by Tore Renberg
Pål draws his coat closer around him. The cold is becoming deep-seated, inching its way into his bones. Must try not to think, just get this done.
Pål hadn’t given Rudi a thought in years. But then one day, just as he was opening the post box, retrieving yet another letter bound for the bus shelter bin, an old memory abruptly emerged from the deep. Rudi. Videoboy. An obscure, dim recollection of a day in 1986. Then it slipped away just as suddenly. He began to sift through the memories in his head. He’d heard rumours from time to time. They’d turned out to be as criminal as people thought they would. Could he call them? Surely they wouldn’t remember what happened in 1986. That poor girl lying in the room. The sick set-up they had in the house. All the horror movies. Neither he nor Hasse understood it at the time, but now it was easy to see: Jan Inge used the girl as payment for the favours he got people to do. He had people carry out minor thefts for him and he paid them by letting them see uncensored horror films, and giving them all the cola and sweets they wanted. And letting them sleep with the girl. The sister. He rented her out like a whore. She was only thirteen, fourteen maybe. And Pål remembered her well.
He had slipped the envelope into his inside pocket. Then brought out his mobile and sent a text to directory enquiries. His hands were trembling slightly as he punched in the number he’d been given.
‘Ye yo, Rudi here, yeah?’
‘Hi, eh, it’s Pål…’
‘Who?’
‘Pål. Yeah. Fagerland.’
‘Okay, Fagerland away.’
‘Wha? Eh, listen, you probably don’t remember me––’
‘Nope, can’t say that I do. Who did you say you say you say you say?’
‘Pål. Fagerland.’
‘No, doesn’t ring any bells…’
‘Right, I see, well—’
‘Out with it, man, out with it, Pål Skål, what brings you round to this haunted house?’
‘Well. I … I was just wondering if you … if you and your…’
Pål heard a sigh then the person on the other end disappeared.
He walked into the kitchen. Drank some water straight from the tap and tried to understand what had happened. Were they cut off? Did he hang up? He decided to ring again. Put in the number. It rang for a little while.
‘Yeah, Rudi.’
‘Hi, I think we must’ve been cut off there. It’s Pål again.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Right, well, I was wondering if you … or your…’
He disappeared again. The same way. Pål tried to get his head around what had happened. Rudi took the phone. He wasn’t disinterested in talking to him. But he hung up. They weren’t cut off. Pål nodded to himself. It was obvious he was going about things the wrong way. He punched in the number yet again.
‘Hell-o, you’ve reached Rudi-o, yeah!’
‘Hi, Pål again, we seem to be getting cut off, I—’
Silence on the other end of the line.
‘Or … eh … are we getting cut off?’
Still silence.
‘So, anyway, I heard a couple of years back that the two of you, eh, you and that guy Jani, that—’
It happened again. He hung up.
Pål sat down at the kitchen table. Malene and Tiril would be home soon, he couldn’t keep at this very much longer. But Rudi was answering the phone. And then Pål said something wrong, and then he hung up. Okay. He put the number in again.
‘Yeeeeeep, Rudi here, yeah.’
‘Rudi, hi, man! It’s Pål here, you know, Pål from the old days, the eighties, eye of the tiger, the final countdown, holy diver…’
‘You’ve been out too long in the midnight sea! Hey, all right, still not ringing any bells, whatsupdude?’
There was a different tone to his voice now.
‘Been such a long time. Want to hang? What about meeting up, taking a stroll, say Tuesday night, Gosen Woods, by the big rock, nine o’clock, when I’m out walking the dog?’
‘Great plan, Påli, you holy diver. Heh heh! Did you hear Dio died? Shit, that’s the way it goes. Talk to you!’
Rudi hung up.
Down, that´s what it is, thought Pål and nodded. Down too long in the midnight sea. That clicked. I’ve just made an appointment. That’s how it’s done. These people don’t accept just anything.
