Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Jan Inge listens. The dog has quit barking. The mobile has stopped ringing. He lowers his arms and nods to Tong, who has folded the knife and put it back in his pocket. Tong takes a step closer to Pål. He raises his hand and plants the knuckle duster in his face. It is a clean blow, but once again Pål screams like it is the end of the world.

‘Pål! Keep it down! Will you please try and remember what we talked about? Go ahead and scream, but do it on the inside!’

The whimpering from the dog can once again be heard from the basement. Pål swallows his own sounds, his head hangs by tensed muscles in his neck, and all that escapes him are grunts.

‘Good, Tong,’ Jan Inge says, pleased, and he turns his head nearly 180 degrees and shouts in the direction of the stairs: ‘You find anything down there? You got the dog under control?’

‘No problem, it was just the screaming he didn’t like! Some nice stuff here, Buonanotte will be happy!’

Jan Inge nods and tightens his grip around the baseball bat he has in his hands.

‘Brrr! Brrrr!’

He is about to bring it down on Pål’s fingers when once again the telephone vibrates loudly on the table. ‘Rudi? Can you help out a little here? Could you at least turn off that damned mobile phone so I can get on with my job?’

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, Jani, help out? I’m not even—’

Jan Inge stands with the bat raised above his head while he turns to look at Rudi who’s on his way to the kitchen, sulking over Jan Inge lavishing all his attention on Tong. ‘Hold on a sec,’ he says. ‘Who’s calling?’

Rudi lifts his hands in despair. ‘Was I supposed to turn it off or not to turn it off? I’ve switched it off now! You told me to switch it off!’

Jan Inge raises his eyebrows. ‘Fuck it,’ he says, and sets his jaw. He slams the bat down on Pål’s fingers; Pål twists his face in pain and howls even louder. The dog barks in the basement.

‘Pål. I’m going to get angry soon.’

Pål splutters noisily and the dog begins whimpering again.

‘Cecilie! Shut that dog up!’

Jan Inge places the end of the bat on the floor and leans on it, like a golfer. He listens. It is quiet again. The dog is calm. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘You need to learn to answer people when they’re talking to you, Pål. Things just get messy if you don’t. All right. Focus. Next step.’

‘Focus!’ Rudi says in encouragement, but Jan Inge is just not able to deal with his friend now, so he turns instead to Tong and offers him an inquiring look. Tong folds his arms and cocks his head.

‘Hmm,’ says Tong. ‘The fingers?’

He bends down and takes a pair of pliers from the bag.

‘I don’t know if we need to,’ Jan Inge says, ‘surely they’re already broken?’

Tong shrugs and puts the pliers down. ‘The nose?’

‘Hello? Lionel Ritchie? Am I not here?’

Once again Jan Inge ignores Rudi. He checks to see if Pål’s fingers are broken — four of them are — and then stands next to Tong. They both study Pål. He is not screaming, but he snorts as though in labour.

‘Well, yeah,’ Jan Inge says. ‘The nose. We probably ought to do that.’

Rudi peeps over their heads while he waves a broken-off chair leg casually around. ‘Why wouldn’t we?’

‘Why wouldn’t we,’ mimics Jan Inge. ‘What kind of answer is that? Is that your assessment, Rudi? Round and round we go and where we stop nobody knows?’

Cecilie comes walking up the basement stairs. She sighs when she sees Pål’s battered face, the wound from the corner of his mouth and the blood dripping on to his jeans.

‘Oh dear, Pål,’ she says in a gentle voice, ‘you should be glad you can’t see it. Can you keep it down a bit? Hm? For the sake of the dog?’

‘I think so,’ Pål replies breathlessly. ‘It’s just that it’s pretty tough going, this here.’

‘I understand that.’ Cecilie looks at Rudi, who has sat down on one of the kitchen chairs — after having first turned it demonstratively to face the window. He’s crossed his legs and folded his arms, one bagged foot bobbing up and down from the knee.

She leaves him be and turns to Jan Inge. ‘The nose?’

‘That’s what we’re standing here discussing.’

She lines up next to Tong and Jan Inge and studies Pål.

‘We need to do the nose,’ she says, in a firm voice. ‘The people that were here tonight — they would’ve done that, I think.’

‘They would,’ says Jan Inge, allowing himself time to reflect briefly on femininity and motherhood, how much he has missed them down through the years and how nice it will be to have them in the house.

‘We need to,’ says Tong.

‘Of course we need to,’ Rudi says, getting up from the chair.

‘But we hav—’ something between a sign and groan escapes Jan Inge.

‘True, but we can—’

‘We don’t really need to tal—’

‘Pål stamps on the floor. Jan Inge turns to him. ‘Yes, Pål? Did you want to say something?’

‘What are … what … are … you talking … about?’

Jan Inge shrugs. ‘Well,’ he explains, ‘it’s just that we have had a mishap with a nose before.’

‘Mishap? Whatkindamishap?’

‘It’s not really something we ought to be discussing with you, Pål. That just wouldn’t be right. Now we’re going to break it, it will hurt, but Tong knows what he’s doing. Put it this way, the mishap wasn’t his fault—’

‘Yeah, rub it in!’ Rudi shouts.

‘Rudi, don’t be so touchy. Remember what we talked about. Little good comes from taking affront. You only have to look at your brother.’

‘Rubitinbaby! You had to bring up that toe rag in Sandnes as well? One mistake and it haunts you for the rest of your life! I’m here too y’know, I do exist! What is it you’re always saying? That we’re a team? You’ll never walk alone? Well then, Mr Bullshit Writer, Mr Horror, what do you think it’s like not to be noticed? Just because that little Korean is back again? Have you forgotten your chocolate chip cookies, Manchurian Candidate? I WON’T STAND FOR THIS! ONE MISTAKE AND YOU’RE HAUN—’

Jan Inge fixes his gaze on a point picked in the air at random. He inhales and exhales, feeling like an adult in a nursery.

‘Rudi.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ve talked about this.’

‘I don’t remember that.’

‘We have.’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘Rudi. We have. Talked about it. About you being touchy.’

‘Yeah, and? So are you.’

‘Yes, I can be now and then. But they’re two different conversations. We’re talking about you now.’

‘Okay, okay, but all the same. You can be touchy too. If we don’t like a film that you like for instance.’

‘Fine. I’m willing to accept the criticism. But. The thing is Tong is home. It’s his first day back at work. So it’s hardly unreasonable for him to get a bigger slice of the pie.’

‘The pie?’

‘A metaphor.’

Rudi nods. ‘Right, okay.’ He fills his mouth with air and it looks as though he’s playing the trumpet when he blows out.

‘As I was saying,’ Jan Inge says, regarding the situation as retrieved. He turns to Pål: ‘As I was saying, Tong knows what he’s doing. As opposed to certain other people,’ he adds, realising at the last moment it’s a bit much, but sometimes you have to tell the truth. ‘You’ll experience severe pain now,’ he concludes, ‘but then it’ll all be over. Can you live with that?’

Rudi is staring at the window again. But to no effect. Cecilie has noticed him sulking, and runs her hand up and down his back.

Pål nods.

Jan Inge raises a forefinger to his nose and taps it lightly. Tong lines up, a few feet from Pål. His concentration is a joy to watch, his Asian body perfectly balanced, before he takes a single preparatory step and plants his foot full in Pål’s face.