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 rituaclass="underline" 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.