‘Yeaaah Zitha, yeaah, good girl,’ he whispers, feeling the ground beneath him starting to slope upwards. Zitha keeps moving across the forest floor, sniffing. He stops and looks up at the rock. It doesn’t look as big as he remembers. The football pitch is up there, but everything is a lot more open than he remembers.
Pål walks up to the crest and lets his gaze sweep around. It’s a long time since he’s been here. He chose this spot because he recalled it being overgrown, because in his mind the rock was so big you could stand behind it and hide from the world. But that’s completely wrong. That’s how memory works. Things are exaggerated, things are diminished and things are moved around.
It’s way too exposed. They can’t stand here and talk.
Is this a good idea? Seeking out these people?
Pål wipes his right eye with a shaky hand. It has to go away soon. He feels worn out. So worn out by all of it. His eyes, the long nights. Why couldn’t he just leave everything the way it was? Why did he have to get into all this? He had everything he needed. The house. The kids. A job. Was it all down to his fingers, his breath, the cold light of night, his empty life, the desire to be sucked into the cold glow of the screen and disappear?
I don’t know, he thinks.
I just don’t know.
It just happened.
Pål goes over to the rock and leans against it. He inhales and exhales. Wonder how things are with Videoboy’s sister now? Maybe she’s married with kids, maybe she got herself an education, maybe she lives in another country.
What is it I’ve been doing, he thinks.
Day after day, evening after evening, night after night.
Footsteps?
Zitha’s ears stand on end.
19. IF IT WAS A KITTEN (Cecilie)
Cecilie is curled up in the back seat. She isn’t very tall. Just one metre fifty-nine. As for curling up, she’s good at that. She peers up at the beige upholstery in the roof of the Volvo. There are slashes in it from the time they drove home from a job over in Ålgard. Rudi had taken too much speed and wanted to write ‘fuck’ with his knife.
She blows out the smoke. It fills the car.
If it was a kitten I’ll kill him, she thinks. Maybe I’ll just do it anyway. Get rid of his Motörhead T-shirt, get rid of all his shit, get the whole of Rudi out of my head, rewind to the life I had before life began. Kill him. So I can go to his grave, lay down a wreath and whisper: Hi, Rudi, sweetheart, you’re dead.
She slides up and rolls the car window down a little to let out some smoke.
Take Cecilie along, she could use a little air. Those lads, what do they think she is? Stupid, that’s what. They get up every morning thinking they can make the world how they want it, and they think she’s an idiot. And she lets them talk to her as though she is an idiot.
Cecilie slips two pasty fingers out the gap in the window and drops the cigarette, before opening the pack and taking out another. Get some air. How’s this getting some air?
She lights the cigarette, inhales deeply and lies back down on the seat.
Bloody Volvo. She’s so fucking tired of waiting while the boys are on a job somewhere or other, and she’s so fed up of this car. It’s uncomfortable to sit in, it stinks, the gearbox is loose, the axle is dodgy and the steering wheel will soon be hanging off. Why can’t they get a new car? One like normal people have. But no, no, they’re not going to do anything like normal people. A4 people, Jani calls them, and it’s obvious he doesn’t look up to them.
Cecilie hears a faint noise and raises her head. She ducks down when she sees two young clear-skinned girls come walking up the hill towards Hafrsfjord.
‘Friend
s wouldn’t be a good idea,’ Rudi says.
‘Wouldn’t be good for you, Chessi.’
‘And not for the company either,’ Jani says.
‘It’s all part and parcel of our profession, we have to keep to our own kind.’
Cecilie brings herself up on to her elbows, looks out and sees the girls are gone.
But imagine she wants some friends? Imagine she does. But she hasn’t any. She was banged by every moron who came through the door with a stolen carton of Marlboro, a Walkman or a ghetto blaster; she spread her legs, heard the boys groan, closed her eyes and thought of Dad in Houston. She eats cinnamon buns, takes walks to the sea and has a boyfriend who has problems sleeping and sings Aerosmith songs when he gets nervous. She’s allowed go to the skincare clinic once a month.
