See You Tomorrow

by Tore Renberg

  He walks her every day. Usually up to the fields and forests of Sørmarka, to Hinnaberget, sometimes down to the sea at Møllebukta, but mostly they go to Limahaugen by the Iron Age Farm. Get outdoors, feel like the blood is flowing from Zitha’s body over to his. He sees how she tenses up when she picks up the scent of something, sees how her body spurts across the ground. ‘Yeah, yeah, Zitha. Go on!’ What he likes most is standing on top of Limahaugen, close to the old cairn, and looking down at Hafrsfjord. The three islands, Prestøy, Somsøy and Kobbholmen, lying there like three brothers. He and a mate used to go out there when they were small, to Sømsøy, except they called it Bunny Island on account of all the rabbits running around. Long time ago now.

  This is what he likes best. Him, with the dog by his side. If anyone was ever going to paint a portrait of him, then this is what would fill the canvas.

  But no one, he thinks, has any idea what I’m up to.

  Getting close to nine o’clock.

  This isn’t going to work out, is it?

  Below him lies the forest.

  He has the blocks of flats to his right, Limahaugen to his left, and on the horizon the telecom tower at Ullandhaug. Once past the flats, the primary school comes into view. Madlavoll. The one he went to so many years ago. The gym, football pitch, the school building. Brand new in the eighties, seems old now, run-down and out of date. Happens to everything. Everything that was modern, forced to become so faded. Pål looks over at the schoolyard. That’s where they played football, where the girls jumped rope, they were there, all of them. Jørgen, Lise, Thomas, Jarle, Bülent, Susanne, Anna and Prince. Prince. What a character. That’s all we called him, Prince. He was a damn good breakdancer. Him and Inge. They were the first ones in school to do handstands, had to beat the women off with a stick. Then the girls of course, Hilde, Marianne, ah, she was gorgeous. Funny about the girls you never get. They can haunt you for the rest of your life. And Anne Mette, she became an actor, she did, and then there was Odd … Odd Jonas, no … Odd Roger, the guy with the forehead covered in zits, big guy. Yeah, Odd Roger. Something screwed-up there. Wasn’t right in the head. Just filled up with hate … and Pesi … He died, didn’t he? Yeah, junkie. Popped his clogs.

  Strange thinking about the old gang.

  Feels painful. And it feels good.

  And Hasse – imagine, they were so close in secondary school, for a while they were together day and night, and now? They’re embarrassed when they meet. Hasse has become a bit of a minor celebrity, works for the Minister of Culture in Oslo. What would he have said if he knew what Pål was doing now? Jesus, Pål. You’re playing with fire. Jesus Christ, Pål, you’re heading into the depths of the forest.

  The dog tugs at the leash.

  ‘Yeah, come on, Zitha,’ he says, ‘Come on.’

  He’s thought a lot about that school reunion. They arrived one by one, face after face, half-forgotten memories dancing in front of his eyes. Ådne from Class 6B worked for the national health service and had lost his wife to cancer. Bjarne from 6C had MS. Kjartan from 6A had become a multi-millionaire, something to do with selling equipment to the oil business. Tine, Mimi and Anja tottered on high heels, drank gin & tonics and white wine and talked about Thomas Dybdahl, Karl Ove Knausgård and George Clooney, and were on the razz for the first time in ages. A lot of the lads turned up with pear-shaped bodies and potbellies and tried as well as they could to chat about football and the old days. All Pål could think about was how everyone had lost. Everyone, including me, has lost. We’re losing all the time, and we’re losing hard, but at the same time our helplessness shines like small, blushing suns.

  Pål passes the kindergarten. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a moped parked over by the old substation. He speeds up, continues down towards Madlamarkveien, crosses over it and enters the wood on the other side. He doesn’t take the tarmac path through the wood, he goes into the pitch darkness. He walks carefully through the ferns, the overgrown scrub, the twisted roots, letting Zitha sniff and lead the way.

  He stops for a few seconds and turns his face towards the black tops of the trees. A clear, starry sky hangs above them.

  There were other people too. Back in his younger days. People who lived in the darkness. People who dared do things he never would. People who crossed lines. People with wild eyes and clenched fists. The Tjensvoll Gang.

