Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Why should we think about money troubles? Why should we think about the economic imbalance between us? After all, we share everything, said Christine. Pål made a quarter the amount she did, but he didn’t experience any feelings of displeasure about it, just as he didn’t feel any displeasure at having an ambitious wife who travelled abroad with Statoil, who constantly worked overtime. He liked that she was on the go, the same way he liked his own ordered life, and instead of thinking that a job with the local authority is an insecure job, because there’s no opportunity to earn more money if you should suddenly find your life beginning to go under, he thought that a job with the local authority is a good job, because at least you have one if the world begins to go under.

When she left, things looked okay, Pål didn’t need to change his habits, didn’t need to start shopping at cheaper supermarket chains or cancel his newspaper subscription. He managed to pay the bills, was able to live like before. The support payments from Bergen were generous. But after a few years things started getting a bit tight. The upkeep on such a big house was expensive. The money from Bergen became more infrequent. And after four or five years Pål had to face the fact that funds were running low. He needed a new lawnmower; he had to get drainage problems outside the house sorted after some damp damage had shown up in the basement. Where was he going to get the money from? He cut down on things here, there and everywhere, food, clothes, holidays, downloaded TV series off the net. But it still wasn’t enough. He traded in his car, it didn’t help. He borrowed money from his mother, it didn’t help. And then one night he began to gamble. Almost out of curiosity. It helped. After a few minutes he was sitting with several hundred thousand in his account. Pål, nervous and grinning, switched off the computer. Never again, he said to himself, and got the area round the house drained and damp-proofed with the money, but a month later he was back in front of the screen, and so began the life he’s lived since: win a little, lose a little, win less, lose even more.

It’s not just nights he’s been playing. Lately he’s been in the sitting room with a smile plastered to his face, the laptop on his knees, two windows open, one an online newspaper, the other a gambling site. On Sunday, he’d said, casually, his eyes on the screen: Hey Malene, what’s your favourite number? She gave him a strange look and said, eh seven, why do you ask? Oh, was just wondering, he said, betting on seven. What are you doing, Dad? Hm, ah, just checking the weather forecast in the paper here. Lose. Lose. Lose. Continue. Continue. Continue. Personal loan, maxed-out card, GE Money Bank are throwing loans at people these days, and no one knows who Pål Fagerland is, apart from them: Hi Pål, how’s it going? The telephone rings late one night. Listen, we wondered if you wanted to come along to a poker tournament in Riga? Or: Hi Pål, we transferred 500 euros to you today, a little bonus. And when does that call come? Just as he’s logged on. After a few day’s absence. They know who you are. No one else.

The inside.

That’s where I live, he thinks. But what is it that’s going on inside of me?

He won big one time, felt the money rain down upon him one time, and that one time he’s believed it was down to talent, but the laws are such that eventually he’ll lose, everything. That’s the heart of the game. He knows that. But how does that help? It doesn’t, not at all. Pål was terrified of smoking when he was small. It didn’t prevent him from starting to smoke. He smoked for seventeen years. The only reason he managed to quit was Malene, when she was ten and lay crying because she was sure her daddy would die. That was something that raked at him on the inside. Pål knows that it’s not going to work. But no matter how well he knows it, he still believes in that jackpot every night, the one that can cancel all his debts and make him rich and worry-free.

Zitha rubs her snout against his thigh and Pål feels his jaw loosen, his chin drop, hears himself sigh.

‘Yeaah,’ he whispers, glancing over at Cecilie and Rudi, ‘yeaah, good girl.’

He was amazed when she showed up. She hasn’t changed since the time he went into her room. 1986. She’s just the same, only more run-down. Just as thin, just as bony, just as discordantly composed. Her skin was soft and pink back then, now it’s grainy and grey, but still freckly.

Pål needs to take pains to avoid being recognised. It’s not going to go down well if Rudi realises he’s been one of her — well — customers. To think she was the first girl Pål was with. Two hundred kroner? Wasn’t it two hundred kroner he stole from his mum and dad? They took the bus out to the house in Hillevåg, he and Hasse. Pål handed the money over to Videoboy, was directed towards a room that lay at the end of a long hall. She was lying in there. A little girl under a duvet. Posters on the walls, one of a cat and another of Wham! He undressed. She giggled, he remembers, and lifted the duvet. He got into the bed, put his hands on those tiny tits. He didn’t sleep with her, didn’t have time, he came as soon as her fingers stroked his dick. Pål felt sick with shame afterwards, ran away from the horror movies and the rented girl and never went back.

And now here she was. She’d become Rudi’s girlfriend.

He was always a nutcase, thinks Pål, looking over at the pair of them. Was this a good idea? Help him get hold of a million? Rudi was always twisted but now he seems even more so. Probably the same with criminals as the rest of us, we become ourselves more and more as life goes on, we expand, and it’s not only the good sides that grow, the bad ones do too.

The eighties come wafting back to Pål, a time smelling of Sky Channel and late nights, flickering bike lamps, humming dynamos and puddle rock. The Tjensvoll Gang, sick rumours circulated about them. They looked tough, they lived by their own rules, they had the courage not to give a shit, not about school, or teachers, or parents, if they had any. Pål never possessed that kind of courage. Hasse was drawn to it, his curiosity greater than any moral qualms, he had to get to see everything, but Pål grew frightened when he heard about the things they got up to. Even their names scared him, Rudi, Tommy Pogo, Janka Bat. People spoke of Rudi’s eyes sparkling the time he held a wailing cat in his grip, knocked it on the head with a stone, opened its mouth, placed a firecracker on its still pink tongue, laughed so much he almost retched, closed the cat’s mouth, lit the fuse, took a few steps back and said:

‘This is the most fun I’ve ever fucking had, and it hasn’t even happened yet.’

People said the cat’s head cracked and its eyes exploded like glass. Two weeks later they stole a can of petrol from the garage of a house in Ragnhilds Gate, captured a hedgehog, doused the animal with it and watched the flames rise into the night sky as they discussed what to do next, and did anyone have any drain cleaner at home?

Rudi has placed both hands on Cecilie’s shoulders. It looks like he’s trying to press her down into the ground. She nods. Then she looks over at Pål while saying something. Pål swallows. Are they talking about him? Has she recognised him?

Rudi looks in his direction.

No, thinks Pål. I need to go. He’s going to kill me.

There’s a flash in Rudi’s eyes. He raises his forefinger.

I need to go. Now.

Rudi begins to walk towards him.

‘Nice to meet you, Pål,’ says Cecilie, ‘I have to be off, so … see you.’

Pål clears his throat but doesn’t manage to get a word out.

She bends over, picks up the hedgehog and begins walking back down through the forest. A bit like a soldier, Pål thinks, and sees Rudi approach. He looks like one of the trees in the forest, like one of the trees has torn its roots up out of the soil and begun ambling across the earth in the darkness.