Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

Mum seemed knackered when she said goodnight. She stood in front of Veronika with her head to one side and placed two fingers on her cuts, tracing her fingertips along them, just as Daniel had done in the kitchen minutes previously.

‘Don’t stay up too late, okay?’

‘I won’t.’

It was as though his very hand had sowed desire in her groin. The firm grasp he had taken of her was hard and insistent, painful almost, but the craving in his palm, the hungry pressure he put against her pubis, made her body ignite, and when he took his hand away all she could think was do it again . She felt a flailing warmth spread throughout her, also in the form of increasing circles, beginning in her crotch, describing a ring round her loins, a ring round her stomach and thighs, around her breasts and calves, a ring around her entire body.

The bathroom door opened. The sound of her mother’s feet going in the direction of the bedroom and out of sight.

‘Night, Mum.’

‘Good night, Inger.’

Daniel was sitting at one end of the sofa, feet up on the table, neck resting on the back of the cushion, one arm over the end of the sofa, the other resting on his stomach. Veronika sat up for a moment, pretended to fix her clothes, then sat down again, closer.

He got to his feet without looking at her, his lips moved, but she wasn’t sure if he said something or merely sighed, snapped for air, like a guppy. He went over to the window, closed it and remained standing looking out at the darkness with searching eyes.

He did say something, but she couldn’t make it out. ‘What?’

He turned his mouth away again. Too much shit here now? Was that what he said?

Veronika got up and went over to him. ‘What are you saying?’

He avoided her gaze. ‘Dunno. School. Can’t face school tomorrow. Need to think.’

She drew as close to him as she dared. There was a long pause. Veronika’s breath had less and less space to draw in air from.

‘And what is it you need to think about?’ she asked.

He turned to her. His face glistened, his teeth shone like polished ivory, his eyes had yellow spears in them and his tongue was long and cruel.

‘You fuck me up,’ he said.

‘You fuck me up,’ she said.

Daniel put his hand back where it belonged, he pressed harder and she felt how that was the way it was supposed to be. Her hand went to his jeans, rubbed him across the flies and she saw his mouth open, saw his chest heave and his jaw clench.

‘You really fuck me up,’ he said, gritting his teeth as his torso rose and fell.

‘I know,’ she said, as she took her fingers away, saw him take sharp intakes of breath, took hold of his belt, undid the buckle and saw him gulp and blink, ‘and that’s the whole point.’

‘Shit, we have to be quiet,’ he said, placing a hand on each of her breasts.

‘We have to be very quiet,’ she said, feeling a throbbing dick in her hands for the first time.

Veronika wakes up. Her cheeks are warm and it is Thursday morning. She opens her eyes and closes them right after, as though what she’s going to see is an enemy of that which has occurred.

She has no choice but to go far today, too far perhaps.

‘Oh … Jan Inge … I didn’t know you were in here.’

Jan Inge swallows. He looks up at Cecilie. She has those threadbare jeans of hers in her hands, as well as an old bra. She’s only wearing the large Europe T-shirt. It looks like a tent.

She crouches down.

‘Hey? You okay?’

Jan Inge nods ever so slightly. He meets her eyes for the briefest moment, then looks away again. It’s not a good idea to look deeply into Cecilie’s eyes, too much to see in them.

‘Oh God, Jani, bruv, are you crying?’

It’s not so easy after all. Always having breakfast ready. Never falling apart. Forever being in good humour. Being in control at all times. He saw it. In that programme on TV, the one about leadership. A Microsoft executive. Show emotion, he said. Demonstrate that you’re a person and not a machine. It makes for a good leader. And why? asked the Microsoft guy. I’ll tell you why, because you work alongside people. They need to see that you’re like them.

Jan Inge reaches out and tears off a few sheets of toilet paper. He blows his nose. Swallows.

‘What’s wrong? Why are you sitting here crying?’

Jan Inge raises his bulk from the toilet seat. He takes a few steps towards the bathroom mirror. He sniffs, clears his throat, spits in the sink and rinses his mouth. In the reflection of the mirror he can see Cecilie pulling down her knickers, flipping up the lid of the toilet, sitting down and peeing. She actually looks quite nice when she’s sitting like that. Those eyes, set far apart, open up her face kind of like a book; she looks like she did when she was small, when they roamed about the house wondering what to do, when Mum had died and Dad had gone to Houston.

Those compassionate eyes. More gut-wrenching looking into them than meeting those tetchy eyes she glares at you with most of the time.

Jan Inge finds a spot in the air and fixes his gaze upon it. He straightens up: ‘Cecilie. I’m sitting here in the toilet. It’s an important day. I’m here enjoying a few moments of peace early in the morning. I’m meditating. I’m like the Chinese. Do you see the bowl of rice between my hands? Do you see the wind playing in the hazel trees?’

Cecilie gets up from the toilet, flushes it and tries to make eye contact, but he avoids it.

‘Jani,’ she says, sitting down on the edge of the bath, ‘you know I’m not always able to follow what you’re saying when you talk like that. What do you mean?’

‘I just mean that I’m thinking.’

‘Yeah?’

He looks her in the eye. He’s able to now. ‘About my life,’ he says. ‘About our lives. About Tong getting out today. About Dad in Houston. About Mum in Hell, barbecuing rats with the Devil. I’m picturing the grease dripping from the side of her mouth. Is she riding the Devil, Cecilie? It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m thinking about the job we have on tonight. I’m sitting here in the toilet — the last bastion of privacy. And yes. Perhaps I shed a tear. Yes. Perhaps life overwhelms us all at times.’

He turns to the sink, puts both taps on, waiting for the water to become lukewarm before placing his hands under the jet. Warms them up.

‘Yeah, of course it does,’ says Cecilie.

‘Do you not think I harbour dreams?’

‘Sure, of course I think you do.’

Jan Inge turns off the water and takes hold of the towel hanging beside the sink. ‘Do you think it’s fun for me to have become so fat and got a bald patch to boot? Do you not think I’ll do anything to keep this gang together?’

‘But Jan Inge—’

He sits down on the edge of the bath, beside her.

‘I’ll tell you something, Cecilie,’ he says. ‘When Dad went away … one night after I’d put you to bed, I went down to the basement. Dad had left behind some tools in case we had to fix something in the house. We did become independent, you and I, by the fact of him leaving. I’ll give him that. I found the toolbox and took out the hammer, Cecilie. I took it in my hand and carried it with me up the stairs, carried it through the hall here, held it while I opened the door to your room, clasped it as I made my way over to your bed. And once there, I raised my hand over my head and saw the shadow of the hammer on the wall behind you.’

Jan Inge pauses.

He is aware of the heightened atmosphere in the bathroom.

Cecilie sits camly beside him. She listens as though what he’s saying is on celluloid. An intense film about a brother who’s going to take his sister’s life. Because their mother has kicked the bucket and their father has moved to Houston.