by Tore Renberg
Rudi puts his fingertips against one another, all ten of them, and begins pacing restlessly in front of Pål while he speaks.
‘Firstly: It’s sad, what’s happened to you. You’ve done something stupid. Secondly: You’re not alone, this happens the best of us. Thirdly: You’re looking for a solution. That’s good. Fourthly: You’re a Motörhead man. I appreciate good taste. I like that we’re cultural brothers. Do you like Coldplay? No, Rudi’s just kidding with you. Heh heh. Sorry. Back to the game, to put it like that. Fifthly: You think we can get our hands on a million?’
‘Yeah, I…’
‘Do you or don’t you?’
‘I … I don’t know what I think. I don’t know what you … I just remember … in the old days, when you were in the Tjensvoll Gang … people said that…’
‘And what makes you think I don’t work as a gardener now, or crochet tea cosies?’
‘Huh?’
‘Go on,’ said Rudi. ‘Go on.’
‘I’m sorry if I … I just thought … is there anything I can do to get hold of a million? Then I had the idea of calling you.’
‘Ah, Påli. Is there anything I can do to … you’ve got the right attitude, maestro. You’ve got in touch with a good company, I’ll give you that. You’ve realised that there’s something called expertise. You have what Jani calls intuition. But is there anything I—’
They hear a rustling behind them.
‘Down!’ Rudi puts his hand on top of Pål’s head and pushes him down into the bushes. He turns round as quick as a flash, peers back into the woods. ‘Down!’ he repeats. ‘And keep the dog quiet!’
Oh, sweetbabyjesus.
‘Rudi, you rotten pimp!’
Cecilie comes storming through the undergrowth. Her eyes are bright red with anger, tears have run down her cheeks, blackening them with smeared make-up, and what is it she’s carrying?
‘I hate you!’
She comes to a stop just in front of him, with something in her hands – what the hell is that?
‘Chessi, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!’
She throws it at him, what the fuck is it? He brings his arms up to catch it, a hedgehog!
‘What are you playing at? Have you lost it completely? I’m at work, twatmuff! At work! You know bloody well that this is unacceptable, what do you think Jani’s going to say? I take you out in the Volvo to get a little fresh air, toss five hundred kroner bills your way and you can’t manage to sit still for five little minutes, you barge in with…’ He throws the hedgehog onto the ground. ‘You need to fucking get yourself tog—’
Cecilie’s lips quiver. She sniffles, goes down on her knees in front of the animal. ‘Rudi,’ she says, her breathing fitful, ‘it’s a hedgehog. And you just drove right over it.’
Rudi bends over and hugs her. ‘It’s okay now. Rudimann is here. I didn’t do it on purpose but you can’t—’
She frees herself from his arms, gets to her feet and takes a small step backwards. Points towards Pål who appears behind them, his features contorted in a expression of fright.
‘Who’s that?’
Rudi clasps his hands round the back of his neck and sighs. ‘Yeah, this is…’ He stops himself. ‘This is someone I’m working with.’
‘What a lovely dog…’
Cecilie goes down on one knee. She stretches her arms out to the dog. It sniffs its way over, snout to the ground, and enters her embrace. Pål stands nailed to the ground. Not so strange, thinks Rudi, people are usually slightly taken aback when they first meet Chessi.
She gets to her feet. Puts her hand out towards Pål.
‘Cecilie,’ she says, in a high-pitched voice, shaking the hand of the stranger. ‘Cecilie Haraldsen. I’m Rudi’s woman. Such a cute dog, what’s its name?’
‘Zitha,’ says Pål, ‘she’s called Zitha.’
‘Zitha, yeaaah,’ Cecilie pats the dog across the snout again, gives Pål a pleasant look. ‘So, what are the two of you working on then?’
Something seeps into her expression. Her forehead furrows slightly. ‘But … have I … have I seen you before?’
‘No, don’t think so,’ says Pål. ‘No.’
Cecilie nods. ‘Just thought I’d seen you before.’
Jan Inge is not going to like this. Cecilie doing as she pleases. Flirting with this Pål guy. Bollocks, thinks Rudi, snapping after his thoughts. Get thee behind me, Satan. She’s my whole life. She’s the twisted light, she’s canary-yellow happiness.