Cecilie gets up abruptly and opens the door. She puts her feet on the soft earth and looks towards the woods. It’s so dark. She doesn’t like the darkness, never has, only in movies. She turns and begins walking up the road in the direction they came from. She speeds up. If it was a kitten. She squints ahead of her. It was around here somewhere. What kind of place is this anyway?
Shush shush little baby.
Shush shush little one.
Just be quiet.
Mummy’s got five hundred kroner and Mummy’s going to the beauty clinic.
You can come along.
Or maybe we’ll go to Houston. Say hello to Granddad. You’ll like him. He never should have left us. He was such a laugh. It always felt like Christmas Day when he was in the room. His smile was so big it swallowed everything. Doesn’t seem like either of his kids have inherited that good humour.
Cecilie halts as she catches sight of something on the road.
She bends over.
It’s a hedgehog.
A little bloody hedgehog.
Cecilie lifts it up into her arms. The creature has curled itself up. It feels like a stinging ball in her hands. It must have scurried out on to the road on its tiny feet, quickly understood it wasn’t a good place to be, then curled itself up to meet death.
‘Mummy is going to look after you,’ she whispers to the hedgehog, feeling her anger mount. She turns and stomps back angrily, a severe sway in her hips. There’s a lot you don’t know, Rudi, she thinks, her heels digging into the ground. You think you can just run over anyone at all and act as if nothing has happened, but there’s a lot you don’t have a clue about. Tong would do anything for me, did you know that? He’s getting out on Friday, I’m picking him up at half eight, and he’s one sick Korean and he would do anything for me, did you know that?
Her speed increases for every step she takes.
Rudi.
We’ll kill you, you ugly prick.
20. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT? (Sandra)
Waking up at three in the morning, jolted by a dizzy heart, to stare at the darkness in fear. Being wide awake, feeling how ready her body is, how sharp, anxious and all set it is, as though she were a soldier. Where are you? What are you doing now? What are you thinking about? Sandra tilts to one side: No, you must never leave me, you must never look at anyone but me, nothing must ever change from the way it is now.
That terrible fear that one day it will end. She refuses to believe it, because Sandra and Daniel are the ones who are going to make it: I will never leave you. I will never look at anyone else. Here are my hands, look, they’re touching you, look, they want to caress you, and here’s my mouth, look, it wants to kiss you, feel it, it’s yours: Promise me, yes? Do you promise, yes? Sure? Yes? Positive?
Yes.
Nobody will threaten us.
No.
This will never end.
One day he was just standing there, like a snowdrop when the ground frost releases its hold.
That was only a few weeks ago, and there was a life before this but now it’s no more than fading echoes in her body. The girl with three freckles on her nose and the slightly goofy teeth has gone crazy. She can’t concentrate on her homework, when her mother and father are speaking it’s like they’re muttering in the fog. The same with her friends, it’s utterly impossible to grasp what they’re babbling about.
She knows that relationships fall apart. She knows that people leave one another. But this is different. This is a higher power. This is for the rest of her life.
One day he was just standing there. It was the week Tiril left an hour early to rehearse the Evanescence song. Sandra could feel the sweat making her T-shirt stick to the skin between her shoulder blades while she vacuumed the floor, and in the distance she picked up some sounds from the entrance. Sandra has clear instructions not to open the shop after closing time. They’ve told her not to talk to anybody if they knock on the glass, because there was an incident a few years ago where a guy managed to break in and threatened one of the cleaners while he stole money and whatnot.
But the sounds wouldn’t cease; it was raining cats and dogs out there, and Sandra moved cautiously towards the door, worried about what she was going to see.
There was a boy standing outside with a moped helmet in one hand. He looked so small, so wet, so terribly good-looking and he didn’t look dangerous. What did he want? He was trying to form words with his lips; he smiled, pointed at himself to show that he wanted to come in; what was it he was trying to say?
