he lives, passport number, only where he will be that he does not know. He lets the but open.

'I will show you your room,' says the man.

The room is really nice. Even in European terms, and that are the only concepts that ship's steward know. A four-poster bed, a bath, a rose next to the sink. Africa. For a ship's steward in any case. Until now.

The two boys come together to him his suitcase. He gives both their money.

Then he only. He sits down on a chair. This is Windhoek, Namibia. Here they wanted, and his daughter, here they had to its world travel. Well, world tour, Africa Travel. She has read a lot about, she has seen some photos. She is committed, Ibi is also commit. As his children. They learn the quick AF.

He puts his briefcase and the hat on the bed. Are Required he hangs in the cabinet. Skirt and trousers he throws have a chair. Pants and socks he makes in the bathroom.

For a viewing mirror himself. It is best for a man of his age. The abdomen, the sheet. The decay.

Then he under the shower.

The water does it correctly it gives him energy. He let the minutes walk over in without having to move in this direction. Without thinking.

Then he pulls a light trousers and a shirt with short sleeves. From its required he retrieves the envelope with the photo and his telephone. He wants to leave the room, but consider themselves and picks up the briefcase and the hat of the bed.

As he walks to the reception.

'Can I here somewhere a little food?' he asks.

The receptionist takes him to the other side of the building where a terrace with views of the city.

There is also no one.

It installs itself. The envelope and its telephone he explains on the table. The briefcase and hat on a chair.

A girl asks him not particularly friendly what he wants to drink.

'I would also like to eat,' he says.

He puts his telephone and slide the photo from the envelope. Lively eyes, it is true. That is the way it is. They are so terrible vivid, which eyes. This is odd that nobody sees that they such beautiful lips and cheekbones, beautiful cheekbones.

After a short examination of the lunch menu he chooses for kipkebab. This will provide little can go wrong, kipkebab.

'And drinks?'

He looks like in the menu.

'Mangosap.'

'Mangosap and kipkebab.' She writes it is not.

'And run but a glass of white wine.'

'In place of the mangosap?'

'No, together. With the mangosap. At the same time.'

He has range, he sees. After a slight hesitation he calls the wife, but it does not record. 'I arrived,' he speaks of 'I am in Windhoek. It looks good here. I am speaking you later.'

From his briefcase he retrieves the manuscript and pencils. He rummages in the bag and finds that he has forgotten sharpener. One of these days he will need to purchase a sharpener.

If the drink is charged, he sees how the girl look to the photo that is on the table.

My daughter,' says ship's steward with a friendly smile, 'my youngest daughter. Tirza.'

"How?'

'Tirza.'

He must spell the name. It seems to be a strange name in these parts.

'It is here in Windhoek,' he says, 'it is here on holiday. Maybe you have ever seen her.'

It is not a question and there is therefore no reply.

The mangosap eagerly he drinks and then the wine.

In the distance he sees a building. The highest of the city, apparently. There is 'Kalahari Sands'. He tail are a while. Kalahari Sands.

Now he is here, he should have a plan in mind. But the longer he to the city looks below him is, how army and kaler his thoughts. What he think of it, it is already disastrous for even before he started.

The chicken eat it quickly and hastily, as a dog, without something to drink.

From his briefcase he retrieves Tirza's notebook and reads the sms and that they have received in the last few months. Crazy that the sender has not there. Or would they are all of the same person?

Perhaps the sms and which it has sent? No, that seems unlikely. The messages that are received. There is something of a bookkeeper in her, as thoroughly as they have the SMS and has to be recorded in the minutes. Some of these messages are not for outsiders to understand, as: 'I am here', or just one word: 'kiss'.

On a blank page he writes with pencil: 'Wind Angle, Kalahari Sands. Papa calls on the solar queen.' And including the date: 10 August 2005.

If the girl is clearing, he asks: 'Where are young people going here in Wind Angle? Tourists from Europe, where will they go?'

She looks full understanding to the man she operates.

'Where are they now?' he asks again. 'De tourist?'

'to the coast,' she responds. 'or to the desert.'

He puts his hat on, grabs his stuff, runs to the reception and ask for a map of the city, which they do not appear to have. He eventually gets a copy of a map of Wind Angle of a few years back.

'How far is it to the center?'

'Met the car?'

'on foot.'

'a minute,' says the receptionist. He draws on the map with a green pin how ship's steward must walk.

After five minutes walking the pavement. Ship's steward now runs through the sand, along a road. By the heat are his feet swollen. The walk is painful. Its leather shoes are not calculated on this road.

Occasionally a ship's steward and sweeps continues his face. He feels the sweat in his neck. Under his armpits are major spots. When he is back in the hotel, will he take a bath. He may have to look forward to.

After a walk of twenty minutes state he Independence Avenue, which, as has the receptionist said, the main street of wind angle is.

He looks to the right, then to the left then back to the right. Someone collided against him.

There are here in any case people. And shops.

He decides to go to the left. Perhaps he could the road to somebody to questions, but he does not know what exactly he should ask. How to get your thing? Ibi and the wife would otherwise have done. Shamelessly, without restraint. Without consciousness.

Ship's steward is a shopping center within, but he buys nothing. However he takes another thousand Namibian dollars. He watches the clothes and souvenirs in the shop windows.

The air conditioning shuts it well. Still a few shop windows he studies, without too much interest.

After ten minutes on the Independence Avenue has fallen, do his feet so'n pain that he must be stationary. To his joy he sees an ice cream parlor cum pizzeria, Sardinia called. Also here. The Italians were everywhere. Even in Windhoek.

He staggered toward the inside the most tables are empty. The operator is seated in a corner. He chooses a table from near the counter.

It is pleasantly cool. With a paper servetje rubs his forehead and his neck. Then he rummages servetje paint to a ball and stops in his pocket.

A guys like girl that for an Italian can continue to be asked what he wants.

He orders an espresso and a glass of white wine. Maybe it is Italian. It would be a nice start for a call: 'Are You Italian?' and then pull out the photo and ask 'Do you know this girl, have you ever seen her?' How are you looking for children if you have never previously done, adult children, in another country?

Until long after he has drunk it remains stuck. He realizes that he will have questions. He will have to start somewhere, why not here? It is precisely here, in pizzeria cum ice cream parlor Sardinia.

Of the table next to him he picks up a paper towel and rubs on the back of his neck, his forehead, his neck.

He rummages in his briefcase.

Than he is on and runs as normal as possible to the counter.

'De account,' he says. And then immediately he retrieves the envelope from his inside pocket and shall submit to the photo on the counter. 'Are You Italian?'

'I am born here.' She responds to him without him to look.

'Ah, I understand. Have you ever seen her here?' he asks.

'Who?'

He points to the photo.

The girl that as a little boy seems casts a glimpse of the photo. She gives a ship's steward the bon.

'No," she says, 'who is it?'

It counts the money, clears his throat. My daughter,' he says. My youngest daughter Tirza.'

And while he says, even while he is speaking is feels he said that they will not believe him.

'MAM,' calls on them.

He wants to store the picture. But he waits. Maybe something the mother.

A woman with bleaches its comes to him.

'How can I help you?" asks them.

Again he emphasized the photo.

My daughter,' he says, 'Have you seen happen to her?'

She shakes her head. She takes the father of Tirza in itself.

'tourist or businessman?'

'I am here for my daughter,' says ship's steward emphatically. The awareness that he does not like father forces him the Father in him what heavier. It stores the photo again. First time in the reply envelope, than in his pocket. He still needs to have something to ask what the people reassuring. For example: 'There is a large Italian community?'

'Are you looking for fun?' The voice of the mother sounds sharp but inviting.

It shakes of no, he walks slowly to the output.

The mother is chasing him.

'Are you looking for fun? Special entertainment?'

He is now outside on the street, the mother also.

Ship's steward must declare itself. He understands the. You can people not just a picture of your child show and say: 'I find my daughter.' They have explanation is necessary. Otherwise they do not trust. Background information.

'I am here for my daughter. She has never been in Africa. Three weeks ago, they moved to Wind Angle. Exactly three weeks ago. And since then we have heard nothing of her.'

The woman looks at him now as if they understand everything. He is relieved.

'No call, no e-mail. My wife says: "It is because we are so old." But what is the sense in your home to eat of the nerves if you also want to Namibia can? What is fourteen or eighteen hours fly in this time? And what is the cost of the well at all? How is this? With the tourist? You are here. There are many tourist?'

He speaks a little excited, but she smiles. Ach, mothers understand that sort of thing. They will help him. They will explain to him which he must go.

'Are you looking for special entertainment," she says, "is that it? I can help you.'

He begins to walk away from her. If he is also fit five, he turns to. They state for its case and looks at him after.

Ship's steward takes his hat. 'Thank you,' he calls, 'thank you for the trouble. I will certainly come back, but i am here for my daughter.'

Than he begins to walk up the hill in the direction of the Heinitzburghotel. Each step takes him now trouble. His shoes seem him four sizes too small. His underpants rubs unpleasant. He must be anus threads with oil. Everything is rough.

From the moment he has left Independence Avenue, is the quiet street has become. Occasionally he hears steps behind. He has the feeling that someone behind him follows several people, perhaps, but he does not dare to look.

He concentrates on each step to feel less pain. He clings to the briefcase. He has the feeling that Tirza in that bag, that he has taken her in his briefcase. The bag that he only have to open and that they will gain the upper hand.

3

When he finally reached the hotel, he seems a heart attack near. With a red and wet head and chest pain he calls at the reception are room number.

'How do you want to dine, Mr ship's steward?" asks the receptionist.

'eight, nine and a half.'

'One person?'

'one person.'

As soon as he is in his room, he himself in bed. He does his shoes off, closes his eyes, rubs gently over his feet.

Certainly twenty minutes he remains so. Half asleep, half-watchful.

It is the noise of the wind to him on his watch does look. Somewhere a flap clicks or a door. Almost seven hours al.

Soon he must eat.

Hastily he goes away, leaving the bath flooding and within them.

In the warm water if him to relax. Also seems this is a basic travel, as he ever made. A visit to an author in his native country, a book fair, a few times a conference. Especially at the beginning of his career he visited them just might, conferences.

Only when his mobile phone in the bedroom tone, urges the purpose of his journey back to him by. Without having to dry off he comes the bath.

As soon as he can he walks to the telephone. He glides almost off, but know to keep his balance.

It is the wife.

'And?' she asks.

'And? I am. That is all I can tell you now. Tomorrow I am going to draw up a plan. At the embassy. Along the youth hostels. But wind angle is not dangerous. Small, especially small. I do not think that they have remained here long. Tourist go to the coast or the desert, I heard.'

She takes the information without much comment to itself.

'call me if you hear anything," she says. 'and read your e-mail from time to time, perhaps sends an email they you'

'I will.'

'And Jörgen.'

'Yes?'

'No, nothing. Let but. Here I am waiting on you. I will keep the garden for you.'

Then he weather in bath. He has time before he to table must be.

In the room next to his he will hear people talking. He tries to mean what language they speak, but the sounds are too far away.

The talk is about in howl. But if he is listening carefully, he hears that it is not, it is crying gehijg.

Before he goes out of the bath, shower he the foam away and here are favorite song. 'bei mir bist du schön, please let me explain. Bei mir bist du schön, means you are grand.'

With a large white towel dries he thoroughly and very briefly he thinks of the worker in Amsterdam.

Only now he opens his suitcase.

The gift for Tirza he embodied in a la. The rest of the clothes he let in his suitcase.

He decides to withdraw a suit, aftershave. You never know who you encounter.

Only when he wants to attract his shoes, he notes that this is not good for more. His feet are battered. The shoes are not set on this heat, they are not made for swollen feet. With pain and difficulties" squeezes his.

Otherwise than he had hoped, dinner is not on the terrace, but served indoors.

He will get a table in a corner. Ship's steward is one of the few men in suit. The other guests are nonchalance dressed. As a tourist in Africa. But he is not casually.

During the appetizer he tries to read the manuscript. Soon he keeps it. The wine and the vermoeienis of the travel stun him light, but pleasant. His thoughts wander off.

He shall submit the photo of Tirza on table in the hope that someone him whether he will. But no one is asking a question. It is adequately controlled. It. Comment on the photo remains off. Is the wine bijgeschonken regularly, he immediately ordered but a bottle. No Italian gewürztraminer, but nice. He plays with the photo, he likes it up. It is about Tirza no question. Nobody wants to know who she is, nobody is interested in what is a ship's steward on its has to say.

After the main dish is the pain in his feet so bad that he spends shoes and socks. The tablecloths are low. We will not see it.

Order a lime relieved parfait. If something does not eat your problem, easy.

While he is in the lime parfait lepelt, he tries to summarize his life, as up to now it has declined. The he succeeds not. If he is looking back, he discovers nothing which he may be proud. What he sees are in the fog of his own history are small, fairly insignificant defeats. No large, an exception. The daily defeat, that cannot be distinguished from the daily shame.

He proudly is Tirza on. It. On Tirza. Proud. Without good to know why. What is his merit? Seed. The preparation of what hot meals. It disciplined to cello and swimming lesson, but we later found out that he had done something to be disciplined. No, it is proud without reason. Senseless proud.

Coffee and cognac he decides to drink at the bar. The dining room is now on a few tables after empty. It is apparently early sleep. Through the window you see below the lights of Wind Angle. In the evening seems to be a nice big city.

He walks slowly to the bar. A waiter comes to follow him.

'Meneer,' says the waiter, 'dit has you forget.'

He loves Hofmeesters shoes and socks up.

Ship's steward looks at his feet. They are exposed.

The shame is something overweldigends, so much stronger than affection.

The waiter gives a ship's steward his shoes and socks.

'Dank you,' he says. 'Dank you friendly. Completely forgotten. What kind of you." And he is going to sit at the bar.

He dares shoes and socks are not pulling. The shame disappears but slow, shame never disappears completely. Stir he concentrated coffee as if nothing is wrong.

The photo is now on the bar. If a proof. A declaration.

The bartender looks. He has no choice. There are no other people at the bar. To whom should he see or hear it?

My daughter,' says ship's steward. 'Tirza. Eighteen years old.'

'What is it?" asks the barkeeper.

Ship's steward shrugs. 'They will be studying,' he says. 'do not yet know what the. One week is the music sciences. Next week psychology. The following week classical languages. Has no idea. They do not have the time.'

He picks up a toothpick and removes discreet something from his mouth. He speaks — he observes the self — with double tongue.

'And where is it now?'

Tirza's father looks at the photo as if it were the answer to that question can be found.

'Here,' he says. He looks around. 'Here. She is somewhere here. In Namibia.'

He says it as if it were a secret.

He kept wanting cognac. The last guests leaving the dining room. Only the staff is still there. Smiling looks the bartender to ship's steward.

'Are you here only?' he asks.

Tirza's father nods. Slow and long. 'I am only here,' he says, 'but not really only, i am here to surprise my daughter. So basically we are together. I wanted my children money to act. A lot of money. A substantial sum. In order for them to open the doors were for me have remained closed. But it has disappeared. The money. It is eaten. Do you know who the has eaten?'

He beckons him, he flutters with his hands. The bartender must be closer.

'De world economy,' he whispers soft. 'After 11 September 2001, when the fairs bloc, they were already fallen, but they collapsed further in, it disappeared my hedge fund. It held to exist. From one day to the other. Road hedge fund. As if it was not there was. Mohammed Atta has eaten my money. Do you remember who Mohammed Atta is that?'

The barman shakes his head.

'Does there should not,' says ship's steward. 'Where the issue is that the people think: Mohammed Atta is dead. Mohammed Atta is there not more. They say. But there are thousands of Mohammed Atta, tens of thousands, millions of Mohammed Atta. Millions. The world economy as far as Mohammed Atta can do not. He also has been home to me. Mohammed Atta.'

Ship's steward stops the photo of his daughter in his inner pocket, withdraw its colbert law. Slowly bending his shoes and socks to pick-up. His back creaks.

'We See you tomorrow?" asks the barkeeper.

