Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Tiril studies herself in the mirror while people scurry all around her. The foreign kids Thea is so friendly with. Ulrik Pogo. Svein Arne, who’s more nervous than anyone; does he not realise how hideous those curls look, doesn’t he have a wife and don’t they have a pair of scissors in their house?

Sometimes it’s such a pain being a part of something.

Just twenty-fours ago this was all she wanted.

Now it’s the exact opposite.

They’re the fourth act on. First out is a girl from Nicaragua, who’s going to deliver a speech on peace. Then Ulrik, who’ll play ‘Stairway to Heaven’. People will no doubt sit with their heads cocked to the side, thinking he’s so cute that it’ll seem like the whole hall is dipped in honey. Everyone remembers what Frida Riska said the day he began at school, and some said she was actually talking about herself: You are so pretty, Ulrik Pogo, that a lot of people are going to have trouble being in the same room as you, so your challenge, young man, will be not to allow the dazzling looks you’ve been blessed with to govern your entire life.

After Ulrik, the two Finnish girls from Jyväskyla are performing a drama about fair trade.

Then they’re up. Tiril would have liked to be last, she said as much to Svein Arne, but it wasn’t up to her to decide. You two will be number four, Svein Arne had said. Yeah, who’s going to help us take the lights right down, then? The volunteer helpers will take care of it.

Tiril applies the eye shadow.

Mum, that witch, has said a lot of stupid things, but there’s one thing she said that Tiril will never forget: if you want something done, Tiril, then do it yourself.

Light the pillar candles. Look at the frightened faces in the audience. Walk up to the microphone.

I’m so tired of being here.

I’ll bring you round, Sandra. Watch out, Daniel, I’m not finished with you.

Tiril takes a step back from the mirror. She narrows her eyes, feeling she can shoot sparks from them. Then the corners of her mouth begin to quiver. At first she doesn’t understand what it is, and she brings her hand to her mouth as though something strange is emanating from her body, and presses two flat fingertips to the side of her mouth, but then in the mirror she sees that her eyes are shiny and she feels it in her throat, how something’s growing and she realises she’s crying.

She closes her eyes and orders herself to count to twenty.

Opens her eyes again.

There we go. Her mouth is taut. Her eyes are normal.

The headmaster and Frida Riska enter the backstage area. Frida claps her hands twice to quieten people down. She nods to Svein Arne.

‘Only two minutes to go, folks.’ Svein Arne talks in a low voice and gathers the teenagers around him. He calls each and every one of them by their name and says, in his impressively poor English, how proud he is of this production, how hard they’ve worked, and how positive it is that so many talented, hard-working people from Stavanger’s twin towns have come to make this very special cultural evening about solidarity, democracy and freedom: ‘Okay, all ready?’

The kids whistle and clap, Tiril remains rigid, and then Svein Arne’s face takes on an idiotic expression that makes him look like a mother admiring her little girls as they stand in front of her, dressed up for a Christmas dinner. He straightens the red-and-white shirt he’s put on for the occasion, turns to the teenagers one last time, lifting his eyebrows twice in rapid succession, before slipping out between the gap in the stage curtain.

Cheering and clapping greets his entrance. ‘Yeah! Gosen! Hello everybody! Wow!’

‘You ready?’ Thea shifts nervously from foot to foot beside her.

‘Of course I’m ready,’ says Tiril, while they hear Svein Arne give a speech to the audience about the value of unity and the exchange of experience across national boundaries.

Tiril looks at her. ‘Stage fright?’

‘No, just…’ Thea shifts her weight on her small feet again. ‘Hasn’t been the most ordinary of days.’

‘So?’ Tiril entwines her fingers, twists her hand around at arm’s length and cracks her knuckles.

‘Okay,’ Svein Arne says from the other side of the curtain, ‘I’m going to hand you over to the headmaster who wants to say a few short words.’

Frida nods to the headmaster and he walks out on to the stage. ‘I don’t want to keep you,’ he says, ‘but I have some information to share. Earlier today there was an accident at the school. One of our pupils, Sandra Vikadal, lost consciousness and was taken to hospital in an ambulance.’

There’s silence in the hall, as well as backstage.

‘We’ve decided to go ahead with this evening of culture…’ says the headmaster, pausing slightly. Frida Riska nods. ‘…Because we don’t wish to allow despair to defeat us.’

The audience claps. Tiril can hear from the sound of it that they clap the way people do when they feel they have won. But what is it they have won?

‘We haven’t heard anything new from the hospital,’ says the headmaster. ‘I spoke to them not too long ago. Her condition is critical, but stable.’

Silence spreads through the hall again.

‘We can do this,’ says the headmaster, placing emphasis on each word. ‘Now, would you please welcome back, our very devoted teacher, the man who’s put this wonderful evening together, Svein Arne Bendiksen!’

Tiril’s throat is itchy. We can do this. We? The clapping grows louder and the stage curtain is drawn aside, the headmaster and Svein Arne swap places and Frida Riska hastens to her seat. Svein Arne introduces ‘a brave girl from Nicaragua’, and the show is underway.

Tiril takes a small step forward. She puts her head slightly to the right and glances out into the dimly lit hall. There’s not one chair free. There are people standing along the walls. She directs her gaze along the rows of faces trying to catch sight of Malene, Dad and Shaun, but she can’t spot them. She sees other parents, Ulrik’s mum and dad, Tommy Pogo and his wife, along with Kia in the wheelchair, Thea’s folks, her dad with that irresistible smile of his, and there, in the first row sit the teachers, Frida Riska, Mai and the others.

Tiril sees Sandra’s face. It enters her mind with such clarity, such intensity, that she almost feels the girl is in the room. She shakes her head, shoves the image aside and concentrates. She holds the matchbox tightly.

The curtain is pulled aside again; Tiril hears the foreign tones of the girl from Nicaragua fill the room and thinks how it sounds like talking soil. Svein Arne catches her eye and lifts his eyebrows enthusiastically, twice, as if to say eh, exciting, eh.

A taut sensation takes hold of her body, a false sensation, her head feels dizzy and she wishes she could think clearly. We? What is it we can do? Poor Sandra, kind Malene, psycho Veronika, dangerous Daniel, distracted Dad, bloody Mum, cool Shaun, screwed-up Kenny and weird Bunny.

‘Shit, I can feel it in my stomach,’ Thea says, rubbing her hands together.

There’s applause from the gym hall, Tiril’s throat itches and Svein Arne pats Ulrik on the shoulder. He’s standing with the guitar in his hand, an Idol hairdo and admirable self-assurance in his eyes: ‘You’re up next, Ulrik, good luck!’

Svein Arne disappears out to the enthusiastic parents: ‘Wasn’t that fantastic? Salve a ti, Nicaragua !’ Fresh applause. ‘And now, one of our own, Ulrik Pogo from 10A with his version of Led Zeppelin’s timeless classic “Stairway to Heaven”!’

Ulrik, glistening slightly above his top lip, where he’s begun to perspire at the last minute, unveils a gleaming set of teeth and walks towards the stage curtain. It’s drawn aside and once again Tiril catches a glimpse of the audience; Ulrik’s parents, the parents of the people in her class, Frida Riska, looking close to tears.