‘Okay, Chessi,’ he says, ‘now you’ve shown us the hedgehog, are you satisfied? Pål’s got troubles, you understand? He’s got two daughters, and a mother, their mother that is, but it’s complicated, and I think you’re just complicating it even further now. Can you head back, so as we can finish off our meeting here?’
22. DAD’S SHOES (Malene)
Are you out there, Dad?
Malene is standing on the loading ramp behind the shop. She knows it’s at rest but it feels like a boat that’s rocking. She’s conscious of the stinging in her ankle as she lets her gaze gather what she has in front of her, the houses, the high-rises, the woods, the sky, as though her eyes were somehow magic and could capture everything; the people in the buildings, the forest behind the school, what’s happened and what’s going to happen.
Dad, what are you up to?
Malene feels a dull thumping from the pulse in her ear. It makes her think of the tension just before a gymnastics competition, her feet on the mat, her body fully concentrated. She feels like she has her dad’s shoes in her hands, even though she knows she doesn’t. She feels she’s standing in the bathroom folding her dad’s jeans, even though she knows she isn’t. She feels like she’s sitting in her dad’s lap, even though she’s fully aware that she’s standing on the ramp.
Tiril lights up another cigarette behind her, the nauseous smell of it drifting her way. She hears her sister shift her feet in irritation.
‘Well? Are you just going to stand there staring? Hey? Lol?’
Malene doesn’t reply.
Once when she and Tiril were small, Dad fell off the garage roof and broke his arm. Malene had noticed a dead magpie lying up there. A dead bird? Dad would take care of that. But he’s clumsy when it comes to that sort of thing. He’s not that kind of man. Dad is the type of man who lets the screwdriver slip and gashes his hand, he’s the type who stumbles when he goes on top of a garage roof. Malene can remember Mum shaking her head and laughing as they drove to the hospital. She did that a lot, Mum, laughed at people. Always so sure of things, Mum, so sure about everything. Thought people just needed to pull themselves together, thought that everyone had to take care of themselves. That’s how she goes on when she rings from Bergen: Everything all right, Malene? And then, before Malene has the time to answer: Good, that’s what I thought. Or: How’s the ankle? And then, before Malene has a chance to answer: It’ll be fine, you’ll soon be back on the mat.
Malene was terrified. She can remember the smell in the car as they drove to the hospital. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dad’s arm, dangling by his side.
‘Hey, Maly? That thing I asked you about. Do you think it’s true? Y’know, about choosing, between the light and the dark?’
Malene doesn’t reply. She knows she’s a girl who’s one metre sixty-two with high cheekbones and a slender figure, a girl without a best friend, who sometimes feels alone, but never feels lonely. She knows she’s a girl who reads books and listens to ‘Payphone’, ‘Hot N Cold’, and ‘Rolling in the Deep’, a girl who likes to feel her body sail through the air. She knows she’s a girl who’s never had a boyfriend, who’s never bunked off school, who’s always done her homework and taken things one step at a time. She knows that one day she’ll marry a man who won’t allow himself be henpecked, who’ll carry her as though she were a queen. She knows that one day she’s going to leave this town, travel to Bergen or Oslo, and study there. And she knows she’ll come home every Christmas. She knows she’s cau
tious, but she knows she’s courageous. She feels that if a fire is burning someplace then it’s her job to fetch the water.
Malene stretches out her injured foot. It’s unstable. Can’t rely on it any more. Behind her, Tiril puts out her cigarette.
‘Of course you can,’ says Malene, without turning to look at Tiril.
Then she whispers into the darkness, low enough for her sister not to hear her: ‘It’s Malene. Are you out there? Please. Talk to me, Dad. What is it I haven’t noticed? Tell me what to do.’