  Malene mustn’t ever find out about this, he thinks. She must never know what her father was up to.

  He’s arranged to meet him at nine o’clock.

  11. O LORD (Daniel William)

  I came down here to fuck these girls

  O Lord

  I came down here to fuck all of these girls

  O Lord

  Cause I’m a bad man

  Yes I’m a bad man

  But I’m a real man

  I came down here to kill these girls

  O Lord

  I came down here to kill all of these girls

  O Lord

  Cause I’m a bad man

  Yes I’m a bad man

  But I’m a real man

  He’s not exactly a songsmith. But then neither are Dejan, Simon or Vegard. So he’s been responsible for the lyrics. They’re not particularly good, but that’s one of the ones he’s happy with, one of the ones that feels real.

  Daniel remembers one time in third year when they had a writer visit the class, wow, like, oh, so interesting, Mr Writer Dude, wow, did you really begin writing poetry when you were in second year? You read a thick book by a Russian writer, you say? Oh wow, Mr Writer Dude, I’m so impressed.

  Makes no difference. No one hears what Simon is singing anyway.

  But real.

  The lyrics of that one song. At least they’re real.

  Oh Lord.

  Daniel checks the time again. 20:59

  He often wakes up in the middle of the night, ready to burst he’s so aroused. He’ll wake up in the dark feeling like he’s lying in a cold cave far up in the mountains, where ancient water drips down around his naked feral form, where diseased bats sail above his ringing head, where long curtains of stone hang down through the darkness, where blood boils within those black lungs of his, lungs that look like stone furnaces, where indiscernible spears cut through the foul air now and then, spears glistening with silver and grease, where screams are to be heard, long-drawn-out screams, that begin with a faint, barely audible tinnitus in the distance, before growing and gushing towards him like heavy trains, like jets of pain, banging like bolts against his hearing. Then he knows who’s woken, the caveman, the stoneman, the ironman: He just knows.

  20:59

  O Lord

  A thousand million kilometres beneath the earth.

  Sandra. Now.

  12. THAT WAS KIND OF WEIRD (Malene)

  Adidas Superstar.

  It just felt kind of weird.

  Malene places her dad’s shoes beside one another. The pair he likes best. She knits her brow. They’re worn out, those trainers. He ought to get himself a new pair. She’s told him. You ought to get a new pair of trainers, Dad. No, no, he said. The more worn in they are, the better.

  Dad probably isn’t aware she does it. Every night. Places his shoes neatly beside one another. Tiril certainly doesn’t spot it. Her head is full of her own stuff. She probably hasn’t noticed that he has a pair he wears every day. White with black stripes.

  There’s no other trainers I feel so comfy in, Dad says.

  She gets to her feet.

  Felt weird, that hug.

  Malene has always been Dad’s girl. He has driven her to gymnastics six days a week and she’s always felt that he’s been hers. She’s always crept into his lap and felt it a safe place to be. It’s not the kind of thing you think about when you’re little, then it’s just children’s TV, pizza and Saturday treats, but one day you realise that you’ve always gone to Dad, without really knowing why. She’s heard it before: a Daddy’s girl. Tiril has said it often enough, that’s for s
ure: go on, run to Daddy.

  That hug.

  It might not be anything.

  But. It was weird.

  Something about the way he held her. Something about his breathing. He has been acting pretty strangely of late. She never used to think about what he did when they went to bed. It was sort of obvious. He watched TV. He tidied up. He loaded the dishwasher. He hung up clothes to dry. But now? When she says goodnight to him it’s like he has an aura of fear about him. How long does he stay up, actually? Maybe he’s sad and can’t sleep. Maybe he misses having a girlfriend. She has never had a boyfriend herself. She hasn’t been quite ready for it. But she’s not an idiot, she understands if Dad misses having one. But still. This feels like it’s about something else. That hug, for instance. She came out of her room and caught sight of Dad. He was standing in the hall with Zitha. On his way out. And then he just started acting really weird. His bashful eyes grew moist and he suddenly pulled her close, quite roughly, it was totally spooky. Not in a nice way, not in the warm, cosy way he usually does. It was rough.