Ship's steward nods. On bare feet he walks to his room. There are sounds of insects. The night produces just as his main humming noises. Yes, Mohammed Atta is in his own home, that is something that the people will be surprised. Something that they will still have questions later.

He must be reachable from the outside to reach his room. At every step he set, he has the idea that he is going somewhere, but he does not know which. Small animals likely. Ants. Browse. Mos.

In his room He kneels for the minibar. He picks up a can of cola and a small bottle of white wine from. The tin press against his forehead, the wine he opens. Tomorrow, he decides, tomorrow will he buy new shoes. Tomorrow he goes.

For he is, I am told he for the mirror. He does his both arms raised. And down again. And up again. There is nothing special to see him.

The photo he explains on the bedside table next to his watch. There are spots on the photo, greasy fingers.

Four times that night he is awake. Once he is on to drink water. In the bathroom he realizes that the water may not drinkable is that it can be sick of, and he will return to lie in bed. He begins to understand something. He understands that there is perhaps something awful happened, an absolutely definitive event. That the moment you will not see each other again. But he understands the in his dreams.

The days then buy a few sandals, ship's steward he visits the Dutch embassy, runs quietly and organized by the city and a few cheap hotels within. Here and there he let Tirza's photo. Occasionally he begins a call. He cannot help you further.

Two times he visits an internet cafe, but there is no email of Tirza, only the wife.

In one of the hotels thinks they have seen Tirza true, but we know that they are a Swiss girl was that in the event of a group.

'Dat cannot,' answers ship's steward. 'Dat is someone else.'

In the Heinitzburghotel is now everyone on the height of the fact that a ship's steward searching for his daughter. At breakfast and dinner one speaks reassuring on him in. The one time says the staff that they will be to the north, then they say that Tirza certainly somewhere around Sossusvlei In the desert. The next morning says someone that they might be hitchhiked is in the direction of Cape Town. The lifts in the direction of Cape Town is popular with tourists these days.

Ship's steward makes notes in the booklet that ever has been Tirza, but are diligent annotations cannot conceal the fact that his disbelief spreads. He did not know what he has still to do, he does not know where he should go, he has no idea where he can still find. Hours he runs through a hot city with a photo in his pocket, a hat on his head, a briefcase under his arm. A ms of the embassy says to him: 'It is a hopeless task. Here you can do nothing. Go back to the Netherlands. Wait you quiet.'

The difficulty is that not a youngster all its specialty?

Also in the internet cafe know it now. The man with the hat which a message of his daughter wait. They live with him, as with a movie, but it does not help. And even on sandals do his feet pain.

Every morning he extends his stay in the hotel with one day. Where is he going next? Return to the Netherlands? Excluded. Two times still call the wife, in addition to its friendly, but also what compelling e-mails. The unrest in her voice is heard. She says: "I have the Ibi but told, I mean, what is the point of the for her to conceal the?'

And ship's steward responds only: 'that was not have been necessary. In a few days is them. You must not make the people concerned.'

On a day at the end of the afternoon — he has once again a few hours by the city of prejudice, the envelope with the photo in his pocket, the briefcase under the arm — he climbs the hill in the direction of the Heinitzburghotel. Just go and it will dawn.

Hofmeesters foot is dry. For the first time he has the idea that he can distinguish between pain and despair. Dull and somewhat more paralysis is the desperation and also narcotic. The desperation is no sense, it is the opposite, the awareness that you no longer feel that the feeling is to slip road, you only have to leave behind.

In a quiet street, not far from the car rental company Hertz, he notes that someone just behind him is going to walk. He clasps his briefcase even sturdier than formerly against located on. Although the fear of the first days gradually disappeared, is he prepared for anything. This is Africa.

He accelerates are only.

'Do you want company, sir?' he hears.

Without stopping to walk He turns around and see a girl of — what will it be? — a year or ten, nine in a flodderig dress.

He goes even faster. The echoes after in his head: 'Do you want company, sir?', it is a question, is it not rather the confirmation of a situation? 'Do you want company, sir?' Why nobody has yet that asked him? While the so obvious, it was a small effort. 'Do you want company, sir?' five words, that everything is.five simple words.

There is nobody on the street. Even the keeper who is usually always for Hertz state, ship's steward today. He is probably also to the toilet. Also guards must puddles.

The girl runs with him, better said: they rent with him. He saves a street in which he must strike not at all. This is not the way to the hotel. Here he would never. He must be returned. There are blisters on his feet that noticeable, and also corns.

'Do you want company, sir?' she asks them again.

'No, no,' he sist, without stopping to walk. 'Go away! Go away!'

In the event of a cross with a stop lamp remains stationary. It dices with a handkerchief on his face. She is still there. First behind him, now next to him.

If he has his handkerchief stowed, picks up the child his left hand.

They do not let him. She loves the hand.

The stop light jumps on green. Also he remains, the child to his hand. They must release him, but they do not work. They will continue to hold him. Than he plugs on. With the girl.

As they walk silently in the direction of the Heinitzburghotel. A man and a child, a white and a black, a man with a hat and one without.

At the next crossing he looks again to her. Volatile and ashamed as to a forbidden fruit.

It is only now that he sees that they have no shoes.

He sees her feet. He thinks: there may be a garbage on street are, glass, garbage, food residues. Gently squeeze it in her hand.

She will not return. They will remain firmly hold him only.

And if he is at the front desk to the room key is requested, keeps them still his left hand.

There is to him and the child, but nobody says something. If all other days gives him the room key, and if all other days are being asked to him: 'Use the dinner in our restaurant?'

Ship's steward nods.

Once in the room he puts the child on a chair and is himself in bed. His hand is wet with sweat.

He does his hats, wipe his face with a handkerchief.

The child looks at him, it follows its movements. Hard, but not nervous.

Ship's steward keeps his head, he does not know to which it began. He was here to find Tirza. Now he has a child on his room, a black child in a dingy dress without shoes.

He opens the minibar. 'Water?' he asks. The child is nodding. He gives water in a glass and gives the hair. They are keen to drink.

He is going to sit on the bed again and watches. Then he makes his sandals off. His right foot is on two spots on the bleeding. In his bag he is looking for plasters.

It is his last plasters.

If he is ready to deal with the wounds, he asks: 'How would you?'

'Kaisa.'

"Ka-isa?'

She nods.

'I am Jörgen,' he says. 'Jörgen ship's steward.' He speaks with her in English, slowly and clearly as if he is back in the Buchmesse is and talk about books him, if he is fair, not so much care. They fall against, what is not against compared with Tolstoy?

So they are sitting opposite each other. He is on the bed, it on the seat.

Somewhere in the distance he noticed a novice headache. A novice disease. Flu.

After a quarter of an hour makes them the question they already twice to him.

'Do you want company, sir?'

It shakes his head, opens his briefcase, and he remembers that he still no sharpener has purchased. Searching for something in his briefcase, but what again?

Its glass is empty.

'Water, Kaisa? More water?'

She nods.

He opens the minibar and gives her a bottle.

This time they drink less eagerly. He begins to analyze the situation, as far as is possible, in so far as his life still permits it if analysis, reflection, study, conclusion.

There is a child on his room. That child does not envisage way to go. He will have to give her to eat, that to begin.

'Hungry?' he asks.

She nods.

He looks at his watch, another hour, then they can to table.

'a further hour,' he says. 'Over an hour we eat.' He wonders whether they know what it is, an hour.

Sit down again they silently opposite each other. She looks at him without the a rude staring. The child looks at him as if he is the TV, a puppeteer who every moment with its act can begin.

From his inner pocket he retrieves the envelope. He let Kaisa the photo.

My daughter,' he says.

The child keeps the photo, raises there also take a look. Then she looks at him.

Ship's steward goes back to bed, exactly the way it was all along.

'Tirza,' he says to Kaisa, 'they so hot. When she was so old as you are, I read her for. Also from Dostoevsky. Notes from the underground. With a sure nihilism you can not start early enough. Because you need to get through. If a train through a tunnel. And they understood the. She was…' he gets the word almost not from his mouth but it will succeed it anyway. 'High gifted,' he says with shrill voice. 'They is a very talented.'

He threatens to go as a machine. Also vibrates his lip. But he vermant, everything is under control.

There is a knock on the door. The room maid. She wants the bed ready for the night. He let her within. They know each other, the maid and the guest. They have seen on several occasions. Yet it remains unsettling. And now with the onwenniger Kaisa closer than ever.

The room maid takes as if they do not see the child. Ship's steward withdraws in the bathroom while the bed is done. He brushes his teeth.

If she has disappeared, are the curtains closed. Unlike other nights there is not a single chocolate on the pillow, but two.

He chuckles, he may not leave it.

Ship's steward She grabs, chocolates, and gives them to Kaisa.

It stops them both at the same time in her mouth. Without her eyes off him. She is alert.

'Tirza,' he says, 'has lively eyes. Just like you.' He takes the paper of the chocolate from her and throws them in the trash.

A further three quarter. Then he must with this child in the dining room. He does not know how. He and that black child in that dingy dress.

He opens the minibar and put a bottle of vodka to his mouth.

'Would you like to wash your hands?' he asks.

He is not waiting for a reply. Ship's steward seeks his hand. He takes her to the bathroom, the crane open, gives its soap. They can just at.

The child washes its hands. And if they are ready, she looks him questioning.

'Would you also wash your feet?'

She shakes her head.

'Maybe is good?'

She has her hair in a tail, sees only now ship's steward. He has not properly looked to her, he did not dare.

'Are you sure? I also wash my feet. You can wash as you want.'

He let the bath half full walk, retrieves for the girl the bottle of water from the room, and for themselves the small bottle of white wine that every day in the minibar is stopped.

He put her on the edge of the bathtub with its legs in the water.

'Not too hot?' he asks. 'It is good so?'

She nods.

Ship's steward Kate rolls up his trouser legs on and down next to him. They take a foot bath, the man and the child. Compared with the skin of the child seems not only his own showed, but even unhealthy, ill. Affected.

It does it, a foot bath. He already knows that there are problems not have become less. For the first time since his arrival here are the problems even acute.

Soon he must with her to the dining room. How is it that succeed?

The wine is.

He picks up his feet from the water and picks up a second bottle of vodka from the minibar. Hastily and with somewhat reluctantly he drinks. It is a drug.

'I,' he says, 'we are going to grab a bite to eat.'

On the ground in the bathroom spread a large white towel. He lifts her on, put her on the towel.

Ship's steward kneel and dries the feet to thoroughly.

'also between the toes,' he says, 'otherwise you get mold. You know, I have two daughters. Older than you. I really just wanted no children. I also wanted to marry not. My wife has persuaded me. I had plans. Other plans.'

Her left foot is dry. Now that her right foot.

'I wanted,' he says, 'prove that God nor the progress was dead, but the love." he laughs as if he were a good joke has told us. He loves her ankles and laughs.

'Ready,' he says. 'I have now, then we can eat.'

Behind a cabinet door — it remains discreet — he will clothe, He pulls his suit. Because he has a guest this evening, he makes a necktie for.

He puts his hat. Soon he drinks a bottle of gin empty. The Vodka is.

The child is watching.

'It is a drug,' he says. 'Against the embarrassment.' He picks up a second bottle of gin and drink that half empty.

'And you know what shame? Civilisation.' Portrait and with empty somewhat reluctantly he the second bottle gin. With the empty bottle in his hand he takes place on the bed. 'Yes, civilisation,' he panting slightly, 'dat is the. Civilisation. Civilisation. Civilisation.'

First time to pick up his briefcase, her hand. Just as it is he barefoot.

As they walk to the dining room.

It looks at him as he arrives. And to the child. One looks of him to the child and back again.

The girl that he has on many occasions already operated, says: 'Ah, Mr ship's steward, you have a guest tonight?'

He nods. He brings to its seat Kaisa puts his hat. He thinks he is the best inheriting. But he The calls around him have come to a standstill.

Unlike other nights order he water without bubble. He bows to the waitress as if he wants to tell vertrouwelijks its something. 'sorry for the bare feet,' he says. 'It is the heat. Stuffed feet. The moisture will not go away. The Moisture accumulates in the foot. Why in the foot? I do not know. But it is in the foot, the moisture. Sorry. Excuse us, also to the other guests.'

'Of course," she says, 'Meneer ship's steward, of course. No problem.'

In the event of the bread served as always a few long stems.

He breaks down there a center gives half to Kaisa. 'Eat,' he says.

She eats, while they remain him naughtily drawing pictures.

It mainly lives with his finger soft on the table. The calls around them come but slowly.

'Well,' he says he does not know what to do, 'Kaisa, so I come from the Netherlands, you know where that is located? In the north of Europe. Far away. Fourteen hours fly from here. With about eight steps ten hours. I am…'

He gives her a long stem. This time he breaks through it.

'Or you just want to bread?'

They shake of no.

'I am just before my retirement. Actually you can say that I have already retired and I, because I am no longer active. I am on non-active. They wanted to dismiss me, but according to the house lawyer was that because of my age impossible.' It dices crumbs of the table.

Each evening they run the same music here. It is only now that he is a hundred times to these songs has be listening. Each evening three, four times the same numbers.

'I,' he says, calm by the drug, but still a bit ashamed, 'I am all in all an unfortunate man.' And he laughs as if he has made a joke. He smiles much this evening. 'MAY', he adds, 'nobody noticed. How should they? To which they may be brands? And with the accident must ask yourself…'

He gets the wine card in his hands, without need to think long order he a chardonnay from South Africa. 'and for the young lady,' he says, 'a lemonade? A coca cola?'

She nods.

'Coca Cola?'

She nods again. This time with more conviction. With a degree of enthusiasm even.

'Coca Cola,' he says, 'for the young lady.' as if they were already days on a trip. As if they do nothing more than this. Food, sleep, wake up to eat. They seem to be fully addressed.

Still he gives her a stalk.

She eats with taste.

'Accident,' he says, 'we were talking about. Unhappy, everyone. And if you do that by, it does not matter anymore. The happiness is a pose, a myth, a form of politeness, celebrations, during dinner. I am unhappy, but not more unhappy than others, that I was always taught at difficult moments. My accident was average. I have two children. A nice house. A very nice house.'

Suddenly he keeps on talking.

'Now you tell what.'

It stops with food. A piece of the stem is still in her hand. Knuistje, you would have to say. And ship's steward thinks of the word 'knuistje' as to itself when he was still was different, indeterminate, not or hardly been defined. A story that still had yet to all sides.

'Yes,' he says, 'You must now tell what. How old are you?'

The Chardonnay. He will taste for without testing. It hastily, on the rude. While he does not want that. But he is impatient.

Just wait until the coca cola for the child is served.

'Would you like a citroentje in?' he asks. 'You will find that good? Tirza, my daughter, drank its cola always with lemon. From an early age. But they should almost never cola drinks. We were against cola. I was against cola.'

They shake of no. No citroentje.

'Good than. Than we drink on this… On this evening, on our meeting. On you, Kaisa, on you.'

It rejects his glass against that of her.

They drink as he. With surrender.

If they have received the menu cards, he notes that cannot read them, in any case not good enough. They tail to the menu as they go to him tail. With the semi-open mouth. As if there is something to be. As if the menu card going to speak.

He orders chicken soup for her. Also chicken soup seems to be a medicine.

'And then,' he asks, 'fish or meat?'

She looks at him with the last piece of stalk still in its knuistje.

'fish or meat?' he repeats. 'Kaisa, what will it be?'

'Meat," she says.

He decision: lamb. Always good.

Order for themselves the carpaccio of springbok and then a fish.

The waitress removes, after they do everything has written. He sees that she and her colleagues whispers and he thinks, No he knows that they have over him. For the first time since his arrival in Namibia he is sitting at a table with someone. A black child. 'And he was looking for his daughter,', they will say. 'But it was in reality entertainment. Special entertainment.'

He leans back on.

'Eat,' he says.

She eats the last piece of stalk, that all that time in her hand sat.

'Where were we?' he asks. 'Oh yes, how old are you?'

It is precisely these moments is the art of the conversation. All those drinks which he has attended, Book presentations, book fairs, it is not for nothing, he has learned from you.