23. LIKE THIS? LIKE THIS? LIKE THIS? (Daniel William)
Only a matter of moments stand between Daniel and that addictive experience: entering a girl. Up until now it’s been a pounding desire, stronger for every day. Envisioned and borne by turbulent currents in his body, raging rapids, which no power can halt, so cold they burn. When he’s felt it rise, he’s often thought about just going out into the dark, seizing hold of the first girl he sees, dragging her into the forest, throwing her down, peeling her clothes off and drilling a hole in her. He’s closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, felt how the power can’t be overcome, how it’s that which is God. Sparks fly within him, the flash of a million sledgehammers falling on blazing iron, a roaring noise in his head. It’s not evil, nor good, but it’s real. The earth’s crust needs to split, light must be torn, knock-kneed girls need to quiver and glisten, sing and die and be hunted like wounded animals across the great darkness.
What is it that the sight of her breasts does to him? Why do they set off such raving hunger, why must he press his lips against them, why must he cup them in his hands? What is it the sight of her closed eyes gives rise to in him? No, they’re almost closed, the lids are quivering over her eyeball, like someone at the moment of death, a slightly moist twinkling under the arched lashes. Look at her lips, slightly parted, what is it they do to me? What the fuck is it you do to me?
No one can see them. They’re hidden away in an empty wood, now nobody can get in their way. He stares at her. Sandra pulls down the zip on her jeans. She hooks her thumbs into the waistband, lifts her behind, and begins to wiggle free of her jeans while jerking her hips to and fro.
Daniel gasps.
Now she’s lying there glistening, now she’s lying there glowing.
She’s only wearing panties. She spreads her legs.
Daniel breathes through his nose, his chest is pounding, the oxygen in his head diminishing, he sets his jaw. Her legs are apart, her knees slightly raised. He kneels down, then bends over her, his palms resting on the soil and weeds.
‘Take off your clothes.’
She whispers.
‘Daniel, come on, take off your clothes.’
She opens her eyes slightly, liquid gold runs out. Her voice takes hold of him, she could have asked anything at all of him and he’d have done it. Daniel’s made up his mind. This is what he was put on this earth for.
‘Say it again.’
She smiles.
‘Don’t smile.’
‘Take off your clothes.’
He jerks back up on to his knees, unbuckles his belt, unbuttons his jeans, feeling no nerves, only the hard warmth. He pulls his jeans down to his knees and sees Sandra’s eyes fall upon him.
‘Oh,’ she says.
Your hands. Touch me.
But she doesn’t. She just lies there. Her eyes have closed. Your hands, he thinks again. Touch me. But she doesn’t. She just lies there. Daniel pulls off his underwear, his erection like a crowbar, then she begins taking off her white panties.
Then she looks up at him:
‘Are you sure it’s your first time, Daniel?’
He blinks confusedly and fixes his eyes on the strange country she has between her legs, which isn’t a flower, isn’t an animal, it’s impossible to say what it is, he only knows he has to get in there. A dog barks not too far off in the distance, but the sound barely registers in Daniel’s consciousness before disappearing again.
‘Wha? Yeah – yeah, why are you asking about that now?’
She pulls him close, her hands move down over his body. She touches him, takes hold of him, guides him into her, pushes a whimper of pain aside, and he begins to move, the wild dogs storm across the fields and he can’t call them back, it isn’t possible to escape this heaven.
‘Like this? Daniel? Like this? Like this?’
24. SAY GOOD NIGHT TO THE GIRLS (Pål)
Hear about what they did today. Hear about what they’re going to do tomorrow. Fix their duvets a little, lean over them, as though they were still two little tots, give them a hug and a kiss on the forehead. Say goodnight to the girls. Go into the kitchen, clean away the day’s mess. Bread in the breadbin, load the dishwasher, turn it on, check the calendar to see if you’ve forgotten anything, a dentist’s appointment, a parent-teacher meeting. Let Zitha outside to pee in the garden. Into the sitting room, slide down in the armchair, put your feet on the pouf, three remote controls in your lap, flick through the channels, watch an episode of Sons of Anarchy or Breaking Bad. Maybe read a few pages of Michael Connelly or Jo Nesbø. Feel the daylight withdraw, see the wind play with the trees outside, see the moon exposed in the sky, hear the night come with corrosive silence. Get up from the chair, walk quietly across the floor, turn out the lights in each room downstairs, open the door to the basement. Tread gingerly on the creaky first step, go down carefully, set your feet on the cold tiles at the bottom. Go in the door to the right of the laundry room, don’t turn on any lights, the blinds are drawn, sit down at the computer. Turn it on. Hear the humming of the fan increase, feel your neck tense, an effervescent rush in your temples and your pulse ticking in your throat, as you push aside the sick feeling unfurling in the pit of your stomach. See how the cold light of the monitor blanches the room, your fingers on the keys, sometimes catching sight of your own reflection but not allowing your gaze to fix upon it. Do this, just do this, say that it’s soon over, say it’s the last time. Betsson. Oddsbet. Betsafe. Centrebet. Username: Maiden. Password: Zitha. Blackjack, live odds, casino, roulette, poker. Bonus. Win. Raise. Win. Lose, lose, lose. Say goodnight to the girls.
