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.