  Malene fixes her eyes on the door, as if it will open merely by her doing so.

  Jesus, Tiril’s become a real pain in the ass. Fourteen, behaving like an idiot. Fine, they’ve never been very close, but she is her sister. They’ve slept in the same room, she’s borrowed toys and jewellery, they’ve taken Zitha out for walks thousands of times and Malene has looked after her since she was small. But now it’s as if she’s disappeared into some idiotic land of her own, going around scowling at everyone, smearing thick layers of emo make-up on, and thinking Evanescence is the answer to everything in the world. It’s fine that she’s got her mind on singing next Thursday. It’s great that she was picked to perform at the final performance of the International Cultural Workshop, and it’s obvious that the director has seen she has talent, it’s all good, but it’s utterly impossible to get an intelligent word out of her, and she can’t be bothered to do her homework, she just lies in bed listening to her iPhone.

  Malene puts her forefinger in her mouth, bites right down to the quick.

  That hug.

  It’s just like Sandra at school, she’s out of it at the moment. Maybe it’s something that happens to everyone, one day you’re just out of it? One day you just have to explode? It happened to Mum. Her head was blown open, and she left. Is it going to happen to Malene too? One day, she’ll be completely out of it?

  She takes a few steps forward. She feels her ankle, it’s still sore, how long will it take before she can start training again? She misses it a lot. The smell of the gym hall, the girls in the locker room, that feeling of floating through the air, the kick she gets from it.

  She opens the front door, as though to check if he’s standing there, right outside. As if she almost believes he is. Dad.

  But there’s nobody out there. Only the yellow glow of the street lights. Only a row of wheelie bins stretching all the way down to the main road. Only the stars in the night sky. Only this autumnal chill after a bright, warm day.

  Dad is forgetting things, and his eyes aren’t just dry, they’re vacant. As though at times they’re far away. He smiles all the time, he smiles when they are eating dinner, he smiles in the mornings, he smiles when he gets in from work, he smiles when he sits with the laptop in the evening and he smiles when they have visitors.

  Malene nods.

  She hurries to the kitchen, runs her hand across the hob, goes through the living room and checks no candles are burning, tries the handle on the veranda door. Out in the hallway she reaches for her shoes. Slips her feet into them, grabs the green jacket from the peg and puts it on.

  She goes out. Because there’s something wrong with that smile and she is the daughter of her father, Adidas Superstar.

  13. I’M COMING NOW (SANDRA)

  Love endures all things: There’s a tingling on her tongue, as though tiny creatures were dancing across it.

  The shop has to be inviting, that’s what the manager said when she got the job. When people come through the door in the morning they have to feel welcome. Of course, Mr Spar. They’ve been happy with her up to now, hard to find fault with Sandra. A good girl, no denying she always has been. Always did her homework, got good marks, kept her room tidy and folded her clothes neatly. Sandra has never been able to live any other way, she gets a guilty conscience from just thinking about not doing things in a neat, proper and orderly fashion. Oh yes, her mother usually says when they have family over, you know Sandra, she was already tidying up toys when she was just a little tot.

  She’s done her part of the job. The floors are clean. She can go.

  ‘Sandra?’

  She gives a start. Suddenly aware of Tiril behind her, standing by the bottle return belt. Her hair is lank, make-up heavy, fingernails black and her gaze harsh. Headphones on. Does she always have to look so angry, is it necessary? Does she have to look like everyone’s going to die at any moment?

  ‘Where’re you going?’ Tiril asks, chewing her gum slowly and pulling off the headphones.

  Sandra’s can’t bring herself to meet those eyes. ‘My mum and dad are waiting,’ she says, stepping into her shoes. ‘You’ll lock up, won’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, did you think I was going to leave it open or something?’

  Tiril responds as if someone has had a go at her. It’s weird to think that girl is going to sing in the gym hall on Thursday. She seems like she hates everything and everybody, what is it she’s trying to prove? Sandra feels her anger form an aching lump in her chest. She does everything she can to be kind to people, to be open and understanding, everything she can for people to like her. She’s used to people being polite. There’re a lot of things you could say about Mum and Dad, but she agrees with them that the least you can expect from people is that they’re friendly and polite, we only share a short time on this earth together so it’s important to meet one another with love and kindness, that’s the message of Jesus and the message of love.

