Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Malene was in more pain than she’d ever known, but all she could think of while Sigrid examined her foot with a seasoned eye, was: ‘Now I won’t be able to do gymnastics for months. Maybe never again. All the work I’ve put in to get here has been wiped out.’

‘Pia! Turn off the music! Ice and tape!’ Sigrid’s powerful voice rang out through the hall. The music stopped, Pia ran. The smaller girls stood around Malene with their hands to their mouths and eyes large as saucers.

One small mistake was all it took. Had she not been concentrating? Had she done something wrong in the chassé? No. It was the backflip. It was too high.

‘There’s only one thing to do now, Malene,’ Sigrid said calmly. ‘You put this behind you,’ she continued as she taped the ice pack tight around Malene’s ankle before elevating it and stating that they’d have to go to A&E to get an X-ray. ‘You’ll be back in this hall next week, even if you come on crutches, you’re coming along with us to camp in the summer, do you hear me?’

Malene nodded and writhed in pain.

‘You’re not going to let this fester, you’re not going to let it get to you. Do you understand?’

She nodded again.

‘You’ll be back on the mat in a few months and this won’t affect you.’

Malene began strapping her ankle and icing it regularly, she went to the gymnastics hall to begin training herself back up carefully, but as the weeks went by she felt less and less at ease. Her friends, who’d been so considerate to start with, were occupied with their own things, her injury wasn’t exotic anymore. Malene felt stupid, her fear wouldn’t release her and she limped her way through the whole of the summer holidays. She avoided meeting Sigrid’s eyes because she knew what they were saying: Don’t quit, Malene. She began doing exercises, began going to the physiotherapists, but the ankle wouldn’t heal. Every day she checked it when she got out of bed in the morning: was it stronger today? Every second of the day went to thinking about the pain and just as Sigrid had feared, the pain won out, over Malene’s mind as well. Then summer came round again, with the Olympics in London, a few of the other girls travelled to England with Sigrid, they saw sixteen-year-old Gabby Douglas beat Victoria Komova, but Malene didn’t go along. She sat home reading text messages from the UK: ‘Mally, you should have been here.’

Everyone says change is a good thing. Malene isn’t so sure about that. Tiril loves change. She hated it when Mum left but apart from that she loves everything new. She throws herself into one new thing after the other, never looks back, just keeps on going.

They’ve always said we’re like night and day, Tiril and I. Am I the day, then? Is she the night?

The sisters continue on up the hill towards the top of Limahaugen. It’s not windy, there isn’t even a hint of a breeze, but still it feels colder as they get higher up, and Malene considers what Dad always says about it being the nicest place in the world and thinks how true that is.

‘Look at that,’ he likes to say, ‘eh? Take a look. The fjord down there. Those three islands out there. Eh?’

You don’t get it, Tiril. You’re so knotted up in your emo brain that you don’t understand. One day you’ll suddenly have been cocky one time too many. Suddenly the pain you flirt with will turn serious. Suddenly you’ll have lost everything you can’t live without. What do you think life is? A game about suffering?

They stop at the top of the hill. Look at one another.

Dad isn’t there. Zitha isn’t there.

Tiril gives a self-assured shrug. She purses her lips, assumes that cheeky look, the one that makes her look like a fox. ‘There you go,’ she says and blows a bubble with her chewing gum. It bursts in the wind with a dry snap. ‘Now what do you say? Isn’t it just like I said?’

Malene grabs hold of her sister. And then she slaps her across the face.

A dog. A nice little dog. A black-and-white one, maybe. Would you like that? Baby? A black and white one?

Cecilie carries the hedgehog in her arms, resting against her stomach. It still feels warm to her, as though death hadn’t prevailed just yet.

He looked kind, that Pål guy, she felt it in her gut. His eyes looked frightened, but kind all the same, he had shiny skin. He ought not to get mixed up with them. He doesn’t belong in our world, thinks Cecilie.

Rudi’s actually kind as well, he’s just not always able to show it, just so much crap with him. ADHD. That’s what he says. ‘It’s the ADHD, Chessi, you know how it makes me act. But so what. Never bothered me,’ he says. But that’s bullshit. She’s well aware of that. It’s a load of bullshit. When a guy sits there jiggling his foot day in day out for forty years then it does something to him. He’s got beetles on his brain.

Cecilie emerges from the darkness of the woods and walks over to the car. Holding the hedgehog with one hand, she opens the boot. There’s usually all kinds of odds and ends in there. It’s a storeroom so to speak, the Volvo. She picks up a hammer, looks at it, thinks it over, then takes it out and slams the boot. With the hammer in one hand and the hedgehog resting against her stomach she takes a few steps into the woods. She halts when she comes to a little patch of grass.

Yeah.

You can rest here.

Mr Hedgehog.

Here’s to you. Sorry.

Cecilie puts the hedgehog down carefully. It sinks down and spreads out a little, as though it were breathing out heavily. ‘Look, baby,’ she whispers. ‘Do you see the hedgehog? Do you see, its ears are just as small as your Mummy’s, see? It’s lovely, isn’t it?’

She waits, as if for an answer, and nods.

‘Yeah,’ she whispers. ‘It’s really lovely. Now we’ll bury it. Hallelujah.’

Cecilie takes hold of the hammer and begins making a furrow with the cleft end, the part you pull out nails and things like that with, whatever it’s called. Yes, she thinks, you can tell by looking at people if they’re kind or not and that guy Pål, he looked kind.

She has a calm feeling in her chest. Digging up the earth does her good. Friends of my own, she thinks, girls. No. She’d just feel stupid if she had a load of friends. They’d know all kinds of stuff while she doesn’t know too much at all.

But it would be nice to have some friends all the same.

But if she was to have friends she couldn’t have Rudi.

But if she sets Tong on Rudi?

Then there’ll be war.

The strongest will win and the weakest will die.

Five hundred kroner to take away my ashes.

Cecilie gets to her feet. She looks at the little grave she’s made. ‘See,’ she whispers and points. ‘There we go. Hmm?’

Again she waits, as though for an answer.

‘Yeah. You’re right. It’s deep enough now. Cheers, Mr Hedgehog. You can rest here, can’t you?’

She crouches down and picks up the animal. It’s cold now. Stiffer as well. She lays it down in the hollow and covers it with earth.

I could always get a job, she thinks. Could find something to do with plants and flowers. I’m good at working with soil. Jesus, I’m so lucky I don’t have to work, Jani says. Work? Do you know how much money people would pay not to work? says Rudi.

But I’m good at screwing.

I’ve been good at that since I was small.

Cecilie puts her foot over the soil and flattens it with the tip of her shoe. Then she stands there for a few moments looking at what is just a plain patch of earth, before grabbing the hammer and heading back towards the car.

She lights up a cigarette.

Jani never misses Mum, he hates her. Cecilie hates her too, but sometimes she misses her as well. In a way. Maybe not in a Mum-the-way-she-was way, but Mum all the same. Mum the way she could be, perhaps. Mum the way she wasn’t? Is that possible? To miss Mum the way she wasn’t?