'Nine," she says.

He holds his head.

'Dan care we over fifty years,' he answers, 'min or more half a century, we adhere to this. Half a century.'

That look of her. Neutral, But inquisitive.

'fifty years is half a century. You know that yet? How old is your mother?'

It is a one-sided conversation, but a ship's steward does not. His life depends on it, as it feels at least. He takes a few swallow the wine. It is the only medicine against the embarrassment that is effective.

'How old is your mother, Kaisa, you know that, how old they?'

'Mamma is at home.'

She says the soft and almost questioning, but just not completely. In fact exactly as they said: 'Do you want company, sir?' Almost questioning, though not entirely. As if they already knew that he wanted it. As if they had seen.

'Aha,' says ship's steward, 'at home. Yes, the way it should. My parents no longer life. They are shortly after each other about members. The children were still small. But they are never really enthusiastic grandparents. At the end of their life they did the door does not open any more. Even if we arrived. Than we had to return to Amsterdam. Annoying for the children, because we thought that they were going to see grandpa and grandma.'

He gives its cola at.

It will wait until they are going to mention it, but what follows is silence. Even more quiet. That is why he takes the word. He must talk, as long as he is talking about there is nothing wrong, and furthermore it for once not from what he says.

My parents were not ill. But they were also not completely healthy. Whether or not, super healthy, to healthy. They were converted, and they were afraid that the village could find out. That they were converted, that it is in fact of house…' he let his voice drop as if there is a terrible secret follows '… nothing were, That if nobody wants to know. No one knew it too. They were afraid to be different, to fall. At first only outside the home and later also in house. It was their second nature. They hated everything was different. Do you understand? Everything that is not blank. Everything else was, everything was different from the norm. They hated the sick. Because everything that is not the standard, it was the sick. For my parents there was no difference between psychiatric patients, Jews, negroid homosexuals, all patients who were not a cure. They themselves were cure a disease, but they were still afraid that something was still, a scar, a residue, a persistent remainder that could again at any time to ignite. That is why my father once a Jew half beaten to death. For his shop. With a spoon. So no one in the village that would doubt that he was healed. They took the seriously, the cure. But at the end of their life they did the door so no longer open. Even if we arrived.'

He looks at the child. She sees a puppet player in me, he thinks. I am the puppet.

'Know what I like it?' says ship's steward. 'I can talk to you.'

The entree is served, and ship's steward says that they should be careful, that they must blow a bite out for them from the soup. He takes the spoon, he does it for. And it blows.

So they work by the meal. The people at the other tables look less and less on the set. They are a couple? Calls on ship's steward wondered. A temporary set perhaps, but, what other than that? A set. Determine are by definition temporary, still ever decreasing duration than young people.

After the main dish, which they have very few places to eat, lubricates the child is still a he desert, sorbet, and order he usually a cognac. This trip is more expensive than he had originally thought. But what does it matter? If you have lost almost everything, you can also lose everything.

In the cognac), it on and runs to the toilet. In the vicinity of the urinal kicks with his bare feet in nattigheid, and he remembers that he must die. That there is only one way out of this is that all other ways have closed. With his bare feet in someone else's urine he tries his own death.

While he plast, where he deals with one hand on the wall. A bright duizeling he feels. Nothing serious.

Return to table — the sorbet and the cognac have now been charged — he says: 'I think it so much that we can talk to each other, Kaisa. Really talk. What does your mother? And your father?'

She gets her shoulders.

'Is they housewife?'

Weather retrieves the child her shoulders.

And as if it is only now to mind, he asks: "do they not worried? You should not just call us?'

She shakes her head. 'No," she says with a mouth full of ice cream.

'They're not worried? She does not want that you come home? You are of course also a large meid.'

And while his glass jar, considering he cognac that you indeed have to learn that there might be a certainly must have a talent for, die.

He is on, helps the child from the seat. She picks up his hand.

As each evening he walks to the output.

As each evening says the staff: 'Good evening, Mr ship's steward.'

But despite all of the medication which he has swallowed, he sees that they look different than other evenings. He is in their eyes become another. He is no longer the man searching for his daughter, now he is the man who are looking for some fun specially. He has sought and he has found it.

And yet it is not true, he would like to declare. He would like to say: 'It is not what you are thinking.'

In the vicinity of the reception it will remain. 'Well,' he says, 'it was a nice evening. I do not know where you need to go where you live, but I can call taxis for you.'

In Africa makes the night noises. Everywhere he hears insects. Unfortunately he knows little of insects.

Above the reception depends a electro cute machine for small, flying scum. Each time a flight is getting fried, crackles the machine cozy.

'Where is your home?' he asks. 'Is the far, Kaisa?'

They do not leave his hand. While now is the time for release. He should go to bed. Sleep. Sleep for the die.

'Living in Windhoek?'

She seems not to hear him. Just as he looks they now to the electro cute machine for the flying scum. 'Do you want company, sir?' she asks, push of a first with less conviction.

His gaze remains also rest on the machine that are above the entrance to the reception depends. Then he looks at the child. 'No, no,' he says. 'But if you want you can keep you sleep. If it is too late to go home.'

He puts his hat off, wipe on his forehead. Wind Angle is high, 1700 meters. It cools pleasantly. In the evening and I think he is hot.

'It does not matter,' he says, 'if you want to sleep. It is a double room. I do not know what they think of us. But what they think of us makes you, I do not believe in and i do not actually. I am a strange here. It has long been something decided what the people of me thought, because you are what people think of you. But here, now, in this country? I am a tourist. What can they expect me?'

They walk hand in hand to the room.

He shall do the lights on, depends his hat.

They are going to sit on the same seat on which they have already been sat.

'Yes,' he says, 'Are we then.' He does also the lights in the bathroom.

'You certainly don't toothbrush with you?' he asks. 'No, you have nothing at all to you. That is the youth. Goes off staying. Does nothing. Carefree. Time, though. I had also often Tirza of chasing everything when they remained somewhere staying. You can borrow my toothbrush is, I will give him good for your cleaning.'

He holds his toothbrush under the tap and looks, while his teeth cleaning brush, to the child.

They sit there motionless.

'I,' he says.

He beckons her.

They are hesitant to him. He does toothpaste on the toothbrush. He kneels down and he brushes her teeth. Although his toothbrush is a bit too large for its teeth.

It has been a long time ago that he has done, but he is not forgotten.

They will open its mouth without question or protest.

He brushes thoroughly.

'Well,' he says, 'that was that. It is important. The teeth.'

He will take her to the bed, he saves the bed open. The side where normal nobody is located.

She has a pajamas necessary. Nude sleep could, but it seems a good idea.

'Wait,' he says.

He runs to the cabinet and retrieves the dress that the wife has purchased for Tirza. Carefully remove the paper, he he returned in the la stops.

'Doe you dress,' he says.

They slips from her dress in a second. He loves her dress Tirza for.

'It is not real pajamas,' he says, "but we have nothing else. You must do something about in the night. The cools down. This is of Tirza.'

With some effort — he has long no children more decorated — he pulls her dress Tirza.

It looks as if they were dressed up has for a party. He shakes his head and needs to be a little smile.

A fancy dress party, it runs off. This trip. His life. Everything.

It stops her in.

In the bathroom clothe himself. He holds his pants. A pajamas also has he does not have to be.

Then he was on its side of the bed.

'Well,' he says, 'sleep tasty.'

She is on her head on the large white cushion. Droll, that is the word that comes up in him as he looks to her.

'Well,' he says, 'we go to sleep. It was a long day.'

She focuses. 'Do you want company, sir?' she asks.

Slowly shakes his head.

'hold on,' he whispers, 'Kaisa, hold on to those nonsense. Not today. It is too late. See i like this? As someone who needs company? No, really not.' He goes past her to her night lamp is off to do so.

'I am not more used to dealing with strangers in one bed,' he says, 'us please forgive me if I restless sleep. I have slept in recent years. To my wife returned. I like this one side of the bed to use as a table on which you submit papers, newspapers, books. But that was not more, when they came back. Goodnight.'

Now he is doing his night light off. He is certainly still awake twenty minutes. Sometimes he keeps his breath to hear or Kaisa sleeps.

In the middle of the night is he woke up. He dreamed of Tirza. They were on the bikes in the Betuwe. His parents lived. He is on, makes light in the bathroom and also on the edge of the bathtub. His thoughts are still not sharp. Vague he recalls that he was a child in bed. He is now just over a week in Windhoek. He tries to remember when he last Tirza's voice heard. That was when he called her and her voice mail received. Soft he begins to speak against it.

'Tirza,' he says, "I am in Windhoek. A strange city, no city more a village. I talk a bit gently, because not only am I.'

At half past nine is he woke up. Kaisa is already awake. They sit upright in bed and looks at him.

"Good Morning,' he says.

He rubs his face. Of the bedside table to pick up his watch.

'It is already late,' he says.

Without showering it attracts some clothes.

'Keep you often logeren?' he asks.

More quiet.

'or you often remains in people staying?'

"Yes," she says.

'You can of course continue to have breakfast, but then I get started. I am here for my daughter. We are her. Do you know how I call her? The Solar Queen.'

He lifts her out of bed. They did nothing more than to the dingy dress. Caution, afraid if he is the damage that he, he pulls its Tirza's dress.

He picks it back in, commits him in the la and gives her her own dress. She pulls him not to. He is going to sit for her crouches.

'We are going to what breakfasts,' he says, 'You must you dress up.'

She seems to be its nose against those of him to rub, but in the end they press her mouth on to his. He bounces back.

'No, no,' he says, 'That's not necessary. It is not necessary.'

He feels how hot the once again and he smells that clothes that he has attracted a bit smelly. What does it matter? Odour in Africa is something else than stench in the Van Eeghenstraat.

'I need you to dress,' he says. 'We are going to have breakfast.'

Ship's steward withdraws its the dress.

As he continues to sit as if he has forgotten something. 'brushing teeth,' he says, 'doing after breakfast we.'

On the minibar, he sees the photo of Tirza. It stops him in the envelope and the envelope in his pocket. He does this morning but are sandals.

He is running slow with Kaisa to the breakfast buffet that is served on the terrace.

There are two tables filled. He recognizes people last night. Once again the silence calls, now he appears with the child.

They sit down. Guests must operate itself at the buffet, but a ship's steward is not yet. The walk is difficult.

The girl that also last night, 'operated Coffee, Mr ship's steward?'

He nods. 'and for the young lady,' he says, 'hot chocolate, is that something? Hot chocolate.'

His hat he has not set up this morning, but his briefcase he is in itself. Everything is included in what he needs.

Just as he wants to get up with the child to go to the buffet, vibrates the telephone in its pocket. It is the wife.

'Why do I hear nothing from you?' she asks.

The 'Create your worried?' he whispers, although no one can be understood. 'Dat do not.'

'Not for you. To Tirza.'

'I think that they are not more in Windhoek. I think they have gone to the coast or to the desert. I will have a look.'

'Look? Jörgen, it is not a treasure hunt. Is it not time that you go to the police and declaration of a missing person?'

'I know that it is not a treasure hunt. Do you think i for a treasure hunt eighteen hours fly?'

'I want you to do anything.'

'Are you worried?'

'Ibi is concerned. They call twice a day. She makes any odes concerned. She makes me nervous, I know that the nonsense yet. Do you already have been to the police?'

'De police? This is Namibia.'

'Yes, but surely you agree to the police. Or do you want to do in Amsterdam?'

'I call you later. Everything is under control. They come up above water. You have said so yourself. It is our just forget it.'

He flips its telephone close, puts it.

The child looks equally neutral to him as always.

My wife is concerned, they think that it is good if we go to the police.'

Ship's steward is On, runs concurrently with the girl to the buffet. For the buffet engages the child his hand. They shall designate a croissant. He shall submit the croissant on a sign.

'Yoghurt?' he asks. 'fruit yoghurt?'

When they sit around the table and there is a glass of chocolate milk for the children is, he says: 'I have to tell you something, Kaisa. It is really funny.'

With its coffee spoon taste of its he was a bit of fruit yoghurt.

He bows go to her, the spoon still in his hand. 'My life is coming to an end,' he says, 'I can nowhere.'

There are sounds in his voice something triomfantelijks, he hears the itself. As if it is somewhere a performance is to be able to go anywhere. No longer to be able to escape.

She nods. It will be the sound of his voice which have been a gentle smile on her face to appear. The sound of someone generous joking, the sound of a man who is on the point of a child to tickle.

'people,' he says, 'create a story of their life. So they are creating order. That is what stories are. Create order. The story that I have made is…' he takes a large sip coffee. 'It has got out of control.'

Also he feels the calm sadness that he knows from the hills of Southern Germany, when his daughter was in the clinic.

'If there is nowhere more can,' he says, 'keeps the game on, then you finally arrived in reality. My wife and I frequently played. In the past. Than I was the rapist with a knife, and they are a cyclist. In the Vondelpark. In Amsterdam. At Night. We played, my wife and i, what we did was a game.'

He picks up his shoulders. He did not know what he was still further to say.

When the girl are coffee bijschenkt, he sees on her face that he is not a long time in this hotel can continue. He sees a censure which hardly differs from anger. It is not made to travellers special entertainment search, and although he would like to explain that he has no special are looking for some fun, not even normal entertainment, he knows that the hopeless task.

He is on, the child from her helps seat, and runs to his room. As they walk away, engages the child his hand. The Surprise him now not more that it will do so. It seems as if it were to hear.

For the door remains. He bending itself. 'You need to house,' he says. 'where you live, Kaisa?'

She gives no answer, they looks past him.

Again it reiterates the question. Again no answer.

'I need my daughter search, Kaisa,' he says, 'they is lost. People are worried. There is terribly worried. Where do you live?'

He picks up its both hands, squeeze out a little. 'Where do you live?' he asks.

Her answer does not come as a surprise and it makes him nauseous. 'Do you want company, sir?'

He has always thought that the nonsense, people who say that they are sick from fear. He has not really believed. Now he is making the note. He is sick of fear and he knows not even for which he is afraid, or there still is something to be afraid of.

Ship's steward opens the door, the girl slips along him, sit on the seat that they clearly sees as the hare.

'Well then,' he says, standing for the minibar, 'you may still remain a day. I think it is great because we were so good to talk to each other. We understand each other, Kaisa. And do you know why? Because we do not disapprove.'

He expresses his hat on his head, grabs his briefcase back on and take the hand of the child. For the rear view mirror does he also.

'It was in line with expectations that i would be publisher,' he says via the mirror against Kaisa, 'but you know what happened? I was not a publisher. I lost my ambition, I got my faith is lost. My ambition was my faith. A man without faith is not much. Hardened, perhaps, clad. A tank. Watch us, Kaisa. What are we? People without faith. Though we have together. I float through space, I sit on one. To you my hand picked, since the stop light. When i sat up to you. That is the way it is. You had a hand to tackle other, but you picked the mine. What you thought, Kaisa? What you saw when i came over? It was my hat? Had you already addressed many people that day?'

He walks with her to the city. They on bare feet, He on sandals. Now and then he stays at a crossroads and he asks: 'Where are we going, Kaisa?' She pulls him than in the direction which according to its the best. They have a lunch in a petrol station and around four hours in the afternoon drink cola in a billiards club. Occasionally says something about the ship's steward daughter, his work, Africa. Kaisa listens without saying anything in return. Sometimes they whispers: 'money, Mr. Money.' than he gives her a few Namibian dollars, but she has nothing to keep them in. She has only those dress. In the event of a street vendor purchases a vibrant pouch for her. He show her that they are the Namibian dollars can stop. 'Look,' he says, 'this is the open and close.'

The state its, the pouch, the liven up her. They drag with them as a pupa.

In a park in the center of the city, he sit on a bench with a childrens play area. There are swings and two slides, a high and a low. Ship's steward is here the only white. First climbs on the low Kaisa slide, but after a few times they also dare of the high. Ship's steward runs to her by the sand, the prickles between its toes, the spiked in his wounds.

