Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

‘Yeaaah Zitha, yeaah, good girl,’ he whispers, feeling the ground beneath him starting to slope upwards. Zitha keeps moving across the forest floor, sniffing. He stops and looks up at the rock. It doesn’t look as big as he remembers. The football pitch is up there, but everything is a lot more open than he remembers.

Pål walks up to the crest and lets his gaze sweep around. It’s a long time since he’s been here. He chose this spot because he recalled it being overgrown, because in his mind the rock was so big you could stand behind it and hide from the world. But that’s completely wrong. That’s how memory works. Things are exaggerated, things are diminished and things are moved around.

It’s way too exposed. They can’t stand here and talk.

Is this a good idea? Seeking out these people?

Pål wipes his right eye with a shaky hand. It has to go away soon. He feels worn out. So worn out by all of it. His eyes, the long nights. Why couldn’t he just leave everything the way it was? Why did he have to get into all this? He had everything he needed. The house. The kids. A job. Was it all down to his fingers, his breath, the cold light of night, his empty life, the desire to be sucked into the cold glow of the screen and disappear?

I don’t know, he thinks.

I just don’t know.

It just happened.

Pål goes over to the rock and leans against it. He inhales and exhales. Wonder how things are with Videoboy’s sister now? Maybe she’s married with kids, maybe she got herself an education, maybe she lives in another country.

What is it I’ve been doing, he thinks.

Day after day, evening after evening, night after night.

Footsteps?

Zitha’s ears stand on end.

Cecilie is curled up in the back seat. She isn’t very tall. Just one metre fifty-nine. As for curling up, she’s good at that. She peers up at the beige upholstery in the roof of the Volvo. There are slashes in it from the time they drove home from a job over in Ålgard. Rudi had taken too much speed and wanted to write ‘fuck’ with his knife.

She blows out the smoke. It fills the car.

If it was a kitten I’ll kill him, she thinks. Maybe I’ll just do it anyway. Get rid of his Motörhead T-shirt, get rid of all his shit, get the whole of Rudi out of my head, rewind to the life I had before life began. Kill him. So I can go to his grave, lay down a wreath and whisper: Hi, Rudi, sweetheart, you’re dead.

She slides up and rolls the car window down a little to let out some smoke.

Take Cecilie along, she could use a little air. Those lads, what do they think she is? Stupid, that’s what. They get up every morning thinking they can make the world how they want it, and they think she’s an idiot. And she lets them talk to her as though she is an idiot.

Cecilie slips two pasty fingers out the gap in the window and drops the cigarette, before opening the pack and taking out another. Get some air. How’s this getting some air?

She lights the cigarette, inhales deeply and lies back down on the seat.

Bloody Volvo. She’s so fucking tired of waiting while the boys are on a job somewhere or other, and she’s so fed up of this car. It’s uncomfortable to sit in, it stinks, the gearbox is loose, the axle is dodgy and the steering wheel will soon be hanging off. Why can’t they get a new car? One like normal people have. But no, no, they’re not going to do anything like normal people. A4 people, Jani calls them, and it’s obvious he doesn’t look up to them.

Cecilie hears a faint noise and raises her head. She ducks down when she sees two young clear-skinned girls come walking up the hill towards Hafrsfjord.

‘Friends wouldn’t be a good idea,’ Rudi says.

‘Wouldn’t be good for you, Chessi.’

‘And not for the company either,’ Jani says.

‘It’s all part and parcel of our profession, we have to keep to our own kind.’

Cecilie brings herself up on to her elbows, looks out and sees the girls are gone.

But imagine she wants some friends? Imagine she does. But she hasn’t any. She was banged by every moron who came through the door with a stolen carton of Marlboro, a Walkman or a ghetto blaster; she spread her legs, heard the boys groan, closed her eyes and thought of Dad in Houston. She eats cinnamon buns, takes walks to the sea and has a boyfriend who has problems sleeping and sings Aerosmith songs when he gets nervous. She’s allowed go to the skincare clinic once a month.

Cecilie gets up abruptly and opens the door. She puts her feet on the soft earth and looks towards the woods. It’s so dark. She doesn’t like the darkness, never has, only in movies. She turns and begins walking up the road in the direction they came from. She speeds up. If it was a kitten. She squints ahead of her. It was around here somewhere. What kind of place is this anyway?

Shush shush little baby.

Shush shush little one.

Just be quiet.

Mummy’s got five hundred kroner and Mummy’s going to the beauty clinic.

You can come along.

Or maybe we’ll go to Houston. Say hello to Granddad. You’ll like him. He never should have left us. He was such a laugh. It always felt like Christmas Day when he was in the room. His smile was so big it swallowed everything. Doesn’t seem like either of his kids have inherited that good humour.

Cecilie halts as she catches sight of something on the road.

She bends over.

It’s a hedgehog.

A little bloody hedgehog.

Cecilie lifts it up into her arms. The creature has curled itself up. It feels like a stinging ball in her hands. It must have scurried out on to the road on its tiny feet, quickly understood it wasn’t a good place to be, then curled itself up to meet death.

‘Mummy is going to look after you,’ she whispers to the hedgehog, feeling her anger mount. She turns and stomps back angrily, a severe sway in her hips. There’s a lot you don’t know, Rudi, she thinks, her heels digging into the ground. You think you can just run over anyone at all and act as if nothing has happened, but there’s a lot you don’t have a clue about. Tong would do anything for me, did you know that? He’s getting out on Friday, I’m picking him up at half eight, and he’s one sick Korean and he would do anything for me, did you know that?

Her speed increases for every step she takes.

Rudi.

We’ll kill you, you ugly prick.

Waking up at three in the morning, jolted by a dizzy heart, to stare at the darkness in fear. Being wide awake, feeling how ready her body is, how sharp, anxious and all set it is, as though she were a soldier. Where are you? What are you doing now? What are you thinking about? Sandra tilts to one side: No, you must never leave me, you must never look at anyone but me, nothing must ever change from the way it is now.

That terrible fear that one day it will end. She refuses to believe it, because Sandra and Daniel are the ones who are going to make it: I will never leave you. I will never look at anyone else. Here are my hands, look, they’re touching you, look, they want to caress you, and here’s my mouth, look, it wants to kiss you, feel it, it’s yours: Promise me, yes? Do you promise, yes? Sure? Yes? Positive?

Yes.

Nobody will threaten us.

No.

This will never end.

One day he was just standing there, like a snowdrop when the ground frost releases its hold.

That was only a few weeks ago, and there was a life before this but now it’s no more than fading echoes in her body. The girl with three freckles on her nose and the slightly goofy teeth has gone crazy. She can’t concentrate on her homework, when her mother and father are speaking it’s like they’re muttering in the fog. The same with her friends, it’s utterly impossible to grasp what they’re babbling about.