Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

‘Wonderful, Cecilie, now just wait. We’ll cleanse ever so slightly again, apply a little tonic and serum, a few drops of oil and some eye cream — and believe me, you’re going to look great.’

The skincare woman wrings the cloth over the bowl and brings it to Cecilie’s face.

Cecilie keeps her eyes shut. Her lips taut and pressed hard together.

‘There. Try to relax. Hm? How do you feel?’

Cecilie opens her eyes.

‘Cecilie?’

She can’t manage to say anything.

‘Is everything all right … are you crying?’

Cecilie turns her head away. She looks at the wall. She brings her hand to her eyes, runs a finger beneath the bottom lid of her right and left eyes and realises she’s crying from both. And then she says: ‘You’re not the only one with a child. I’m going to have a child, too. And I’m not a junkie. But my boyfriend will steal your car while you’re asleep. He’ll beat up your husband when he doesn’t pay up what he owes. I’m not pretty, I’m never going to be, and you’re only lying when you say how nice my hair is. I listened to you talking, I can hear that you never tell the truth. You might well walk around thinking you’re gorgeous and you and your friends might well think you know everything about everyone, but you’re all just fucking high-heeled heifers, and I, I need a smoke and I need a cinnamon bun.’

Cecilie gets up, puts her feet on the floor. The beautiful woman stands in front of her, fright in her eyes.

‘Shall we…’ she says, clearing her throat, ‘shall we schedule another appointment?’

‘Your CD is scratched,’ Cecilie says and walks out of the room.

Locked. Daniel feels his breath being forced up his throat. Veronika. Don’t be messing about now, okay? He presses down on the handle again, shouts, and bangs on the door, even though he knows it’s pointless.

He jiggles the door handle. The only way to get her attention is if she sees it going up and down.

Nothing happens.

Daniel puts his ear to the door. He holds his breath and listens. Nothing. He would have heard if the shower was on, if the tap was running, if somebody was moving around or someone flushed the toilet. Nothing.

The lock clicks.

He gives a start, takes a step back and stands looking at the door. Nothing happens. It doesn’t open. Fuck, he thinks. Am I supposed to go in? Is this a signal that I’m welcome in after all? Eh? And what does she mean by it? Am I supposed to go in all puppy-eyed, with my tail between my legs? Am I supposed to get down on my knees in front of her and apologise?

I can’t be bothered with this, he thinks. I can’t be assed playing along. Daniel curses himself for having landed in this situation, curses himself for not having said yes to an institution instead of a new foster home. This was bound to happen when he was left living with women.

He opens the door.

Oh Jesus.

He’s unable to move.

‘Veronika! What have you done? ’

The girl is sitting on the toilet lid. She’s wearing a T-shirt, the metal one, the white Kvelertak one he gave her for her fifteenth birthday. Her hair is dishevelled and her legs are bare.

Veronika turns her face towards him. It looks like a grid, a fine-lined mesh. There are vertical lines from her forehead down to her chin and jaws and horizontal lines going straight across her face. She’s also cut her arms, streaks running down each forearm. Most of the blood has congealed and assumed the same colour as her hair. The long parallel incisions are nasty-looking and rust-coloured.

‘Veronika…’

He tries to hold the tears back but can’t manage, and begins to cry. He sniffles, dries his eyes and takes a step forward. She just sits there looking at him. She shrugs, gives him a lopsided grin. There are bloodstains in the bath. A razor blade lying beside the drain.

Why do I always have to see things like this, he thinks, feeling anger rise. Why can’t I be left alone? Why can’t I leave without things catching up with me again?

Daniel reaches out, puts his arms around Veronika and pulls her close. She’s stiff at first but her body begins to warm up the longer she remains in his embrace. She places her arms on his back.

What will I do, thinks Daniel. What the hell will I do. He tenses the muscles in his jaw, squeezes his eyes shut, wanting more than anything to leave, get to the Suzuki and ride, but he can’t do that now.

After a while he relaxes his embrace and pulls his head back a little to look at her. The lines on her face are straight, she’s carried it out with precision, cut herself up carefully and thoroughly, from top to bottom and side to side, with her eyes open, in front of the mirror.

Daniel opens his mouth.

‘How deep are they?’

No reply.

‘How deep?’

He brings his hand to her face, traces the incisions with two fingertips. The cuts are superficial, not extending far below the surface. ‘You have to promise me never to do that again,’ he says.

She turns her head when he speaks. That’s what she does when she doesn’t want to listen to people. He takes hold of her chin, feeling the cuts against his fingers again, turns her to face him and says: ‘Veronika. Look at me. You have to promise never to do that again.’

She closes her mouth, tightens her lips.

‘Well? Say something.’

She shakes her head.

‘What is it I’ve done to you?’

She’s crying. Fuck, that’s almost worse.

‘Don’t cry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know about this. How could I have known?’

Veronika raises her right hand, sniffles, the tears cease. She extends her index finger and pokes him on the chest with it. ‘Your heart,’ she says, ‘it’s raining blood in there.’

She does this sometimes, says zombielike things — they just fall out of that sky she has inside her head.

‘Jesus, you’re one unusual girl, Veronika,’ he says.

She taps her fingers on his chest. ‘Say it once more.’ Veronika moves a little closer to him. ‘Say it once more.’

You’re not the one I want.

‘Say it again. Say that I’m one unusual girl.’

He smooths away a wisp of hair from her cheek, it was stuck in the moisture from her tears.

‘You have to promise me never to do that again. I won’t stand for it. Once more, and I leave.’

‘Don’t speak so fast.’

‘I’ll leave,’ he repeats. ‘And I’ll be gone for good. And when I go for good, I never look back. Do you understand?’

She nods.

‘Say it. Say it once more.’

‘You’re one unusual girl, Veronika,’ he says, conscious of meaning it. She nods.

‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ He strokes her gently across the face.

‘No,’ she says, ‘it doesn’t hurt now.’

‘Christ.’ Daniel exhales heavily.

‘I like this T-shirt,’ she says, pulling at it a little, making the cotton taut against her tits.

‘Mhm,’ he says, nodding. ‘It’s the bollocks.’

‘The bollocks?’

He nods. ‘The dog’s bollocks. A deaf girl going round wearing it.’

‘Yeah,’ she says, and moistens her lips. ‘The dog’s bollocks.’

Daniel runs his hands through his hair. ‘But what are you going to say to Inger? Are you just going to … what are you planning to say?’

Veronika shrugs. She sits down on the edge of the bathtub. ‘I don’t know. She’ll just have to deal with it. I’m not dead. I’m just deaf.’

She giggles, the atonal laughter resounding more than usual. He laughs too, he can’t help it. Stuff she comes out with, sometimes she really hits the mark.

‘God, you’re weird.’ Daniel shakes his head, looks at her sternly. ‘You do know that I have … that there’s another girl that I’m … going out with. Yeah? You do know that?