'Come on,' he says at the bottom of the slide, 'it is not eng.' He shall commence its on, and he remembers how his own children ever has acquired so.

He is at 5 p.m. for the internet cafe near Independence Avenue. Also doubt it. Then he runs the staircase that leads to the cafe. He is going to sit behind his fixed computer, the child on his lap.

'Here I come almost daily,' he says soft, 'to see if they mailed.'

He opens his e-mail, there are only e-mails of the wife and what advertising. He reads the e-mails that he has not received, that of the wife, he continues to sit behind the computer without doing anything. Soft he runs his fingers through the girl by her hair.

Still less shall take into account the environment. He forget what the environment could think about him. He withdraws. What they think about him is unimportant. Here in Namibia they may think everything.

Than he opens the briefcase and retrieves the note book of Tirza out. The SMS messages and that she has written about it will save and only occasionally Falls are a message, an eight pressurefrom drawing. Probably made when she was speaking on the telephone. Some people talk while having signs, he does not.

He picks up its agenda, browse the page where her e-mail address and the password.

Ship's steward is watching as if it were a letter. Although not intended for them, but a letter.

Type he then www.yahoo.com user name of Tirza and then its password: ibi83.

He sees the e-mails that he himself has sent and which never read it, he sees e-mails from friends and girlfriends, e-mails from people of whom he has never heard.

All those emails he not, he goes to 'Compose'.

The computer works slowly here. Nervous wait until the following screen appears.

He types his own e-mail address, and the subject: 'At last'.

That is nevertheless: at last.

With the child in his lap he begins an e-mail to write.

"Dear pap,' he type, 'sorry that you as long as nothing heard from me. But I am sitting in the desert and phones are not here in abundance. The nature is beautiful.'

He stop typing, looks the child on his lap. You are ', do you not? That nature here is beautiful?'

He rubs his head with a handkerchief and then also on the head of the child. Despite the air conditioning in the internet cafe sweating them both.

Then he continued: 'We stay here. As soon as we are back in the inhabited world, I will call. Not to be worried. I am happy. It is a good thing. I feel like an intense yumminess. Many pillow, greetings to mama. The sun visor Tirza Queen.'

She wrote that always under cards and letters: Tirza the solar queen.

And that of that intense yumminess she said ever against him when he was her had taken a long weekend to Paris. The bathroom in their hotel was nice and very large. In the evening in bath she cried to her father on the bed to watch tv was: 'Pap, I feel like an intense yumminess.'

He was to go to his daughter in bath to watch. 'Dat is the intention,' he said, 'that is also precisely the idea.' He felt when light, light and not overindebted.

There will be at least two times he reads the e-mail that he has written he on 'Send'.

The child is in his lap. It is to do good. It has everything followed what ship's steward has done and said and at the same time it all seems to be past her. Kaisa draws no conclusions from what they can see and hear.

Now he opens his own e-mail. He reads the e-mail has sent him Tirza net.

The sun visor Tirza 'Queen,' he says. More against themselves than against the girl on his lap. As if he surprised what he has written. Like he still did not expect.

From his inner pocket he retrieves his telephone and gazing to the message that Tirza sent him, he calls the wife.

She takes it quickly. She is probably in the garden, or in the living room on the sofa. In an old crypto grams to resolve.

'I,' he says.

'And? There is news?'

The child in his lap lasts her hands off to the keyboard. Gently he pushes the hand away.

'Yes, there is news. I have received an e-mail of Tirza.'

Ship's steward will continue to watch the message that he himself typed. It is for him that he does not know, is not yet good enough. He would the message should read again. He would have to learn from his head.

'It is in the desert,' he says.

'And? Is it correct? What happened? Why did they not also called or emailed earlier?'

The voice of the wife sounds very different than he is used.

'It is good. There is nothing happened.'

The wife does not sound relieved. Its relationship with Tirza has always been complicated. It appears that there would be no relief that her child is still alive. Life is not really a relief. The death perhaps. Ship's steward would agree to think about. If he has time. He understands itself not with which he has so busy.

'And what she writes?'

Ship's steward reads the e-mail in its entirety for. He is satisfied. The word choice, the short sentences. The message is not too long, and yet it is all about what should be in. That intense yumminess, that he likes. The touched him.

'And now?" asks the wife. 'you now to house?'

Ship's steward rubs his mouth. This is the question to which he has not included. On all questions, but not on that. 'I first go to the desert,' he says. 'I do find her now i am here. It must be nice. Empty, many sandy, this seems to have life when it started life.'

Also is they are silent. It seems as if the wife should think again. 'and the dress," she says, 'de dress that I have given you take that for her note?'

'Of course, of course I take that for her. He is located in my wardrobe. He will note. She will be pleased with them. It is a real desert dress.'

'Let's hear something," she says, 'let's hear something soon. I am pleased. And Ibi will also be pleased.' In her voice he hears a strange doubt. Doubt, he thinks, or they ever hear something of it will. The doubt that lets you talk about someone for always has disappeared.

'I will do,' he says, 'I will call you. As soon as I'm back from the desert i call you.'

'I miss you.'

He moves the phone from one ear to the other.

'What do you mean?'

'As I am doing.'

'That's not,' he says, 'You do me not to be missed. I come back again. And it is also too late, I mean to me to miss at all someone to miss.'

'It is empty here. Please forgive me something?'

He looks at the child in his lap.

'No, nothing. I mean, ach. Things as they are. I do not blame you take. That is what i mean. Nothing.'

'say that I of her Tirza hold, if you see her.' He considers that doubt in its voice to be heard, but he will represent themselves.

'I will.'

'And Jörgen…'

'Yes?'

'It will nevertheless,?'

He let the question unanswered. With a short greeting he closes the call.

He puts the child on the ground and pay at the desk.

'and the girl asks?' of the internet cafe. 'There is news? If you have something to learn?'

'They rightly,' he says, "my daughter, she is rightly, she is in the desert.'

'i said it not?'

He nods.

'Children' says the girl, 'not understand how worried parents can. I have one of two and only now I understand my mother.'

'Yes, yes, you understand your parents until you have children.' ship's steward says but what. He has never understood his parents and vice versa.

He leaves the matter. A corner away for the office of South African Airways he says against child: 'You must the people calm down. It is not always as tidy but it must. A calm man is a happy man. I can not against sadness, against panic. I want the people are calm. I hate hysteria. Emotions, that is the curse of this time, emotions.' He speaks the word out as if it is a dirty word. 'De openness, the proud out, faith in it,' he whispers, 'madness, madness. The feeling is a faith that needs to be overcome.'

Than he opens his briefcase to check whether he Tirza's notebook and its agenda has taken from the internet cafe. Everything must sit, is still in the bag. Only he still has no sharpener purchased. Forget the still. And he can also not remember what sharpener is in English.

'I Are you leaving,' he says, 'we need to say goodbye. It was nice, but I must go. I go to my daughter, and you go to your family. Thanks for everything.' He hesitates, he knows what he is no longer have to say. People clash with their shopping bags against him. 'You need me now really tell us where you live.'

He picks up her face, she crouches down next, and again he says with a hard, desperate voice, as if he is afraid to lose its never will become more: 'where you live, Kaisa? Your mother will surely want you to slowly but surely agree that home?'

She shakes her head. 'I must work,' she whispers.

It shakes the child by each other. 'Where do you live?' he calls in the main street of Wind Angle. 'Kaisa, where do you live?' people watch.

They call a name. A Street, a family, a district, a café perhaps. He has no idea.

It refers to a name that he did not remember and which he also has hardly means, but it is something it is enough.

'I bring you there,' he says.

On Independence Avenue he holds a taxi. In the taxi he let the child repeat the name. He has no idea where they go, but they go to the house of Kaisa. So much is certain.

The taxi is such a taxi that you share with other people. Others steps in and out. Ship's steward must take the child on her lap. Next to him is a fat Negress with two bags and in addition to her a man. In the small car he receives the slow stuffy.

'Is your mother sometimes worried,' he asks soft to the child, 'if you are a few days not home? She makes than ensuring?'

The child shakes the head, it may also be that ship's steward the his doctrine that the vehicle. The driver is hard. There are bumps in the road.

'I,' he says, "From the moment Tirza was born, i saw everywhere i saw everywhere accidents, the disaster. One moment of inattention. There was no more was needed. In order to always be punished. By Tirza i saw the world as it is, dangerous, by and by dangerous. Inhospitable and illogical. A HEATING tube, a elevator door, a bathtub, everywhere danger. Aching. Young children have no fear. You have to be their fear learning, you need the fear on them e.g. embossed, you must learn their shudder. "Au," you must say, "that is au. And that is au. And that too is au." You have young children afraid, otherwise they will go dead.'

They drive by depart from Windhoek where he never has been.

The child look outside, to Hofmeesters idea with a bored look. As if they have already been often has been driven. As if they already have seen on several occasions.

'and the Joy?' he says. 'Dat say the people than. The joy, life is still joy? Certainly, I have joy known. For example in the past. With Tirza. Sometimes I brought her running to the celloles. Then I told her stories, or they explained to me how everything was in. That was joy.'

He speaks the word 'joy' as 'Emotion'. A word that he will not his throat, a hostile word.

'You have also brought joy in my life, but further? Little, I say the fair. Joyless, that was it. Days long. Weeks. I should like to associate me. There will be other people with more joy in their life, but not much. If i had to edit, presented manuscripts i four pencils on table, four pencils all four of which were exactly the same length. It was for me the joy. I have the joy in the search for details.'

Both look outwards. There are few people on the street.

'It was nice,' he says soft, 'de time we have spent together, it was really nice, I will not forget. But I must continue.'

The thick woman with the shopping bags get off, together with the man. It is now a ship's steward only in the taxi, with the girl. She controls of his lap.

He opens and closes his briefcase.

They drive along the airport for domestic flights, Eros called, a strange name for an airport. Airport Eros, the name for an airport where we are looking for some fun specially.

He has the idea that they leave the city.

'Where are we going?' he asks. 'We will go to your mother, we go to your family, not?'

She nods.

It will be put right, he thinks. The child knows what they are doing. She has approached him, they will also need to know how they should be at home. She is not mad.

Then they are silent. Abrupt. Along the side of the road. No house to admit. A highway. But there is also bicycle tours. And walking.

'Is this?' he asks for the child. 'Are we there?'

There is no answer.

'What happened?' he asks to the driver. 'We have de Panne?'

There is something they all tell us what ship's steward not can be understood. He picks up the child at the shoulders. 'Are we there?' he asks. 'say what.'

He shakes her back.

She nods. 'Yes, Mr,' says they are soft but audible.

It pays, too much, but he cannot change waiting, he has no patience. He get off. Now they are on the side of what is called motorway in Namibia.

Ship's steward sees cabins, on the other side of the guard rail, small cabins with something like golf plate on the roofs.

Three men are meat on the grill on the two inverted rain barrels.

The Sun spiked in his eyes. He expresses his hat on his head.

The child grabs his hand and drags him continue, along the men who are grilling meat.

Here are no whites, and he feels that this will also not whites. This is not a nearby for him, this is not a place for him. They walk along identical formations that perhaps houses need to be mentioned. He does not. There are people living there. This justifies the word 'house'. But 'edifice' is better, does more justice to the truth. With a home is the as with beauty, on at anyone who looks. Ever faster pulls the child continue him. 'Wait,' he calls, 'not so fast. Do not pull so my briefcase.'

As he passes another human being, tail he to the ground, knowing that he is not here to hear, knowing that he hated. It makes him not. If you nowhere can, the hatred there also still at.

Yet he is afraid. Afraid to stoned or torn. Afraid to die, although he does not understand. Vreugdelozer than life can cause death are not, but quieter, calmer. More peaceful, especially that. In the death he sees what he has been unable to find life: healing.

'Where you bring me?' he whispers. "So, Tirza not.'

Only after a few seconds calls it up to him by that he has called her Tirza.

He does not even bother to make corrections. She has it not heard.

Still runs faster the child. And now he is the one who holds her hand. If they release me, he thinks, slippery them away in one of those cabins, and then I am lost, I do not know how I come to the highway. They will me from each other, slowly and smoothly silent. They will punish me for crimes of which I have not committed.

'Not so fast,' he says, "my feet hurt.'

After ten minutes they stand for a hut. The door is a shower curtain.

The vestibule consists of three empty pans on the ground. Then there is still a real door, at least, a truer door. Everything here is relatively.

The inside is dark. Ship's steward sees nothing. It smells only much. It smells like garbage.

The stench makes him week. The stench annoys him.

He narrows his eyes, opens them back, but still he sees nothing.

The floor consists of sandy, feels he and his sandals. He has the need to help to create a human voice should be heard. He feels the remarkable need to scream that God should come out. Not that he believers or believers is likely to be. But the idea that anyone today on him, that only the child sees him, that nobody further look at him, is unbearable.

'Kaisa,' he says, 'say something. Where are we?'

He slowly begins to become accustomed to the darkness. In the corner of the room is a man on a sort of bed. Under a cloth.

A woman.

The child pulls him to the woman.

'This is your mother?' he asks. 'Kaisa, this is your mother?'

He frunnikt to are required.

He clears his throat. 'I am Jörgen ship's steward,' he says with the hat in his hand. 'I have your daughter company held a few days. Or better said: They sent me a few days pet. The special days. We have spoken with one another, and that was very pleasant. Your daughter is a hot man, a sweet man.'

The mother is not dead, because they will open its eyes. It flashes with her eyes. The stench ensures that ship's steward feels unwell. He has in any case the unpleasant feeling that he is going to be unwell, that he must give in. That He will go in this hut puke as a dog, that he has the floor to crawl in his own vomit.

'You Mean me?' he asks. You may 'speaks African?'

She moves its lips, they seem to say something, but there is no sound from her mouth.

'I mean not your mother,' he says to Kaisa. 'I understand its not.'

But also Kaisa remains silent.

'I do not understand you,' he says.

He kneels down at the bed. His pants is already stained. In Africa, it makes no difference. This is not the Van Eeghenstraat. In Africa makes little difference. Other country, other rules.

There are fly in the face of the woman.

He gives them away.

'I do not understand you,' he says, 'but I am a friend of your daughter Kaisa, a friend from the Netherlands.'

They now moves her hands.

He is looking forward, he tail to the moving hands as to an exotic puppet play, and it takes him a few seconds to understand that the deaf language. That they go out against him language speaking.

He is. Weather frunnikt he Colbert. He is looking for something in the inner bags. 'I am deaf people do not speak the language,' he says overly loud and clear.

But he thinks: she is deaf dumb, that is it. She is deaf stupid.

'What does your mother?' he asks. 'I understand its not.'

He shout: 'I am deaf people do not speak the language.'

Ship's steward kneels for Kaisa. 'I must continue,' he says. 'I must return to the city. I will give you a kiss, Kaisa, I can not continue. I will give you a kiss. Do you know what your mother says?'

Silence. The sound of insects. The fly valleys with dozens of the same amount on head and body of Kaisa's mother. An airport for fly is that body, nothing else. An airport.

'Do you want company, sir?' whispers Kaisa. 'Sir?'

'No, no,' he says. 'No, no. She speaks the deaf language. You can see it not? She speaks the deaf language. Your mother. She says something, but we do not know what.'

He is looking for in his briefcase, but there is nothing. At least nothing helps him further.

From his trouser pockets he retrieves all loose Namibian dollars which he has, also in his inner pocket he still finds what money and with that money he sprinkles the body of the woman on the bed. Still moves her hands, manically. Maybe it is him in sign language to the swearing at.

'Here,' he says, 'Here, I do not understand you because I am the deaf do not speak the language. Here is some more money. For groceries. Or… for whatever.'

He shall leave the hut as a refugee. He rent, but his feet do too much pain to the long full account. He passes identical edifice. The smell of rot remains him. As Kaisa. They will be behind him. Quick she is. Very fast. She picks up his hand. And he goes back. He squeeze in the hands of Kaisa.

They walk along the men who meat roasting. They conjure up something to him, the men, but a ship's steward not remain. He also has no idea what they call.

'a taxi,' he says, 'we must maintain a taxi. Where can we find a taxi?'