  Daniel, I’m coming now.

  ‘No, no, I just meant … anyway, look, I’ve got to run.’

  ‘Okay, so run then.’

  Sandra feels a nauseous surge in her stomach. ‘Do you know what?’ she says firmly, her own boldness making her nervous. ‘Do you know what? You can choose, are you aware of that?’

  Tiril blinks for a fraction of a second but maintains her composure. ‘Choose fucking what?’

  ‘The light or the dark,’ Sandra says quickly, startled by herself. She turns and hurries towards the exit.

  ‘How sweet,’ says Tiril. She goes back into the shop.

  Sandra takes a deep breath, as though she’d done something illegal. She brings her tongue across the dry skin around her mouth and stops in front of the mirror hanging by the back door.

  Now Jesus isn’t the one I’m going to kiss any more, she thinks. She’s never told anyone that she used to kiss Jesus. She’d turn out the light, creep under the duvet, close her eyes, blush, begin to move her lips and then she’d kiss Jesus. Her body would tingle, making her feel warm. But all that has to end, now that she’s got her boy.

  ‘Daniel,’ she whispers, allowing her lips to part.

  ‘Daniel,’ she repeats, while applying a layer of lip gloss.

  ‘Daniel,’ her lips mouth, as she adjusts her new bra, trying to get her boobs to sit the way she thinks he’d like.

  ‘Daniel,’ she whispers while she fixes her fringe, moves the silver cross into place in the notch of her neck, dries the sweat from her forehead and tries to find that particular facial expression, ‘I’m coming now.’

  Then she opens the door, feels the air hit her, and she runs.

  14. FOG (Rudi)

  Rudi sees a wizened hand run through her fringe, wiping her teary eye, then a smile play across her mouth.

  ‘Rudi boy,’ she says again, and it’s so bloody good to hear a friendly word from her that he almost breaks down with joy. ‘Yes sir,’ she says and sighs, ‘you and me, twenty-seve
n years,’ and she has such a beautiful ring to her voice when she talks like that, ‘Europe and all kinds of weird and wonderful.’

  ‘Caaarrie, Caaarrie,’ sings Rudi, his shoulders swinging.

  ‘Right sexy, that Joey Tempest,’ Cecilie says breathily.

  Rudi starts slapping his hands on the dashboard, aided by the liberating feeling of drama hour now being over. He overlooks the fact that she just drooled over another man, turns his head and grins at Cecilie.

  ‘You know what,’ he says, ‘I think you should take a little trip down to … that … you know … that place … you know. Daddy’s treat!’

  He sees how flushed she becomes back there, her face shining as though a light’s gone on, and Rudi feels he’s the one who’s flicked the switch.

  ‘Uh-hm,’ she says, ‘Mariero Beauty.’

  ‘The very place,’ Rudi says proudly. ‘The name makes no odds to me, could be called Mariero Ass for all I care, but nobody can say Rudi doesn’t respect his woman and pay her bills, and if what she needs to feel good is to have sludge and cucumbers and sundried tomatoes smeared all over her face, then no one is going to say that Rudi didn’t fork out. Eh? Have I ever once refused to pay for something you wanted? Including the times I thought what you wanted to do was bloody idiotic, like lying under a palm tree or—’

  ‘There’re no palm trees there, you’re—,’ she cuts in, but Rudi wants to finish what he’s saying:

  ‘Metaphors, baby, they’re metaphors – do you know what metaphors are? Pictures. Pictures of things. You say one thing but mean something else and in lots of ways get to say two things at the same time. No, buggered if I know what you’re lying under or not lying under as long as it’s women tending to you and not men, you can lie down on a bed of oregano as far as I’m concerned—’

  ‘Oreg—heh heh, there’s no oregano.’

  ‘No, well, what would I know about what’s there or not,’ Rudi says, delighted she’s happy again, ‘but, all the same, as you well know, I have never—’