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.'