Seen from the outside it’s obvious that it can’t work. It’s so obvious he can’t understand that he’s done it. How long is it since he played his last ever game? A month? No, two weeks? Three days? No. Last night. Last night, he sat in the glow from the screen and played a round of blackjack, adding another few thousand to the debt he’s no longer able to deal with. All the letters, the warnings about repossession, collection agencies, all the bills. He doesn’t open them. He slips them into his inside pocket, takes them with him on his evening walks with Zitha, and makes sure they all end up in the same rubbish bin at the same bus shelter in Folkeviseveien.
No matter how easy it is to see from the outside, that this could never work out, it’s the inside that counts. That’s where we live, where we ache and burn, and that’s where I’ve been, Pål thinks, while he stands there trying to conceal his amazement from Rudi and his girlfriend. They’re a few metres off, Rudi with his arm around her, bending down, talking to her. There’s a hedgehog by their feet.
The inside. That’s where I live, he thinks. The nausea, I’ve become so good at pushing it from me, I’ve learnt to treat it like a ball I can just wrap my hand around and fling towards the horizon. Turn around, smile at the girls. Hi, Malene. Hi, Tiril.
To think he believed it could work. In retrospect it seems ridiculous, before it seemed easy. The kids will stay with you, Pål. You get the house, you get the car, you’ll get child support and double child allowance. You get everything, Pål. You’re going to manage fine. He pocketed his pride and resentment, accepted her money, as he always had done. Pål worked as a case officer for the local authority and it was written all over him: Never going to earn much money. Like it was written all over her: Going to earn a lot of money. And back then, when they started out, nobody could see foresee any trouble.
Why should we think about money troubles? Wh
y should we think about the economic imbalance between us? After all, we share everything, said Christine. Pål made a quarter the amount she did, but he didn’t experience any feelings of displeasure about it, just as he didn’t feel any displeasure at having an ambitious wife who travelled abroad with Statoil, who constantly worked overtime. He liked that she was on the go, the same way he liked his own ordered life, and instead of thinking that a job with the local authority is an insecure job, because there’s no opportunity to earn more money if you should suddenly find your life beginning to go under, he thought that a job with the local authority is a good job, because at least you have one if the world begins to go under.
When she left, things looked okay, Pål didn’t need to change his habits, didn’t need to start shopping at cheaper supermarket chains or cancel his newspaper subscription. He managed to pay the bills, was able to live like before. The support payments from Bergen were generous. But after a few years things started getting a bit tight. The upkeep on such a big house was expensive. The money from Bergen became more infrequent. And after four or five years Pål had to face the fact that funds were running low. He needed a new lawnmower; he had to get drainage problems outside the house sorted after some damp damage had shown up in the basement. Where was he going to get the money from? He cut down on things here, there and everywhere, food, clothes, holidays, downloaded TV series off the net. But it still wasn’t enough. He traded in his car, it didn’t help. He borrowed money from his mother, it didn’t help. And then one night he began to gamble. Almost out of curiosity. It helped. After a few minutes he was sitting with several hundred thousand in his account. Pål, nervous and grinning, switched off the computer. Never again, he said to himself, and got the area round the house drained and damp-proofed with the money, but a month later he was back in front of the screen, and so began the life he’s lived since: win a little, lose a little, win less, lose even more.