He climbs up over the guard rail, he waves with his briefcase.

There are no cars.

Still it smell the stench. The death in Africa stinks.

'You don't say that you have left the mother so?' he asks. 'I have its money. They must see a doctor. I do not know what she has, but they have to go to a doctor. A doctor who sign language mastered.'

He bows to the child.

'You must now back home. You have to release it, you need to release the people, I have the people released. But you are too young to have them, you must hold them. That is why you must go back to your mother.'

A car comes along. He waves with his briefcase.

The vehicle does not stop.

Wind blows. There are blowing fine sand in his eyes.

'Kaisa,' he says, 'You can't. I go to the desert. I can not going anywhere. I am going to disappear. You can not. You should only do disappear. All you need to do is ultimately only, of course, as it is, but disappear you should really only do so. There you can use no one, especially children, Kaisa. No children.'

He runs a few meters along the guard rail. A truck over. The twilight sets in.

Kaisa runs behind him. She picks up his hand. 'Go away,' he calls. He puts his hat and waves them as with a whisk. 'Go away.'

He bending itself. He kneels on the hot asphalt. His hat in his hand, his briefcase under his arm.

'Kaisa, see you than not who i am?' he whispers. 'you see it not? Do you understand it not? I am what Tirza has made ill, I am the disease of the white middle class. I am the eetziekte.'

They remain stationary. She is not impressed by his words.

'What do you want of me?' he calls and he is again. 'What is it that you want me?'

She is coming closer. She pulls his hand, he must bend. He bending, deeper and deeper.

It puts its mouth when his ear and she whispers: 'Do you want company, sir?'

4

In Hertz he asks the same evening even to a jeep, but that they are not more. Also no small. They still have a light blue Toyota in the offer.

'Can I place the desert in?' he informs.

'If you do carefully,' says the girl from the rental company, 'You can create a final note. Do not drive the vehicle and in a sand storm. If there is a sand storm comes up, stop immediately. Also not slow driving. It has no meaning. You make the car there is only broken note.'

'Meteen stop,' reiterates ship's steward.

Later that evening he leaves the Heinitzburghotel. Because he has not checked out, he must pay an extra night. He did not care. Who loses enough, lose on a given moment are also efficiency. You put the economy as an unnecessary piece of clothing.

The people of the hotel it friendly but with clear remote Pentagon. Nobody informs more to his daughter. Or it is found. Or he is now going. The tip that he has on the bedside table left for the maids is him by the mistress of the nagebracht the maids, an old white woman. "It has you forget, Mr ship's steward.'

He does not dare to say that he has not forgotten the money, ashamed he takes.

During the day a young man who acts as a gardener helps him with the luggage. If the bag in the back of the Toyota, he points on his own shoes. Trainers.

'They are too big, gentleman,' he says. 'As four or five sizes.'

The child Hofmeesters hand, she looks to the man, whose skin color is darker than that of her.

'I have received them, but they are much too large,' says the gardener. 'I can't walk.'

The door of the door is already open. They are ready to leave, Tirza's father and his reisgenote.

"Have you money for good shoes?' The voice of the gardener sounds as if it is a question to which he should not have been. A PROHIBITED question.

Ship's steward looks to the bare feet of the Child on the shoes of the man. Also he also wonders what is such a problem is to large shoes. Better than no shoes, not?

Although a ship's steward the man for twenty Namibian dollars, gives him another hundred. He puts the child seats, show how the belt must be fastened.

His briefcase and his hat he explains on the rear bench seat. He waves to the gardener which if any of the staff outside the Dutchman who has remained so much longer than he had originally planned pentagon to do so.

Ship's steward is moving in the direction of Okahandja. It is already dark. The radio is on, the German program of Namibia. With schlager music. Music elsewhere hardly or not at all to hear. 'Theo wir drive'n nach Lodz. Steh Auf, du Altes Murmeltier, Bevor ich which verlier patience. Theo, wir drive'n nach Lodz.' ship's steward here. 'Du Altes Murmeltier,' he panting slightly. Occasionally he looks at the girl next to him, but they do not seem to respond to the music, nor on its geneurie.

Thirty kilometers north of Wind Angle he sees a sign: 'Okapuka Ranch'. He has too much momentum to quit on time. Than but by driving, he thinks. But after a kilometer or three he decides to return. He has the feeling that there is nothing more. That the Okapuka Ranch is the only opportunity to stop between Windhoek and Okahandja.

And he is tired, too tired to drive long.

For the gate of the Okapuka Ranch is a keeper that slowly, what a ship's steward, slowly, tormenting dialog they car authorised open.

Tirza's father observes the child next to him as a kidnapper are hostage. He would have to buy something for her, shoes, a new dress. If he gives the gardener shoes, he can also buy shoes for her? He has always been postponed. He found that the suspect, wrong associations could calls. He is looking for no special entertainment. At most you could say that he was looking for Tirza. No more than that.

'Yes?' asks the keeper.

'I am looking for a room for the night. Is the open here? The Okapuka Ranch?'

The keeper looks to the child that in addition to ship's steward. He has a flashlight with him, he appears with the car in.

Than he asks: "Have you reserved?'

Ship's steward shakes his head.

The keeper does nothing. He is there. Again he seems with the flashlight in the Toyota. Also on the rear bench seat, where Hofmeesters bag and hat.

Then opens the keeper slowly the gate. A sign warns that entering the premises at your own risk. There are wild animals.

The reception is still a final drive and the sandy road is lumpy. Ship's steward sensors caused hear the sound of stones. He says: 'We will destroy the auto'. The child is not responding.

Behind the reception there is a dark, regular woman.

Ship's steward explains which he comes. He apologizes that he has not reserved. Browse them not greatly interested in a book. There is no one here, in so far as he can see. A shop with souvenirs, but also that is empty.

'Would you still eat?' she asks.

'If the can.'

She looks at her watch. 'Dan need to quickly.' She points to the child. "Do you want a separate bed for her? A cot?'

'It is my niece,' says ship's steward, 'a double bed is fine.' And while he says that he realizes that he sounds like a man who are looking for some fun specially and that has been found. A man who has come to Africa to pick up what he had in his own country is not without problems.

'Hut eleven," she says. She gives him the key. 'De kitchen is open for a further half hour.'

He must be with the car to hut eleven. Walk with luggage is too far. The route leads through a dry river. He hears the sound of sensors caused stones.

The other cabins look deserted. Clearly there are not many guests on the Okapuka Ranch. It is not the season, or the Okapuka Ranch is not so in the Grace. In Windhoek, he had a café holder moaning: 'Namibia has become too expensive for the tourist.' polite if a ship's steward, he had an extra piece of apple strudel ordered. The German past of the country is at first sight especially in culinary quirks and some street names that you forget to change has: Bahnhofstraße for example. Ship's steward had long-term to the street sign.

He sjouwt with his suitcase to the hut. The child runs behind him. There is a ceiling fan. The bed is great, the room clean. A bright, but no unpleasant smell of wood and disinfectant. This is the Africa of the tourist. The world can be classified in tourist and staff. They always and everywhere to leave, the tourist, and those who operate the tourist. Have fun. Engaged. They do can.

Ship's steward washes his hands and attracts a new shirt that he also a few times has behaved in Windhoek, but that just a little less badly creased pitch than the shirt that he spent a whole day wearing them. The child runs around the room and remains at a chair. While a ship's steward his shirt close hangings, he looks at her and he thinks of her mother. A woman on a bed. A woman who it to a cow reminded, principally because of the fly on her face. He will associate fly with cows. Especially when they take place on the body and not more flys away. Were it to fly? Small insects, sure. Dozens of small insects. He is not at home in the animal world. He would also have to read a book about.

'Was your mother always been deaf stupid?' he asks, while he with the knots is in progress. 'Is they so born?'

The child laughs Glint, or is that Hofmeesters imagination? The shaking your head. Aha, the mother is therefore only at a later age become deaf stupid.

'You mother was previously laid a beautiful woman,' he says.

He grabs her hand. 'Let's go food. Do not worry about your mother. I have money left for her. I have money on her bed down, enough to do some shopping. For a week. For a month. They must once again. Too much sleep is unhealthy. There is a human being depressed. Motion, even if you feel uncomfortable, that is healing. O, it is all well with your mother.'

He is talking about as an elderly person during the daily coffee-hour, but he can not help to: he wants reassurance. He must reassure them.

By sharp grass they walk in the direction of the dining room. The child keeps his hand. They remain stationary. 'Meneer," she says.

She points to a beast.

He had not seen. His thoughts were elsewhere. In the Van Eeghenstraat. In the event of the wife, the dress that they purchased for Tirza. Years she has nothing to make themselves heard and when she came back with a dress for the trip around the world. Typically the wife. Unpredictable. Impulsive.

The beast is a meter or twenty of them removed. Ship's steward knows the only photos in books. Here Tirza wanted. Namibia. For the wild animals, but especially for something else, the culture. Culture. He smiles.

The beast flees, disappears in the darkness, makes virtually no noise.

Ship's steward does not believe in culture, in so far as you can believe. What is culture? Its survival strategy is that of adaptation, the ability to make yourself invisible. Or would also culture? How onzichtbaarder, the better. The invisible is immune.

But his children otherwise he attempted to educate, as critical individuals in the Community no safety net but a cage. That Excel, in the swimming pool, on the music school, in Latin and Greek, in mathematics and the natural sciences. And then comes the money itself. All real freedom is money, and if money can buy no freedom, there is simply not enough money. But where he sees Tirza freedom, and Ibi a capitalist conspiracy where. That is back in the mode. And how often a ship's steward also has argued that it is not a conspiracy is that the freedom is, they want to do not believe him.

When she was a child, had every reason to Tirza be happy. She was high-high gifted, they participated in swimming competitions, and they won, they played better cello than other children of her age. And at the height of her high-high nous she decided itself to starve to death. A sin, an offense.

'Mewe huh?' says ship's steward against the child. 'Mewe huh?' he knows not whether he now has the beast that they have seen to run, the sharp grass, the hut, or just the world an sich.

The dining room is composed of at least 18 tables, of which there are only three are busy. Older people. South Africans to hear so, also two Germans of slightly more than middle aged.

We look to the even for Namibian concepts unusual set. The old white and the young, the particular young black. And then there is always the confrontational moment of shame, the time that ship's steward would like to put things right, would like to declare itself. But it takes less time each day. Each day there is more readily distinguishable. The moral breaks little by little. Every day he is a little more the man who is here in him is going to see: a westerner with an unmistakable desire for special entertainment.

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.'

The wine is on, but its cola not yet. He picks up its glass. 'MAG I?' he asks. He takes a few swallow. It tastes like it. But he has thirst.

'The story. Yes,' he says, 'the story of the family ship's steward is the destruction of the family ship's steward. That is the story. That is my story. A world without compassion is onvoorstelbaarder than the own death, therefore, we are still on the back, therefore it should be depends. I had in several places in my life have thought: I must back. This road is not mine, this road is not the best. But I did not go back. O certainly, Kaisa, sure…'

He is on, he will stand beside her, puts his hands on her head in her dress, that part of the back of the dress is not covered. 'There are choices,' he says, 'die are correct, there are choices that are bad, there are cases of doubt. As the highest form of compassion consists that you and the other in life, I can only confirm: I am a man without compassion. I lost my control, perhaps. But only when I lost my control, i was who i am. That portion of Jörgen ship's steward that outside the law is his hard core. That is why I am here. So here I am. Because I no longer need to have doubts about who i am.'

The child is running her face toward him. She looks at him. She is not afraid, why? She seems even to laugh. She smiles at the man who say things that they do not understand, words to which they probably do not agree to listen to me.

From the kitchen is music. The German-speaking transmitter of Namibia. Again.

Both listen to the radio them in the distance, without any can mean. And they smile.

And because they smiles, because they finally smiles, he says: 'Kaisa, there is a difference between forgiveness and acceptance? I forgive the world by its to accept. I accept everything. There is nothing I do not accept. And you? You saw me walk, on an afternoon in Windhoek, a hot afternoon. You saw a man who was difficult, because he had wounds to his feet. Of the heat. Shoes knelden. And you came back to me. I do not know why. Does it matter? You picked my hand, you went. We can grant meaning to. That it was supposed to be. It is not possible otherwise. That someone there is an intention to have. Perhaps it had to be, but perhaps not. What is important is that you are there. That we both outside the law. This is what it is all about.'

He bending, are looking for under the table, but he has this evening his bag not included. Forget the again and again. The bag is in the hut. Ship's steward does the child at hand. She finds its seat slide. He is 'Sir' and it is 'company'. That is their game. Now it takes all days.

In the dark, probably as a result of the wine road, he may no longer eleven to hut so easy to find. They walk through the high grass. Slowly. Kaisa cannot quickly, ship's steward can also not quickly. Not at this hour of the night. Not by the high grass. Not here in Namibia, with are still slightly swollen feet.

They run laps. Ship's steward notes, and he says: 'We walk rounds. Where is our hut, Kaisa?'

He takes the child on his shoulders. 'Where is our hut?' he asks. 'Where we live?'

Yet he is running slower now, afraid if he is to fall.

He carefully place the child back on the ground.

'Tirza,' he says, 'Tirza. Yes. The problem with Tirza was that they have high-high gifted was…. High-high gifted. The last few years I lived with her only.'

He is going to sit in the grass.

'Her sister was already to France, my wife was moved to her childhood love. I was only with Tirza and actually, in hindsight, it was the best time of my life. I cooked for her. I am not occupied herself too much more with her life. That I had done. But that was a mistake.'

He is. Something by the substance of the spiked his pants. After five minutes they have finally found eleven hut

Ship's steward does the fan. From his briefcase he retrieves Tirza's iPod. He let the engraving to the child. 'Solar Queen,' he says, 'is there. Sun Queen.'

He charges iPod on, stops the earphones of the device in the ears of the child.

'It is the music listening Tirza,' he says. 'It is her music.'

Ship's steward will sit on the bed while the child to Tirza's music. The fan is running and also knows no longer ship's steward for which he has travelled to Namibia. He remembers still limited. His own past seems a different life. Someone else has it lived, someone else was writer foreign fiction, someone else is on all those places, someone else wanted to abolish the love. He was always in Namibia, with Kaisa.

The next morning they drive in one flick through to Swakopmund, a coastal town. There are many tourist, more than elsewhere. Ordinary tourist also. With charter flights from Germany, for the Sun and the sea and a hint of Exotica. Not of those people who have something special with Africa. They have something special with the sun, they maintained an intimate relationship with their bikini.

Together with the child he moved into the small Eberwein Hotel, not far from the beach. We talk is fluent in German and also the device does very German.

Mrs Eberwein itself is behind the reception. Wrinkled and dried out by the sun but kwiek and even a tad aggressive. Mrs Eberwein here is the boss. Nobody will doubt. It is her hotel. She asks or ship's steward a cot. Here he declares that a large double bed is fine. 'We will not remain long,' he says. 'It is my niece.'

And because it cannot be, he would like the photo of Tirza on the counter. "Have you this girl here may have seen in the last couple of weeks?'

The Woman with White, probably painted, curly hair looking forward. She picks the photo even momentarily. 'No," she says, 'never seen. Who is it?'

My daughter,' says ship's steward, 'my youngest daughter.'

Mrs Eberwein brings the picture even closer to her eyes. 'It looks similar to you," she says. 'They did your chin.'

And then she looks to the girl that in addition to ship's steward. Like Mrs Eberwein the chin of the girl you wish to check.

Ship's steward runs with the child on the beach, tail with the child on the pier to fishing, shares a salad with her in café Out of Africa, and is, while they are in a merry, called by his wife.

He tells the wife almost everything about his travel, accommodation, Toyota, Swakopmund, except for the child.

'I am almost in the desert,' he says, 'I am almost at Tirza. It is still a day of riding.'

'Ibi,' says the wife, 'it is strange that it has heard nothing of Tirza.'

Her voice has still not the invigorating and hoarse sarcasm that he is so much of its usual. The schor that some men as defeats.

