Tirza

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?'