Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Then Rudi sniffles. As quietly as he can. ‘What is it the Lord says,’ he whispers. ‘Keep thee from strange women’. He strokes Cecilie across her tattoed back, running his fingertips along the eagle’s wings of the Aerosmith logo, feeling the tiny goosebumps on her skin and listening to her heavy breathing. ‘And you must never,’ he whispers even lower, ‘you must never get to hear of this, Cecilie. Or to put it another way, you must never catch sight of my cock — your cock — on a TV screen. Thank God nobody in this house can stand porn.’

He gradually slips into her rhythm and falls asleep. And every morning he awakes. The sun rises in the sky and he’s aware of his own breathing, aware of Cecilie being grumpy and close by; he’s happy he gets to live yet another brilliant day on earth, and in high spirits he breaks bread with pleasure and plunges into the day.

He wept last night, but now he’s ready. The beanpole stands in the basement. He’s dressed in black. He’s confused. He hardly dares think his own thoughts. Outside the sun is sinking, the evening is on its way. Jan Inge and Cecilie are back after parking the moving van in Sandal. Rudi has two fully packed bags in his hands. Baseball bats, hand weights, knuckle dusters, balaclavas and tools. A roll of blue plastic shoe covers, a roll of tape. Scissors. Everything they need to go to work. But he just does not understand what is going on. The way Cecilie has suddenly been behaving. Snogging him as though he were Steven Tyler. It scares the pants off him. And the way her eyes were sparkling and one thing and the fucking other, and acting all sexy like she never has before. And then complete silence. Total shut off. And Tong? He should have stayed behind lock and key. And Tommy Pogo? Turning up all over the place?

Fucking Thursday.

Right, time to get to it. A man needs beating up.

‘Are you lot almost ready?’ he calls out in the direction of the stairs while he scans the room. At some stage this screwed-up family probably harboured ideas about what this room would be used for, a pool table for the kids, carom, board hockey, maybe a cosy den, a little bar, who knows, some kittens in a basket. Now it smells strongly of mould and it’s minging everywhere. Rudi relaxes his facial muscles and shakes his head before setting his foot on the bottom step and ascending the staircase.

Tong is in the hallway, dressed in black, his body taut. Everything has gone to hell since he came home. You’d think it was Tong’s fault that troublesome air abounded. Rudi can’t be bothered saying anything to the little Korean. He just nods and avoids looking at Tong, who bends down and begins to tie his shoelaces without responding.

Jan Inge waddles out, dressed in black and looking fat — he needs to consider cutting back on guzzling now, bit much flab bursting out. Jani doesn’t say anything either.

Eventually Cecilie joins them, dressed in black and looking anxious. She slips her little feet into her shoes.

Rudi knits his brows when he sees Jan Inge open the closet door beneath the stairs and take out the pump-action shotgun. Cecilie stops tying her shoelaces. Tong raises one black eyebrow ever so slightly.

‘What’s the story?’ Rudi asks, as he watches Jan Inge put a box of shotgun shells into the bag.

Jan Inge gives a faint shrug.

‘Is there a meeting on in the Arms and Armour Society? What’s with the shooter? Are we not anti-violence?

‘Yes, we are.’

‘So? We’re not planning on putting someone in a coffin, or have we started with that now?’

Jan Inge shakes his head slightly. ‘Rudi, Rudi. Take it easy. We’re just raising the level of security a notch. You know. Pogo. Tampon.’

‘You’re going to shoot a cop?!’

‘Rudi. Look at me. I’m not going to shoot anyone. It’s just for … security.’

Cecilie finishes tying her laces, Tong listens with his mouth shut and Rudi yields to the leader.

‘So we’re ready?’

Jan Inge’s eyes sweep each of them in turn.

‘Yeah,’ says Cecilie.

‘Can’t wait,’ says Tong in a sarcastic tone.

‘Headgear, hairbands and hairnets, footwear and shoe covers, handgear, gloves, tape?’

Cecilie nods.

‘Knuckle dusters, baseball bat, table leg, hand weights, speed?’

Rudi gives the bags in his hands an affirmative shake.

‘Good,’ says Jan Inge, ‘then we just need to get on with it.’

This is depressing. The lousy atmosphere is so thick it fills the room like exhaust fumes. No more snogging now. Not even Rudi, who prides himself on his ability to raise a smile, could turn this room around. Strike a warm blow for love.

Because everything, Rudi feels, is a matter of love.

Nancy Rose Botnevass didn’t have hips like shelves, or nubbly skin, or eyes set far apart that made her look like a burrowing animal, or crooked lips and tiny little mollusc eyes. She smelt of randy soil and salt ore, had lips like a bitch, drove a tractor and went elk-hunting like a man. She was a poisonous flower with a gap between her two front teeth, a she-devil with enormous thigh muscles, so greedy she ate your house clean and it was impossible to keep your hands from her skin, because it was nature at work. Everyone who’d been near her knew that she was born with an electric fervour and if she wanted something, she got it. In the valley, people said that nobody had ever seen a smile cross Nancy’s face, they said she never slept at night, but went up on the heath, sniffed at the moss, talked to grouse and killed adders with just a look, and there were rumours that it wasn’t Solomon the priest who was her father, but a lynx from up on Krokevasshei, and that Rose Marie wasn’t her mother but an eagle from Mjauntjønn.

You smell like a bull, Rudi, she had whispered.

‘Okay,’ Jan Inge says, opening the door on the last light of the September day and on the van outside, ‘let’s drive up to Pål Fagerland’s and give him a good working over.’

The loudest screams you hear can be your own.

Tiril enters the backstage area with her jaw muscles tensed and her eyes narrowed. The room is packed with people, the air buzzing with different languages and diverse English pronunciation. The make-up group fit masks on the Finnish girls who are going to perform a dramatic piece, the wardrobe group have put out the clothes people will wear, numbered the hangers and hung up an information sheet at the entrance. People tiptoe nervously around, Svein Arne wanders this way and that, curly hair dancing and forehead sweaty, some people are biting their nails, and everyone has a serious look in their eyes because they all know there’s a girl in hospital and they all agree with Frida and the headmaster: we’ll perform for freedom, democracy, solidarity and for Sandra.

Tiril doesn’t want any help. Not with make-up. Not with clothes. She doesn’t want smiles from people and she doesn’t want to smile back. She has no idea who a third of them are and she doesn’t have time to get to know them. This is make-believe, but my day is authentic. I am Amy Lee. I’ve grown up by the Arkansas River and this is much too real. I’m going to fill the hall with pain, let it bleed out of my mouth and eyes so those poetry-reciting, guitar-playing, dancing kids know they’ve been totally parked.

‘It’s not really on, arriving so late, Tiril,’ Svein Arne says. ‘You do know that?’

She looks at him, feeling her gaze send a spear between his eyes, penetrating the flesh.

‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I know everything.’

Thea hurries past: ‘Have you seen my shoes?’

Tiril gets changed. Because now she’s going to be someone other than herself. The black tights. They have a nice sheen to them when they’re stretched tight across her skin. The black shoes with the high heels. The black skirt. The black top. The black shawl. The bold, red lipstick. The purple eye shadow. Her fringe, which she takes right above her eyebrows. The shawl she’ll let drape down over her face.