'Ibi should not always believe they are the most important.'

There is a silence in the conversation. The merry slows down. Kaisa climbs of her horse. Ship's steward lent its.

'And how do we?' he asks. 'How is it?'

The Van Eeghenstraat seems so far away. A different world. All not more to his.

'Well," she says, 'this is good. Jörgen, what I wanted to say yet, I have a phone call from the mother of Choukri had. Initially i had no idea who it was. They spoke French.'

Kaisa is now next to him. He directs that they still have a round with the merry-go-round mag. Have another round and another and another. He gives its money. But they are its main against his body. As if they were tired. As if they trust him.

Who knows they trust him. It is a matter of time, and need. Especially the last.

He knows no compassion, but he is to trust.

'Jörgen, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'De mother of Choukri called. She asked where her son was. My French is not so good.'

'I thought he had no contact with his family. The boy.'

'Oh, well yes they sounded… they sounded likeable but worried.'

'You have yet been said that they sit in the desert? What do you think that people, that there in the desert to the ten meters a telephone box condition? They come from the desert.'

'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.

He had not included. That would be the desert popular.

The girl behind the desk says: 'Try the Kulala Desert Lodge, maybe they have to do something. I can also call?'

'like'.

He is up there with the child to his hand. Dusty and thirsty.

One of those tourists who travel not good had prepared. Sloppy tourist.

The receptionist phone. There is space in the Kulala Desert Lodge. He thanks very much for the trouble.

Despite fatigue and thirst he drives hard further. Almost a hundred kilometers per hour on a sandy road.

If they finally a sign with the Kulala see it is already dark,

The small road — a road it is difficult to say — that there is still performs almost six kilometers long. They are doing there is a quarter of an hour. The only light is that of the vehicle. Ship's steward has ever more difficult to concentrate.

He finally to the Kulala Desert Lodge. A tent camp. But the tents are no tents. The are cabins in the desert.

He park the car. He takes a child, hat and briefcase and runs to the entrance. He staggers, he is dizzy. He probably eaten too little or too little drunk.

There is a young woman at the entrance with a tray. They give him a drink. She has a cloth ornate for its capital skipped.

Ship's steward drink eager, the drink tastes at the same time to tea and alcohol. Also the child drink. Today she wears her new training trousers.

She looks good. Less than in its paid sletterig dress, in so far as a child can look like sletterig there. The word reminds him to the wife. Sletterig, a word as a game that is played for a long time not.

'I am Jörgen ship's steward,' he says, 'there is just called on behalf of me. For one or two nights. Do I need to register somewhere?'

'All comes later," she says.

A man comes on him. A white. The man shows a young Frenchman. It is called a ship's steward welcome, says that all formalities will be dealt with later, asks whether they want to eat something first. Also the baggage will later be removed from the vehicle. Now they should first but rest. Relax.

Ship's steward is led to a table. He is so tired that he forget to turn off his hat. Too tired to brands or and how there to him and the child is being looked at carefully.

If a basket with home-baked bread on the table appears, food he and the child the within five minutes.

'Kaisa,' he says, 'we are there. We are almost there.'

And finally she says what. For the first time that day. With a smile on her face, a smile that almost seems ironic. 'Meneer," she says, 'more bread, dates.'

He beckons one of the girls. They come with more bread. The girl remains at the table and look at the child.

'Your daughter?' she asks.

'My cousin,' says ship's steward.

This will start the girl to sing. She sings in a language which he cannot mean and she makes klak noises with its tongue. She has a beautiful voice, but he wants no singing. He wants to eat, sleep, disappear.

If the girl is sung, caresses on her arm ship's steward Kaisa. While they are in a piece of homemade bread nibbles.

'Not all bread food,' whispers, 'otherwise have a ship's steward you will not be hungry.'

Also it stops chewing. She smiles at the man with whom they are already a few days on a trip.

It makes its not, he thinks. It makes its not from who i am. Also indifference can forgiveness.

After the meal he gives the car keys to a boy who the luggage for a preview of the hut. But after a few minutes the boy is back. He gets the tailgate will not open.

'I think that there are too many sand and dust in the lock,' he says. 'We will tomorrow rinsing. But I am afraid that you now without luggage must spend the night. Is that a big problem? If you have something?'

'No,' says ship's steward. 'No problem. We needed anything.'

They are by the Frenchman to their stay. The cabins are relatively far away from each other. They must be carefully walk. The road is marked with stones, but there is not a lot of light. Sand and dust everywhere.

'Beware,' says the Frenchman. 'Meestal the guests previously. If the light is still.'

The hut meets Hofmeesters expectations. A bed, a fan, a spray against insects, a shower.

'If you want,' says the Frenchman, 'you can sleep on top of the roof. There are blankets. Some people find it convenient to under the starry sky to sleep. It is a special experience. An attraction.'

They walk from the outside toward the rear of the hut, where a ladder condition.

The child has remained within.

Ship's steward nods. 'Are you already long here?' he asks.

'a year or three,' says the Frenchman. 'It is really time that I will continue. But I cannot say goodbye. The desert is addictive.'

They look at the top, to the hut and to the bed that is located on the roof. No bid farewell to. It is a ship's steward known for and we are not. What is so special about this place is that you can?

'And how are you here?" requires a ship's steward.

The Frenchman laughs. "I wanted to know what else.' He is also still as if he expects that there will be even more questions. Than he says: 'Well, I leave you alone. Tomorrow we paint cleaning your car and you will hopefully your luggage. And then you must also show you know which excursions you want to join them.'

Ship's steward goes back into the cabin. He washes his hands. The water is remarkable warm.

'We have no toothbrush,' he says. 'De toothbrush is still in the back and that they are not open. But it does not, yet?'

He goes away from depends his clothes in a small box.

'Would you like this persist?' he asks. 'Now we need your usual nightdress not with us?' he draws attention to the training pants, the t-shirt.

The child is nodding. It is a good thing.

He looks around. There is no phone in the room. Everything is there, on a telephone after. He opens his own telephone. Range has also not here.

As state in his pants. He saves the blankets open, but then think about something. 'Would you perhaps sleep outside?' he asks. 'Outside. On the roof? In order to watch to heaven? The star?'

He points to the ceiling as if he were a little afraid that they do not understand.

'On the roof?' he asks again.

"Yes," she says, "on the roof.'

A little shocked by this answer with the child ship's steward runs to the rear of the hut. The sandy does not feel uncomfortable with his bare feet. He did not know that they wanted. Sleeping on the roof. Well why not. It is an attraction. Perhaps has done the same Tirza.

'You Go first,' he says. 'If you fall, than to catch up.'

Climb slowly the child the ladder. They are halfway. She looks down.

Go 'but' says ship's steward. He pushes against her buttocks, afraid if he is that they will get unexpected fear of heights. Afraid that they will fall.

The ascent of the ladder costs him more effort than he had expected. Stiff joints, muscle weakness, the expiration.

Without the rather blankets cold on the roof. The nights are fresh in the desert.

He pulls the blankets about themselves and the child.

The child remains shivering.

'come but,' he says, 'I hold you.'

While he holds Kaisa, he looks to the sky. Star. Indeed, as promised. This is nice, he thinks, but why is this nice? It is an appointment? Or find all people the nice without something of the appointment to know?

The Sleeping would not come, while he has traveled throughout the day and tired. After a time he notes that the child does not sleep.

She has her eyes open.

Just as he is. But she looks or sleep with her eyes open?

You need to look at the stars? Is that the intention of this attraction? Specially designed for the westerner, so that this is also know what it is, the naked sky.

'Kaisa,' he says, 'sleep you already?'

There is no answer.

'Have you the cold?' he asks. 'Kaisa?'

Again no answer. He feels something on his cheek. A manual. The basis of Kaisa.

They purr of him, it seems. She has her hand on his face. But its main has not moved.

He is not seeing. The manual remains lie.

Silence. Silence and darkness. That is the desert in the night. Occasionally the sound of the wind.

'You know what it was with Tirza,' he says soft, 'You know what it was?' he does not need to whisper, but he does it. It is so quiet here, his voice seems tens of meters away. 'They seemed to me. That was it. She was… She was…'

The hand moves slowly on his face, as the basis of a blind. It is not a stroke is the search. But what are the hand, Kaisa's hand?

'I came the living room,' he whispers, 'de living room which has been my parents, and there it was. On the table. Tirza. She heard me. He also not. It makes so much noise, Kaisa, sex. It is so noisy, that makes it all the unpleasant for third parties. The noise. The noise. Nothing but noise.'

The hand on the face of a ship's steward does not moving. His mouth. Its ears. His nose. Everything is touched.

'I actually wanted to leave. To the kitchen. I was doing something. I do not remember what. Drinking wine. I think. Italian gewürztraminer. But I stopped. I found it strange that they had heard me. That is why I continued to watch. It was so love Loos, Kaisa. Suddenly I saw that. How love free it was. How To…'

His lips are dry. He has a thirst, but he has not taken up water and he is too tired now to go down in the hut to find a bottle.

The manual is silent on the nose. It is not unpleasant sensation. It is a pleasant hand. A soft grip.

'Love Free is sex,' he whispers, 'in general, always under all conditions, I thought. That i saw. The had me not be surprised, and yet surprised me. I mean the beast knows no love, the Kent at most rage. Hunger, Thirst, fatigue. And I thought: what is happening here? What is happening here? What is going on here? My daughter is getting a good service, that is the problem that is happening here. And those words, a good service, remained in my head, remained orbiting around, they did not want to leave as a… as a prayer, Kaisa. A good service, I thought, a good service, that is what my daughter is getting of life. And I looked at his buttocks, the buttocks of Mohammed Atta, and I thought: what are they white. What he has a white buttocks for a brown man. What funny. White buttocks. I was there at the fireplace, I saw them go up and down, which buttocks, like a movie. I had to go as i was received, silent and cautious, but i did not go. I did not believe me. I stayed there to watch, to which white buttocks.'

The manual is now on his cheek. The fingers seem to play the piano on his cheek. And he thinks that it is me the tickling. They tickling sensation.

'Kaisa,' he whispers, 'You can you not imagine, but as i was there. Minutes seemed, in reality but seconds, but it seemed minutes, hours, half a life. And although i said nothing and did nothing, they saw me suddenly, or they had heard. What try. In any case arising Mohammed Atta his head. And I thought: this is what I have already said all experienced. I am so old that i have seen everything twice. And Tirza saw me also and they climbed from table. She was not even completely naked. She was… She was half-naked, not naked actually. And I thought: why on my dining table? A dining table is a table where you can eat as the word says. You eat it. I thought: Mohammed Atta, you have my money from me declined, and now you take my daughter on my dining table, on the dining table which has been my parents. Well, they did the last years of their life is no longer open, but that is another story.'

The basis of the child moves now on his forehead.

'Kaisa,' he whispers, 'your hand is so soft. So soft. Fine is that.' He thinks after. A few seconds, a minute. 'Yes,' he says, 'she was there, and she said, Tirza: "Papa, what are you doing here?" Not angry, surprised. Maybe a little appalled that i stood there. I had better ask: "What are you doing here? This is a dining table. Our dining table. We are not going to eat in the future." But I thought: what is Tirza especially nice, what is they love. What she has a sweet face. And beautiful eyes and a good character. A caring nature. If toddler though she was so considerate. We did not have to apply only on her, they also on us. And I was thinking of her shoes, its first shoes, which I bought for her. They were so small, that there are three, four in one hand sonically. I have kept them, the first shoes of Tirza, somewhere in the Van Eeghenstraat in a box. And I thought: it is the solar queen, I thought, my solar queen is they, my love most solar queen. And when I grabbed the shift knob and i hit on its head. They immediately fell in each other and i hit one more time when they are already on the ground, and again, and while I did I continued to think that it is my solar queen, she is my love most solar queen. She is the solar queen. And to her shoes I thought, her very first shoes. Blue they were, without laces, tangle with straps.'

He feels that there is a hand on his face is located, the warmth of the Child, which he also feels, go not much more.

'Kaisa,' ship's steward, 'franchise whispers hand is so nice. Your hand… Now you know who I am. I did not do so. You do not know who you are, until you are losing control. Only then called to you by. And he that Atta, you know what he did? He stormed away. The hero. He assumed by. I found him in the kitchen. He rattled, he rilde. He was… he was nothing more. A wreck. Nothing. No man. Nothing at all.'

Hofmeesters foot is dry. He gulps a few times.

'Kaisa,' whispers, 'ship's steward Kaisa. Atta was in my kitchen at the door, he had not even taken the time to dress decently. And you know what he said? "I implore you, Mr ship's steward. I beseech you," he said that. And it is at that moment I understood that I have in my hands poker. The poker of my parents. And he begged and jammerde. I moan? When Mohammed Atta afpakte my money, and my daughter? I never moan. I did a step in his direction and at that time he grabbed my Stihl, which I have in the kitchen had put down to dry and clean. My saw. The whole day i had worked in the garden. I love to work in the garden.'

There will be more wind. The sound of the ship's steward reassure proposes. It gives him the idea that nobody hear him, even Kaisa not. 'Fruit trees you must properly maintained,' he whispers, 'de garden you must maintain, dead spruce refraining, pull out weeds, grass seeding. That is my work. I quite like that. I leave me my Stihl MS 170 not reduced and certainly not by Atta. I left the gear lever and I picked up the saw from his hands. He had him not even properly. He does not know how you have such a thing must operate, how you must grasp Him. He rattled too much. He was in the war, he was common practice.'

He feels Kaisa's foot against his leg, but even more than that her hand on his head. 'Kaisa,' he whispers, 'Kaisa. My Kaisa. He ran to the living room as a cat in the closely. With his pants still on its knees. Atta. I went to follow him. What should I do? I could not let him escape, i had no choice, Kaisa. He stood there, completely in a panic. In the war. A nerve collapse near. And on the table, on the dining table, was always that Monopoly game and its Koranic. A green paper with a hard cover. I looked forward, with the saw in my hand. And when I was all clear. I understood the, the misunderstanding, the error, the irrational that on this earth as a ghost hunts, if a hurricane. I said to him: "Atta, who do you think is stronger, Allah or the MS 170? Pray To Allah, perhaps he can help you. Or to the prophet, perhaps the prophet you help, Atta." But he did not pray. He refused to pray. Can you imagine that? I ruptured a page from the Koran and i said: "If you do not want to pray, you'll eat, Atta." I stuffed his willie the page in his mouth. And he ate. He ate, Kaisa. But there was no help. Of course there was no help. I was the aid. "And pull back today you, o the guilty," was there on the page, and more of that kind of cries. I came closer, Kaisa, even closer to Atta, ever closer. I could smell him, fear stinks, the smell of Fear goes through anything, and on the basis was my daughter, my solar queen. She was cured of her illness, but apparently not completely, not me, of me was not cured, I do not think we can cure.

What could I do? He had a page of the Koran in his mouth, Mohammed Atta, if a circus beast. He did not dare agree to swallow it. He does not. kauwde Staring at me. If a monkey. "Where is Allah," I asked? "Where is the Prophet? Why are they not come to you to help? You may not have enough, you may not have enough surrender prayers? Call up yet again. Allah, call on him but, call on him as you dog calls that get lost in the park. Let us call him, Atta, perhaps he comes when we call him. Perhaps it was a bit deaf." And you know what he said, you know what he replied to that page of the Koran even in his mouth? "I am Mohammed Atta did not. I am Mohammed Atta did not." "Of course," I said, "you will not say that you are Mohammed Atta Of course you would use an alias. Who has the courage to admit that today he is Mohammed Atta?" Then I did the MS 170, and once that is turned on, then you hear little more, no prayers, no votes, actually no roar, then you hear only the MS 170, that is a kind of music. Above that music I cried out, "Call again, Atta. Call again very hard to Allah. Perhaps he understood you not because of your accent. Perhaps it is Allah also on holiday." But Atta said nothing more. And then I cut him, as a fruit tree. If a diseased fruit tree with all dead branches. The left-hand side first and then the right side, and then the bottom and all the way to the end of the top. The MS 170 is a compact saw, but he goes through everywhere. That is why amateur gardeners just love him. He is also economical in use.'