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. She pointed at the door while she wagged her finger. She mouthed the words as clearly as she could: ‘I can’t let you in, I’m not allowed.’
But he just stood there.
He was so good-looking!
His mouth was so … so bright.
And then she realised who it was. Bewildered, she said: ‘Daniel?’
‘Yeah.’
She watched him form the words with his lips. It was a super strange moment, she felt it right down to the soles of her feet. It was Daniel William Moi standing there, the boy there were so many rumours about, the foster brother of Veronika from the flats. And the weird thing was that she said his name and smiled at him, stupid Sandra who’s only fifteen, and that he actually smiled back, Daniel William Moi, the one in sixth form nobody dared talk to, the one all the girls thought was so hot with those deep eyes of his, and dangerous. The fact that she smiled at him and that he smiled back, it was almost unreal.
‘Yes,’ he repeated, pointing at himself again.
Sandra’s eyes began to blink. Was she going to let him in? Now he said that word again, what was it he was saying? He started doing something with his hands too, as if he was drawing in the air, a square, no, a circle, while his lips repeated what he was attempting to say.
He began to laugh, and Sandra couldn’t help but laugh as well, it was a really odd situation, two people standing miming and laughing on either side of a glass door. Now he began to write something on the rain-soaked windowpane, what was it?
Sandra went as close as she could. He put the moped helmet down on the ground, his hair was already wet, his face glistening, and when he stood up he traced his forefinger across the glass again. But what he wrote was washed away by the rain.
Now he was standing right against the pane.
Today’s paper?
Is that what he said?
He’s so gorgeous!
Today’s paper?
‘What are you saying?’ Sandra spoke louder.
He read her lips. He’d probably learnt it from Veronika, the lip-reading, and he repeated, as slowly as he could:
toi
let
pa
per
Sandra burst out laughing, she felt her face crack up. Daniel William Moi was standing there yelling for toilet roll. He was so cute, you could see how white his teeth were when he laughed and he was soaked to the skin. She leaned towards the glass and formed the words as clearly as she could:
‘Wait. Wait. Okay? Wait.’
He nodded, and she dashed back through the shop. Sandra knew she was doing something wrong, but it felt right so she did not allow herself t
ime to think, she just ran into the backroom, ran with one arm under her breasts and the other swinging through the air, got the keys to the entrance and whispered to herself: ‘I’ll do it. I’ll just do it.’
‘Hi,’ he said and laughed as she let him in.
‘Quick,’ she pulled him further into the shop, away from the windows, ‘quick, I’ll lose my job if they think I’m letting people in…’
‘Right, yeah…’ The rainwater was dripping from him and forming small puddles on the floor, he shook his long fingers and sprinkled the droplets around him.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, feeling the perspiration begin in her armpits and under her hairline. ‘It’s only water.’
‘I’ve been at band practice – I play in a band – and I’d promised Inger, that’s my foster mother, to buy toilet paper on the way home, but I forgot the time and got here a bit late, and well…’
He looked at her.
Sandra swallowed.
‘Hi,’ he said, ‘my name’s Daniel.’
He extended his hand. She took hold of it and felt small. She released it quickly.
Sandra nodded and swallowed again, ‘I know,’ she said, something catching in her throat.
He looked at her. For a long time. Sandra tried to look away, because his gaze was so penetrating, but she wasn’t able to.
‘What’s your name?’
His voice was so deep.
‘Sandra Vikadal,’ she said and curtsied.
She curtsied!
‘Well, look, you can get toilet roll,’ she said hurriedly, to cover what she’d just done. She turned so he wouldn’t see how stupid she looked. ‘But I’ll have to just give it to you,’ she said, ‘because I can’t open the till…’
He laughed as he followed her along the aisle towards the shelves with the toilet paper. ‘Theft.’
‘Gosh, yeah,’ she said.
They stopped in front of the shelves. She grabbed a packet, felt the fear over what she was doing course through her hands, then held it out to him.