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.