He turns around. The manual now rests on the back of their heads.

'Kaisa,' he whispers, 'Kaisa. My Kaisa. I crops in the kitchen, as best they went, and my clothes clean brushed and a shirt attracted that still of my father had been. Because my own shirt was not more clean. It was dirty. Then I go get food in the village. A rice table. A small rice table for 3 people. With extra Prawn Chips. And i have that rice table all the way in my own eaten. I had such a hunger, such a frantic hunger i had, some trays i empty slick. Kaisa, you also have sometimes such a hungry? I then a pit dug into the garden. I am the whole night. I had no time for two pits. And I have the children were put, I have dragged them there i must say, with my last strength. The solar queen in its entirety, the other in chunks. As you of the remnants of the cuts in the coarse dirt anywhere. And then I slammed the codend. I have the garden is so beautiful made possible, he was still of my parents. And when I first myself then washed and the MS 170 cleaned and then the House, because everywhere was the juice of the fruit tree to find. Everywhere I and leaves of the foodplant had forgotten to stop in the codend. You do not know who Atta was, you do not know what he would have done with us if he had had the chance. And when everything was clean, everything was to side, only the Koran was on the table. And that I started to read. There was only one page torn. I am a curious person. I could not sleep. There are some interesting things in it. 'truly have the owners of the garden on that day is a joyful pastime,' I read. Such things. And I thought: that I am, I am the owner of the garden. But the MS 170 is stronger than Allah, stronger than God also, more powerful than Jesus. The Stihl MS 170 is the ruler, Kaisa, our ruler. And all that while I thought, I felt nothing. To ensure the most practical things. Or the house, but was really clean. Or I had forgotten nothing. I do not have slept, just gedommeld, and in the morning i have breakfast made for three people. I shaved and the zalfje used against my dry skin against dander. And then I went to the airport of Frankfurt driven. And I have the children waved goodbye, until I saw them anymore.

Now you know who I am, and why I am here. Because I Tirza search, while I know that they will never has been. But the strange thing is, there are moments when I doubt. That I know for sure. I think: it was all a game, a game in my own main. I guess they are nevertheless to Namibia has flown Atta, that I am not the things recall correctly. I can not imagine that I shall never see Tirza. It is crazy but for many years I have had a vague inkling that I was a sample, a beast. And when i finally confirmed that suspicion, I could not believe it. In the past, when I was young, when I played with my wife, we played that I was the beast that at night by the Vondelpark was puttering at. To all this I am here in Namibia, Kaisa, to disappear to resolve, because I can no longer. Perhaps that is the definition of the game that you can always go back to whom you were for the game began. But I can not go back. I am cut off from whom I was, Kaisa. I am for you without a future, without the past, neutral if a banknote. A Westerner, one of the many, lost in his own life. They say they spirituality search, or rest or something else, but they are all the same mean Kaisa disappear. I WANT… I like you say how nice it is to speak with you. Your Pet is… you company is important for me. People have company needed for they disappear.'

He is now saying nothing more, but he could not sleep. It is located in the desert, feel the warmth of the child, dig in its memory and taste the flavor of old wine in his mouth. There is nothing monsterlijks to him. Everything monstrous to him, is buried in its memory. He is there as a child.

Stiff ship's steward awake. He also continues to lie and gives Kaisa. It is seven hours in the morning.

In the hut he takes a shower, a short, because he wants Kaisa also have some hot water. Then elongates he.

At breakfast asks the Frenchman or they want to participate in an excursion. 'like' says ship's steward, 'de desert we want to see the dunes.'

'I will be a separate excursion organise for you,' says the Frenchman, 'because you have a child with you. Most people without children here. At half past three Elago will pick you up.'

'Dank you,' says ship's steward.

'No thank you,' says the Frenchman. He seems to want to drain off, but he remains in place. 'It is born here?' he asks. He points to the child. Ship's steward nods and than nods the Frenchman, as also the answer he was expecting. And as if he were already knew. 'If you still need something, and o, for I forget it, we have your car clean painted, the luggage will be brought to your hut.' The Frenchman goes to the following table.

Ship's steward looks after him. A friendly man in a Khaki trousers. Who knows what he was in France. What he has done.

They spend the day on the edge of the small swimming pool. Occasionally the child there with her feet. But they do not dare to swim or they can not swim.

Ship's steward is located on a chair, he has his shirt open knotted, he refuses the all the way out.

To half a long, 3 black man to ship's steward. Elago.

The jeep has been converted and extended. The chairs are set down as a tribune, so you over the heads of the people for you to enjoy the views.

But there are no other people. The ship's steward, Kaisa, and Elago.

They drive away, first slowly and then faster and faster. Elago talk much and makes jokes that rather bland, but where a ship's steward of courtesy to laughs.

The desert is constantly changing of color, the desert is becoming increasingly more reddish.

Stones are here not or hardly. Only sand, and some bare shrubs.

'If you are coming from the nearby?' requires a ship's steward if they are stopped in the event of a dune. Press the Silence heavy on him.

'I come from the north of the country,' says Elago. 'Dear is also my family.'

'And go often?'

'We work three months, then we have three weeks. About two weeks i back.'

They drive another piece of further. In the event of two high dunes they stop. 'It is Big Daddy,' says Elago, 'and that is Big Mama. Big Mama is slightly less high than Big Daddy, but the view is the same.' He please wait. 'If you want to top, if you want to Big Mama, still going to be here with the child. Here are normally more people around sunrise which. But now it is quiet. The dune is completely of you.'

'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.

'Where are you?" requires Elago. 'I was thinking that you will never again would be. I was worried because of the child. She wanted per se with you, Sir. She was not.'

Then he sees that ship's steward nothing more to his feet.

'Your shoes, sir.'

'They are disadvantaged on the dune,' says ship's steward, 'no problem. Surely it is too hot for sandals.'

Now they are both barefoot, he and the child.

He climbs into the jeep, does his hat.

'Would you like to drink?' requires Elago.

'Water' says ship's steward.

The child sits down next to him and as if it were the case is still not trust, as if a ship's steward again at any time an attempt to escape can do, keeps the Hofmeesters hand. The entire ride back to the Kulala Desert Lodge.

The following morning in the morning they drive further south. The Desert has a ship's steward nothing more to offer.

On the card he has seen that there is a small town on the coast, Lüderitz, he wants. Since he must then only a times try: disappear.

He thought there in one day be able to travel, but the roads are bad. He stops halfway to a farm where rooms are rented.

The Peasant Man and woman are children of German emigrants have also on age, which the German tradition.

I would first like to give it a ship's steward no room. 'Where are your shoes?" asks the peasant girl.

'I have they lost in the desert.'

'What are you nice German,' says the peasant woman, 'where have you learned? I can hear that you are not a German, but you does very your best.'

'I have learned at the university, I am almost promoted.'

That is a response that will reassure her. His conversation talent has fulfilled its obligation is fulfilled.

Ship's steward understands that decent people shoes to their feet, but they are really to be swollen. The farmer is on its old day mild and wise enough to see that some tourists who have no idea where they went to their shoes can lose in the sand. But nevertheless civilised.

He will get a room with two single beds that are not next to each other. The mattress is hard. The air in the room is stuffy. In the box you will he forget a piece of clothing of a previous guest: a t-shirt.

During dinner, there are meatballs served and slightly too long cooked cabbage, the call on Gravity Heinrich Göring, the father of Hermann, who is here in Namibia Commissioner was of the emperor, and at least for some rest did to ensure.

The Peasant Man and woman food itself not, they have eaten, but they keep a close eye on what their guests all the way to the inner stop and also what they are.

'The indigenous people had respect for him,' says the peasant girl.

Ship's steward is limited to kinks. He has views of a cabinet with glass doors, with what porcelain. And next to the box on a large cross.

The conversation goes in German. Neatly German without loan words from other languages.

'In Lüderitz," she says, 'must you but a few sturdy shoes buy. Although we always go to Keet Mans hope to do some shopping.'

And to nine hours she says: 'nine hours, which is midnight for the farmer. We do the lights off.'

Kaisa is asleep at the table.

With the child in his arms is a ship's steward to his room.

He is too tired to themselves and to dress the child. They are going to lay in bed as they are. Sticky and dirty. Insignificant.

During the breakfast the next morning the Peasant Man and woman at a ship's steward and Kaisa. They are apparently a landmark. Many tourists come here and those not along long, driving through quickly.

There is on the drought. The farmer says: 'We do there are two, three years on a cow fat.'

He says the with sadness, but also through resignation.

'Our herd has been contracted,' says the farmer. He points to his wife: 'And now we too.' shrink

The word is a ship's steward on and pay.

When they sit in the vehicle and he and the child looks he understands that, how many circles he also by this country will drive, he that at a given moment will have to stop. You can not forever from one place to another. What he said about the child applies to him, more for him, much more for him. He is without a future but not as he had expected, without despair. That he still has disappeared and that he actually does not know how to do that, makes him puzzled. He has no idea how to say goodbye to the life of their own. And yet, so difficult is it not possible.

Sixty kilometers for the town of Aus they receive on the sandy road a burst tire. Ship's steward get together with the child. The sun is bright and sharp.

They need help. There is a spare wheel, but I am not the only ship's steward to be swapped.

They continue along the side of the road to wave cars that pass by. There are very few cars over.

His briefcase means a ship's steward above the head of the Girl, for her to protect against the sun.

They say nothing against each other.

But they will remain close to him, she loves him in the holes, even if he is behind the bushes disappears to urinate.

They still do not trust him, she is worried that he will try to disappear. And the deeper that fear of her to ship's steward by calls, the more he is aware of the better he understands that it will be very difficult to disappear. That he perhaps has missed.

How the rolls are have ever been seen, now he is a prisoner of the girl.

Two South Africans in a white jeep ultimately with changing the belt. They do it in twenty minutes. Ship's steward offers money but they want to know nothing about it. 'We can help each other,' they say. 'We are dependent on each other.'

Ship's steward thanks long-term and emphatically and then continue driving.

For a crossing he stops and tail a few seconds to its reisgenote.

'I am not the solution,' he says, 'I am the problem that you understand is it?'

But she understands him apparently not because they grabs his hand. She loves the hand, they squeeze in, they press a kiss.

By Aus begins the tarmac road. Here it is again has range, because Hofmeesters telephone starts beeping. Someone has called him a couple of times. It is the wife, he sees.

In Aus refuelling he and get off to the legs and also to call. The child remains in the vehicle, the looks at him after he loses no time from the view.

Standing under a tree gets connection with Amsterdam.

It takes time for the wife record.

'You have dialed,' he says. 'What is so urgent?'

'good that you call.' Its voice will be heard nervous. Hunted. Her voice makes him restless. As in the past, when he heard her voice that there was something different. Something was often the same: a man.

'They found.'

'Who?'

'Tirza, Jörgen. Who else? You have to go to Home.'

He is also still, he looks at the child in the car.

'Yes, yes,' says he eventually.

'You need as quickly as possible to come home, Jörgen, promise you that?'

And then he says: 'Yes, yes.'

'Jörgen, promise you the? We must now not abandon them. Jörgen…'

He hangs up.

Slowly he walks to the vehicle. The operated from the pumping station looks after him.

Ship's steward is sitting behind the wheel, it rubs on the stubble of his cheek.

'we will buy some candy?' he asks for the child. 'Have you meaning in candy? Chocolate?'

5

Lüderitz is a small town that ship's steward more to Scandinavia than to Africa. The sea is cold. And the wind blows there so hard that the noise of the wind even in the hotel room with windows closed is unbearable.

The port is in decline. Glares warehouses. The airport is a small tower in the desert. A runway of sand. Nothing further.

Nest Hotel called the hotel where he with the child is staying there. Three days he is now all his room not materialised. He is seated on bed, watch TV, listen to the radio. In the evening he order room service. For he is going to sleep he hangs a little note to the door with what he called the next morning for breakfast. Always the same. For him what toast and marmalade, for the child yoghurt and fruit. Furthermore coffee and chocolate milk.

There is little to do more. There is steady little more, so feel it. The present is reduced to a hotel room, a bed and a child. The opposite of future is a child, as far as he knows it now. For Kaisa is a day a year. There are times that he is experiencing as a relief. The lack of expectation and hope, the absence of plans and maps.

In the event of a business book trade has he immediately upon arrival color pencils, a pencil sharpener and a character pad purchased. He has not purchased shoes. However candy and chocolate.

A Westerner with bare feet, a briefcase under his arm, a hat on his head. We looked but half of in Lüderitz. Some westerners are now once crazy in Africa. They have sunk, they unloading on, they go never returned, they take the color of their surroundings.

The girl is a signatory. Ship's steward follows her movements. While he goes to the window and look at the sea. The windows are dirty. No glass washer can get closer to the action.

There are reminders, but he has not more under control. It is mainly details which are not necessarily related to other details. A hedge fund, infancy, blue, with klitten straps, the MS 170.

At high tide provide the waves to their window. If the noise of the wind him too much, he puts the radio hard. Here too the German-speaking Namibian transmitter.

He listens. Music and conversations with listeners who complain about the poor functioning postal services in Namibia, or sometimes just looking for something: a lift to Cape Town for example.

His phone has a ship's steward turned off. There is waited for him, there is an urgent waited for him, probably more urgent than ever in his life. But what does it mean?

Two times per day he takes a bath.

There are a few thoughts on the expressionist poets, the reference work that was not. The love that was declared dead and abolished, but all in all it was the abolition also a promise which is never materialised. Just like that reference work. The Warm body of the love, he note has ended

And every hour calls the better up to him by that he is not going to be able to continue, that he also in Lüderitz will not disappear. Although he is sure that the sea just as much as compassion will have with him if the sand. He did not doubt. But he has his opportunity has been lost. Now he is here with a child in the Nest Hotel. A child that no foreign more can be called. That fast. As soon keeps the other on foreign. Also in Namibia has he already had a past, he is a man with a history. That is why he returned. Back to where he came from. He has been created. We want to talk to him, even if it is only because the idea that acts have no repercussions is unbearable. It despises everything has no implications. Also a game must have consequences. In the game.

He shall inform the. Return is worse than disappear. Return is worse than the death.

'You know,' he says to Kaisa, on the fourth day of their stay in Lüderitz. The child goes to bed and signs. Her mouth is dirty of molten chocolate. 'You know,' ship's steward, 'time whispers Tirza three was, we are for the first time with her on winter sports. My parents found winter sports nonsense. In the summer we went three weeks to Limburg, nothing happened. That was enough. Why throwing money? But I thought: Tirza must learn skiing. And the earlier you learn skiing, the better you can. She has also sometimes to competitions previously. She was good in skiing but she was still better swimming.'

He is on his stomach on bed. The child draws by. He cannot see what it should be. Perhaps a house, a tree. The sun. A man.

He is talking about quiet, though they know each other for years and he joined the dessert yet another unknown and yet very familiar anecdote of stable.

Ship's steward is silent, he listens to the radio. A schlager. Again a schlager. Always but variety.

It dices Kaisa's mouth clean. 'I never went skiing,' he says, 'I sat down on her to wait. In the hotel. Or in the middle of the slope, by a tree. Sometimes I saw her than passing, if in a flash. At the very beginning, when she was three, I ran behind her. By the snow. Then she not so quickly. For if they would fall, therefore I ran behind her.'

She looks at him the child, otherwise than in the beginning. She looks at him as to someone they know.

'You know,' he says, 'You know, Kaisa… It sounds weird, but I think I am just about as old as you. I am…' he no longer knows what he wants to say, or, he knows. Of course he knows it. He wants to say that he, Jörgen ship's steward, the adult Jörgen ship's steward, the writer translated fiction, really does not exist and never existed. A role was that the child to power and ultimately with more and more precision and refinement played. A game.

He takes Kaisa in his arms, he covered her body with pillow and while he does, listens to the radio.

A woman singing. 'Laß uns leben,' she sings, 'jeden Traum. Everything geben, jeden Augenblick.'

