'Would you still eat?' she asks.
'If the can.'
She looks at her watch. 'Dan need to quickly.' She points to the child. "Do you want a separate bed for her? A cot?'
'It is my niece,' says ship's steward, 'a double bed is fine.' And while he says that he realizes that he sounds like a man who are looking for some fun specially and that has been found. A man who has come to Africa to pick up what he had in his own country is not without problems.
'Hut eleven," she says. She gives him the key. 'De kitchen is open for a further half hour.'
He must be with the car to hut eleven. Walk with luggage is too far. The route leads through a dry river. He hears the sound of sensors caused stones.
The other cabins look deserted. Clearly there are not many guests on the Okapuka Ranch. It is not the season, or the Okapuka Ranch is not so in the Grace. In Windhoek, he had a café holder moaning: 'Namibia has become too expensive for the tourist.' polite if a ship's steward, he had an extra piece of apple strudel ordered. The German past of the country is at first sight especially in culinary quirks and some street names that you forget to change has: Bahnhofstraße for example. Ship's steward had long-term to the street sign.
He sjouwt with his suitcase to the hut. The child runs behind him. There is a ceiling fan. The bed is great, the room clean. A bright, but no unpleasant smell of wood and disinfectant. This is the Africa of the tourist. The world can be classified in tourist and staff. They always and everywhere to leave, the tourist, and those who operate the tourist. Have fun. Engaged. They do can.
Ship's steward washes his hands and attracts a new shirt that he also a few times has behaved in Windhoek, but that just a little less badly creased pitch than the shirt that he spent a whole day wearing them. The child runs around the room and remains at a chair. While a ship's steward his shirt close hangings, he looks at her and he thinks of her mother. A woman on a bed. A woman who it to a cow reminded, principally because of the fly on her face. He will associate fly with cows. Especially when they take place on the body and not more flys away. Were it to fly? Small insects, sure. Dozens of small insects. He is not at home in the animal world. He would also have to read a book about.
'Was your mother always been deaf stupid?' he asks, while he with the knots is in progress. 'Is they so born?'
The child laughs Glint, or is that Hofmeesters imagination? The shaking your head. Aha, the mother is therefore only at a later age become deaf stupid.
'You mother was previously laid a beautiful woman,' he says.
He grabs her hand. 'Let's go food. Do not worry about your mother. I have money left for her. I have money on her bed down, enough to do some shopping. For a week. For a month. They must once again. Too much sleep is unhealthy. There is a human being depressed. Motion, even if you feel uncomfortable, that is healing. O, it is all well with your mother.'
He is talking about as an elderly person during the daily coffee-hour, but he can not help to: he wants reassurance. He must reassure them.
By sharp grass they walk in the direction of the dining room. The child keeps his hand. They remain stationary. 'Meneer," she says.
She points to a beast.
He had not seen. His thoughts were elsewhere. In the Van Eeghenstraat. In the event of the wife, the dress that they purchased for Tirza. Years she has nothing to make themselves heard and when she came back with a dress for the trip around the world. Typically the wife. Unpredictable. Impulsive.
The beast is a meter or twenty of them removed. Ship's steward knows the only photos in books. Here Tirza wanted. Namibia. For the wild animals, but especially for something else, the culture. Culture. He smiles.
The beast flees, disappears in the darkness, makes virtually no noise.
Ship's steward does not believe in culture, in so far as you can believe. What is culture? Its survival strategy is that of adaptation, the ability to make yourself invisible. Or would also culture? How onzichtbaarder, the better. The invisible is immune.
But his children otherwise he attempted to educate, as critical individuals in the Community no safety net but a cage. That Excel, in the swimming pool, on the music school, in Latin and Greek, in mathematics and the natural sciences. And then comes the money itself. All real freedom is money, and if money can buy no freedom, there is simply not enough money. But where he sees Tirza freedom, and Ibi a capitalist conspiracy where. That is back in the mode. And how often a ship's steward also has argued that it is not a conspiracy is that the freedom is, they want to do not believe him.
When she was a child, had every reason to Tirza be happy. She was high-high gifted, they participated in swimming competitions, and they won, they played better cello than other children of her age. And at the height of her high-high nous she decided itself to starve to death. A sin, an offense.
'Mewe huh?' says ship's steward against the child. 'Mewe huh?' he knows not whether he now has the beast that they have seen to run, the sharp grass, the hut, or just the world an sich.
The dining room is composed of at least 18 tables, of which there are only three are busy. Older people. South Africans to hear so, also two Germans of slightly more than middle aged.
We look to the even for Namibian concepts unusual set. The old white and the young, the particular young black. And then there is always the confrontational moment of shame, the time that ship's steward would like to put things right, would like to declare itself. But it takes less time each day. Each day there is more readily distinguishable. The moral breaks little by little. Every day he is a little more the man who is here in him is going to see: a westerner with an unmistakable desire for special entertainment.
That is not the end of the day the only job of human rights? You must be what the others in your wishes to see.
He and the children get a table on the edge of the room, with views of what a ship's steward is reminiscent of a steppe. There are no windows, windows are not necessary here. It is all open. Only a roof. For if agree regent.
The menu is simple. Save, a piece springbok fillet, dessert.
'Eat,' he says to the child.
The child is looking to the steppe, although the darkness little to see. The eat slowly and with a degree of reluctance.
But a ship's steward tastes and the red wine from South Africa tastes him even better. He meedrinken leave the child. She takes a few sips, but they do not find wine tasty. Cola, since she keeps of.
'we sit back,' says ship's steward as the springbok filet is eaten. 'we are down, we cannot get away from each other, Kaisa.'
He leans back and plays with a toothpick, he orders a second bottle of red wine. For the child is still a bottle of cola.
He acts as if he is on holiday. He has perhaps that also. Finally he is on holiday.
'They have me deprived of everything,' he says soft, 'first my wife, when my money. Mohammed Atta did you know Atta? Do you know him?'
She shakes her head.
'Yes,' he says, 'Atta. Many are already forgotten him. Incorrectly. He gave me my money taken. More than a million. He also has other things to be done. Other people he has decreased their children. But he has my money confiscated. My freedom.'
He is looking for under the table to his bag, but realizes that he has those in hut eleven has left. Just like his hat.
'My work they seem to have also decreased,' he says. 'In a certain sense also my children. My family. But I have taken the same way as one the weather. Rain, snow, wind, you can do nothing to change that, Kaisa. Invulnerable Resistance is a virtue, that people do not know more. Who nowhere in believes, is immune. He is above the parties, he is at the top itself. He knows no doubt because he accepts everything. Who offended in doubt., You are also invulnerable, Kaisa. You can purchase anything because you have nothing. How you also mentioned, it makes you nothing, because you are nothing. Even if we would terminate your life, you would not hurt. In Fact i you already dead.'