Arnon Grunberg | Carrots

The dealer was a lady in her late fifties. Her hair was permed and she was wearing jogging pants. She'd brought along her husband, who was dressed in shorts. He kept dipping his hand into the bowl of peanuts beside my bed.

The dealer's name was Elizabeth. In real life she was a porter, which meant she worked in a fancy hotel lugging around other people's bags.To make some extra cash, she and her husband had this small business dealing marijuana - and maybe a few other things I didn't know about.

The dealer threw a little plastic bag on my bed. It smelled of baby food. Baby food made of carrots.

I noticed the smell was nauseating me, so I moved as far away from the bag as possible.

'Those curls look great on you,' I said, stalling for time. I had no idea what else to say. I'd had all kinds of things in my hotel room, but never a drug dealer.

'How about I open a bottle of wine?' I said.

'That'd be nice,' her husband said. He was an elderly man, but very well preserved.

I went into the bathroom to open the bottle.They never show you this in the movies: a dealer married to a senior citizen with a peanut addiction having a glass of wine with you. The man had already eaten half the bowl I'd ordered from room service.

'Here we are,' I said, 'Cheers.'

'Don't you want to check it?' Elizabeth asked. I walked over to the packet. It really did look like pieces of carrot that

had turned brown after soaking too long. The same thing happens to tree leaves: if they soak for a long time, they turn brown on you.

'It's excellent quality,' I said, 'I can smell it.'

I was starting to wonder if they'd ever leave. Her husband had finished his first glass of wine and was pouring himself another.

'At first we just imported it for ourselves,' the man said, 'but then we noticed we could make other people happy with it too, so we thought, why not? Make other people happy and make some cash on the side.'

'Exactly' I said,'that's my philosophy: make other people happy and make some cash on the side.' Now I turned to the dealer herself, but she was busy putting on red lipstick. 'It's funny' I said, 'us having two totally different professions and exactly the same philosophy'

Her husband put his hand up. At first I thought there was something wrong with the ceiling, but then I got it - I was supposed to slam my hand against his, like they do in sports. I slammed my hand against his.

When you're dead, I figure you can quit adjusting to other people, but until then life is all about adjusting. I even think it's the cornerstone of our society, adjustment. Not that I'm seriously worried about society; I'm no pessimist. But I don't want to end up with people saying about me, 'He was one of those maladjusted types who fucked up our society.'

'If you feel like lighting one,' Elizabeth said.

'No, no,' I said, 'Not yet. I have to take a shower first.'

A friend of mine had suggested that I buy some marijuana, since I'd gotten sick a couple of tunes on wine. Australian wine, to be precise. But the smell of fermented carrots was turning my stomach before I'd even touched the stuff.

'Is there anything else we can do for you?' Elizabeth said.

'No, thanks,' I said,'I'm taken care of for now.'

'We really like doing it for you,' she said. 'You remind us so much of our grandson.'

'Hell yeah,' her husband said, 'He looks just like Dave.' He'd managed to eat the whole bowl of nuts all by himself. Maybe he was hungry. Maybe dealing drugs makes you extremely hungry. Most ot his clients wouldn't have given him nice nuts like that, of course. Again he put his hand in the air and I slammed mine against it.

'To meeting you,' the man said.

'Yes,' I said, 'To meeting you.'

'And to Dave,' Elizabeth said.

I sat down, since nobody made any move to get up. I'd already gone over to the door a few times, and even opened it, but neither one of them had gotten the hint. I was afraid that if I walked to the door again they'd say, 'It was nice meeting you,' and close the door behind me.

By this time my bottle of wine was also empty.

'We mostly use it before we have sex,' the man said. I wondered if the smell of fermented carrots didn't detract from the pleasure. Then again, sex itself could also smell like fermented carrots.

I tried to open the window, but it was stuck.

'Those tiny sloping shoulders,' I heard my dealer say, 'they're just like our grandson's.'

I turned around. It was a good thing my mother wasn't there - she thinks I'm broad-shouldered. If she had any idea who Arnold Schwarzenegger was, she'd have called me the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Amsterdam. But she doesn't even know Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I felt the dealer's hands on my shoulders.

'Give in to it,' she whispered.

'That's exactly what I've been trying to do all my life,' was the last thing I could think of.

From Amuse-bouche, translated in English by Ronde Klerk and Lisa Friedman