Ship's steward does not on the girl to cushion. He kisses her without thinking about it, he kisses her as if it is obvious. Each part of her body, its entire main, her back, her belly, he kisses her as if he has something to get in.

He tries to remember why he has remained a nine-year-old, but there is nothing to him within. Just do it themselves for the spirit if nine-year-old. How did he look like? What he transferred? What did his parents against him and against his parents? His memory is a desert.

He only know for sure, safer than all the other, that he in fact never been anything else than a nine-year-old. Of course, his body has grown, his feet, his head and his nose, that everything is grown, but the rest remained what it was. The growth of the heart, the soul, how you want to name it has come to a standstill. As sure as he knows he is beyond all the future is, so sure he knows now that he, although he almost has reached retirement age, about as old as Kaisa.

And the woman on the radio singing: 'Bist du bereit, für unsere Zeit?'

Also here he he likes, the melody. 'Kaisa,' he whispers, 'I must back. There is waiting on me.'

He does not state who is waiting for him. He knows it was not exactly.

The girl picks up its pencils and continues with signs. He purr on its shoulders. The chocolate and the color pencils have stains in the Laeken Declaration, he sees. The idea is off.

For the first time since forty-eight hours clothe himself on. He does even a necktie for. Something must compensate for the lack of footwear.

Then elongates he the child. The t-shirt, the training trousers. He has a handwasje done.

'I,' he says, 'we go hiking.'

The wind is overwhelming, yanks to their clothes, their hairs, to Hofmeesters hat. Only occasionally offers a house or a wall protection. They walk carefully. There may be glass lying in the street.

The child hold it. And he is convinced now not more to whether he is ill. He knows that it is not. Sick people see the reality is not. They hear what is not there, they see what does not exist. Everything what he hears, is there and everything he sees, exists.

It feels good to have to walk with Kaisa. His presence in her life is natural and inevitable. This is the way it should be.

On a terrace in a shopping center that it prevents they drink fiendishly modern coffee, it with a lot of milk and sugar. He has no hope, but he is not ill. Perhaps the opposite, healthy. A healthy man. Jörgen ship's steward.

'I come back,' he says to Kaisa, 'I come back. I would you may adopt. This will not be so difficult. Then I take you to Europe. There you get a good training. I may be wrong, I know so well you not yet, but I think that you are very talented, high-high gifted.'

High-high gifted. He speaks the word from as others about the Prophet of God.

They walk through the town, along the church, a station that does not more if station works, walls with drawings and texts as 'Fight Aids, not people with AIDS.'

There is not much to see.

At daybreak, walking them back to the hotel.

'I can also,' says ship's steward, 'a foundation begin. A foundation for children like you. For street children in Namibia who sell something. With how many are you doing? Thousand? Ten thousand? Do you know each other?'

As soon as the twilight starts, the disappearance of the people from the streets. Lüderitz in the evening is a ghost town. Even more than during the day, although it may be something of a ghost town. Abandoned and forgotten, and always that sound of the wind. It makes a ship's steward crazy.

'I go away, Kaisa,' he says, 'but I will come back. Booking of i must what. And if I am back, i a foundation. Maybe I can live with you? At the street children? In a house or a tent. We can also sell something together. I can help you to set up an organization. At the time I worked at the trade union for literary translators who were also not organised. The principle is the same.'

For the first time since their arrival in Lüderitz food they are not in the room but in the dining room. There is a travel companion arrived. A bus load men and women of around the forties. The mushroom soup is cheesey and the shrimp are dry. It makes a ship's steward nothing.

In the dessert he sings soft for Kaisa. 'Ridi,' he sings, 'ridi.' And if he is sung, He whispers: 'It is so nice to sit here with you. I love you.'

She plays with her spoon and she says: 'Do you want company, sir?'

It is no longer a question, it is the confirmation of a condition.

After eating they don't immediately to the room but sit at the bar. For Kaisa he retrieves still quick the color pencils and what paper. He orders wine and cola and looking at how she draws.

Fortunately he is not, happiness he would not want to mention this, never. But he is a few seconds happy. An insane and incomprehensible joy that has come out of nothing and will shortly be returning in that nothing will disappear.

For that night they fall asleep, He whispers: 'I come back to you to adopt children, I am young enough to weather the father. I can even years.'

Early the next morning they leave direction Keet Mans Hope. He had thought in one day to Windhoek International Airport to drive but it is already evening when they arrive in Mariental and hence is certainly still three, four hour drive to Wind Angle. He decides to remain in Mariental sleep.

There is a hotel. Everywhere there are hotels. A bed, a bathroom, a night cabinet, a few hangers the to hang your clothes. He would have for some time to be able to continue. From hotel room to hotel room with the child, his hat and his briefcase. Not found for the world. But he must return to the Netherlands, back to the Van Eeghenstraat. In order to adopt Kaisa it should he has to explain.

Also I am surprised that he has not previously considered to adopt a child. But why would you adopt a child that you do not know? Kaisa he knows. And they him. They fit together. They complement each other. They see something in each other. The two.

In Mariental he buys shoes, for him and for the child. Black, simple shoes for him, and brown sandals for the girl. The shop is no shoe shop, rather a supermarket, but that does not matter. They are now no longer barefoot.

The Shoes pinched. Oh, he understands that he is not on bare feet on Schiphol can arrive. They would arrest him immediately. Times have changed. Aware of danger everywhere.

Kaisa is proud of its sandals. Otherwise she runs on sandals. If a lady run.

'I can,' he says that evening in the small dining room of the hotel in Mariental, 'I can teaching. When I come here live. I can learn German, for example. I can read aloud. I can tell you about Tolstoy, that literature, art people not happy. And that he has therefore categorically rejected. But we should prepare a plan, a plan is important. What do you need, you children who sell company? You do not have a house and no shoes. You need to set priorities. Those who do not have a house and no shoes, has to start shoes necessary.'

The child does not answer, but she picks, although they are still the food is, his hand, as if she feels that he wants to disappear, that he wants to escape. Now they eat with one hand. Because they do not let him more.

After dinner and the wife he calls.

'I travel tomorrow,' he says. I wanted to 'you also let us know.'

'You must take place as soon as possible,' she responds. 'I try you already to call the whole time, Jörgen. They have been here. And… And…' he likes her voice still less. So nervous, so hunted, as uncertain. 'I tell you all know if you are there. Everyone is looking for you, everyone is waiting for you. There have also been called journalists. Where are you?'

'I have said that I am leaving tomorrow. I am about to take place tomorrow in the afternoon. I am in Namibia. Where else? Create your but not worried. Everything will be fine.'

'We need each other now. We had never been to.'

'No, no,' he says. But he has no idea what they mean. No idea. 'I have never yet been left in the lurch?'

'Jörgen, come back as soon as possible. Please. If you now — we can still…'

'keep you well,' he whispers.

With these words he terminates the call. He puts his phone off again. He does not want to be disturbed, the last hours.

He asks the receptionist of the hotel with South African Airways to call and his return flight to book the next day. It is still a lot of hassle because he has forgotten the to do so in due time, but if he the mrs of South African Airways half the story tells about the disappeared, daughter, she says: 'I make sure that it is done, Mr ship's steward, I understand very well that you under those circumstances also not thinking of us.'

'Kaisa,' he asks, 'What would you do if you want to take a stroll in the evening?'

They walk by Mariental. Empty streets. Only the petrol stations are still open.

'I doubt,' says ship's steward, while he is in the shop of one of the petrol stations winegums buy, 'I doubt more and more. I mean what has happened and what has not been done. How seriously you can play a game? With my wife I also played. It was night, always night, and I was always the beast, the beast. And when my first daughter was born, i played that i became father. On the publishing house i played that i was writer, I have always played. I could not do otherwise.'

He she crouches down next and adopt its face carefully between his hands. In the row for the checkout. 'because I really am as old as you. I have always played. Not only with Tirza. That was otherwise.'

They both may not sleep that night. It notes and he tail to the ceiling. He has a hunch that he cannot indicate. But it is not a hunch, it is his own life.

His flight to Johannesburg leaves at ten about three in the afternoon. All around noon he is at the airport in Windhoek. He brings his car to Hertz, the damage. Ship's steward protests not. He takes the blame for all damage, even of the damage that he has not caused. Then he retrieves all the money from the wall in such a way that there are still wants to come out and stop that in his briefcase. He will check in.

'Would you like him as hand baggage?" asks the gentleman of South African Airways.

Ship's steward looks at the suitcase with which he ever went on mission.

'No,' says ship's steward. 'I check him in.'

Now he has only his briefcase.

He runs without purpose with the child over the airport. They are watching the passengers, eat a sandwich with chicken, picking the chicken sandwich because they only want to eat the chicken, but let the end of the half of the chicken. They go outside to sit on a bench. In front of the departure hall. There are tourist with giraffes of wood as a memento to house. They must both there a bit to laugh about. A giraffe of wood.

Until he no longer can deny. He must by the customs, he must go. This keeps the. This is the border.

In the grass she crouches down next he for Kaisa down. 'I go now,' he says, 'i should go. But I come back, I promise you that I come back.'

He picks up the briefcase.

'Look,' he says, 'I leave it here. This is for you.'

He opens the bag.

'Four pencils,' he says, 'a pencil sharpener, the iPod of Tirza Tirza, charger, music, her note book, maybe there are things in writing or drawings in. Its agenda. A manuscript of an author from Azerbaijan. What you it does. And here in this box is the money. But I will come back. I promise you that I come back. On this note is my number, my address in Amsterdam. If you like you can call me. And oh yes, here are two sachets winegums. But you should not be too many lollies, that is unhealthy. You need…'

He is on, he looks at his watch. She picks up his hand.

Ship's steward, crouches down again.

'I come back, Kaisa,' he whispers, 'This bag is the collateral. As long as you have this bag, you know that I come back. My life is in this case. I must come back to that. I can not otherwise. Everything I have is contained herein. You must adapt. As you have on me appropriate.'

He expresses its against itself. 'Kaisa,' he whispers, 'Kaisa, I forgive you, I forgive you that you do not have me disappear, I forgive you that you have seduced me to stay here, I forgive you everything. But I must now road.'

He looks around.

It seems as if no one to watch them.

'I do not know,' he whispers, 'how you should die, while you realize that you never played a role in someone's life, not even in your own. How do you do that, while you understand, taking account of the possibility, to take proper account of the possibility that nobody has given you, that nobody was important enough, that… I come back to learn to die, Kaisa, I can not yet, but you go in the me learning. I can learn German and in return you go learn me that is the die appointment.'

He begins to sing for her. 'Unerreichbar,' he sings, 'schweres Herz.' He is the words forgotten. 'Ridi,' he sings, 'ridi ridi ridi.'

He walks on her away. Unsettling without briefcase.

They will be behind him, grabs his hand.

He presses are loose. 'I need road,' he whispers, without having to go to her to watch, 'but I come back. Go to the city. I will be back, Kaisa.'

Weather She grabs his hand. From his eyes he sees how large are briefcase for her. A type of house. Dangling around her shoulders still the brightly colored fabrics pouch that he for her in Windhoek has purchased in order to save money. Who sells company, must be money well hiding.

He is now almost at the customs.

He turns around. The child is being held up by someone from the security.

'I come back,' he calls, 'Kaisa, I come back.' He waves with his hand. And then also with his hat. Someone behind him in the row pushes him to continue. 'I come back,' he calls again. Then he sees its not more.

The row is not long.

He gives his passport to the policeman.

And although he is not the child can see more, he hears suddenly her voice. 'Do you want company, sir?' cries she by the Departures Hall. Above all from its voice is heard.

The policeman put a stamp on his passport. Ship's steward will get it back. And then he hears a shrieking Kaisa in the departures hall of Wind Angle. 'Do you want company, sir? Sir?'

Ship's steward must hold on to the cubicle of the policeman. He has the feeling that he must have. It vibrates. But he also laid themselves from. In order not to lose the control, not to give in to that impulse: return to run to the Departures Hall. Kaisa to grip. To rent a car. To drive away. To resolve. Together with her.

Ship's steward now knows what the alternative is to die for, he now understands what happens to people who do not disappear in a timely manner.

Early in the morning he arrives in Zurich and in the afternoon he comes to Schiphol. It is partly cloudy and eighteen degrees in Amsterdam. At the passport control he need only to keep up his passport.

He decides the train to Amsterdam Zuid/WTC. Hence he travels further with tram 5. There are hardly any thoughts. How would you feel about Kaisa in the five? He thinks. What would they find a tram? He looks at the city with the eyes of Kaisa.

On the corner of the 'Willemsparkweg' and the Van Baerlestraat he steps. All this is well-known and strange, because he looks with Kaisa's eyes.

His suitcase is not heavy and it is not far. He would be easy to walk, but because he sees the two, decision he has two stops away on the tram.

Why not? Great convenience.

It is all strange for. Unreal. Absurd. A decor.

On the stop Cornelis Schuytstraat he steps. He is the only one who gets out.

In the event of the wine trade remains he, he looks at the shop. There are people in the shop, but no one sees him. They allow themselves to advise, the seller reserves a bottle up. Almost press he against the window.

His hat sits on his head. It still feels strip without briefcase. He has a tendency to look backwards where Kaisa remains. It is waiting for a hand in the his gliding.

After a few minutes he runs through again.

He saves the corner.

He is now in the Van Eeghenstraat.

There are many people in the street. It is him on that they are precisely for his house. It is a hustle and bustle of importance for his house. An accident, he thinks, something has happened.

He is a few meters closer. Some people he considers to recognize. There are also cameras at, he sees now. Yes, he recognizes some people. Of the tv. Familiar faces are in for his house. And he also sees an agent, no doubt the inquisitive people on to keep your distance.

That you always have access to such matters. Inquisitive people who should be kept at a distance.

Ship's steward puts his suitcase on the floor. With his handkerchief and rubs his head. It is not hot, but he has the hot. Horribly hot.

From the crowd for his home state makes a woman. She is coming toward him. The wife. He recognizes its. Its motor skills. And they also has seen.

Than he recalls the itself. There was something with Tirza. But what exactly?

He thinks of the song that he always sang for her. If he than it carried her of celloles, after swimming if they had won a competition, but also just after the swimming, during winter sports, for reading.

'or all the boys I've known and I've known some. Until I first with you I was lone some. And when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light. And this old world seemed new to me.' Yes, ship's steward remembers the a and other. 'Ridi,' he sings gently, 'ridi, ridi,' while the wife to him, intervened.

He hears against him how someone says: 'Do you want company, sir?' But it is not, it is Tirza Kaisa's voting. He thinks Tirza's voice to be heard.

Tirza, the solar queen. The high-gifted solar queen. His life. His hope. Its future.

Still krampachtiger he tries to remember what there was exactly with that life of him, that future which now is nearby, so terribly near. There are sun queen. There is something to him, only so vague. Extremely vague.

Jörgen ship's steward stands for its own memory as for the entrance to the paradise that he will never enter.

A meter or thirty, than is the wife is living with him.

Now it falls within. Finally.

She is found.

She is found. Tirza. That name alone. That word. Tirza.

He must call her to say that they found. From his inner pocket to pick up his telephone.

He shall review its number.

The wife is only ten meters removed from him. She is remain stationary. She looks at him, smekend seems. See little mangy alongside them out. Unwashed. As if they were to graze is taken by a beast.

It expresses its index finger on her mouth. This keeps them there. And she looks at him smekend with the index finger on her mouth.

The people of his home are now. They are meaningless. Not only do they not have cameras with him, he sees, but also microphones to fishing rods. He will assist them, if they wish to do so. If the ship's steward is that they want to speak. He will tell us about the desired their foundation that he wants to set up. For children who sell company.

Then he finally hear her voice, the voice of the solar queen, with no other comparable.

"Hi, this is Tirza,' he hears. He presses the phone firmer against his ear. Not a word he wants to miss, no letter, no breathing. 'I am not. But let but a nice message.'

Content

Arnon Grunberg
Tirza

Part One — The Rent

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3

Part Two — The Sacrifice

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2

3

4

5

Part Three — The Desert

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5