See You Tomorrow

by Tore Renberg

  ‘Come on, Malene! Come on, Malene!’

  I won’t fall, I am titanium. She began her run up. Not too many steps, she ran as hard as she could, did a chassé, perfect, not too short, went into a somersault, over into a backflip – was it a bit too high? A bit too far?

  Malene felt a millisecond of nervousness as she sailed through the air performing the double backflip, but it all went so fast she didn’t have time to think, and then she landed. Pain screeched through her body. It felt as though her right ankle had been torn right off. She screamed, fell on to the mat and clutched her foot. In the very same second she knew what had happened. Talus fracture. She erupted in a flood of tears. Sigrid came running over as she shouted to one of the others: ‘Mia, ice!’

  Malene was in more pain than she’d ever known, but all she could think of while Sigrid examined her foot with a seasoned eye, was: ‘Now I won’t be able to do gymnastics for months. Maybe never again. All the work I’ve put in to get here has been wiped out.’

  ‘Pia! Turn off the music! Ice and tape!’ Sigrid’s powerful voice rang out through the hall. The music stopped, Pia ran. The smaller girls stood around Malene with their hands to their mouths and eyes large as saucers.

  One small mistake was all it took. Had she not been concentrating? Had she done something wrong in the chassé? No. It was the backflip. It was too high.

  ‘There’s only one thing to do now, Malene,’ Sigrid said calmly. ‘You put this behind you,’ she continued as she taped the ice pack tight around Malene’s ankle before elevating it and stating that they’d have to go to A&E to get an X-ray. ‘You’ll be back in this hall next week, even if you come on crutches, you’re coming along with us to camp in the summer, do you hear me?’

  Malene nodded and writhed in pain.

  ‘You’re not going to let this fester, you’re not going to let it get to you. Do you understand?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘You’ll be back on the mat in a few months and this won’t affect you.’

  Malene began strapping her ankle and icing it regularly, she went to the gymnastics hall to begin training herself back up carefully, but as the weeks went by she felt less and less at ease. Her friends, who’d been so considerate to start with, were occupied with their own things, her injury wasn’t exotic anymore. Malene felt stupid, her fear wouldn’t release her and she limped her way through the whole of the summer holidays. She avoided meeting Sigrid’s eyes because she knew what they were saying: Don’t quit, Malene. She began doing exercises, began going to the physiotherapists, but the ankle wouldn’t heal. Every day she checked it when she got out of bed in the morning: was it stronger today? Every second of the day went to thinking about the pain and just as Sigrid had feared, the pain won out, over Malene’s mind as well. Then summer came round again, with the Olympics in London, a few of the other girls travelled to England with Sigrid, they saw sixteen-year-old Gabby Douglas beat Victoria Komova, but Malene didn’t go along. She sat home reading text messages from the UK: ‘Mally, you should have been here.’

  Everyone says change is a good thing. Malene isn’t so sure about that. Tiril loves change. She hated it when Mum left but apart from that she loves everything new. She throws herself into one new thing after the other, never looks back, just keeps on going.

  They’ve always said we’re like night and day, Tiril and I. Am I the day, then? Is she the night?

  The sisters continue on up the hill towards the top of Limahaugen. It’s not windy, there isn’t even a hint of a breeze, but still it feels colder as they get higher up, and Malene considers what Dad always says about it being the nicest place in the world and thinks how true that is.

  ‘Look at that,’ he likes to say, ‘eh? Take a look. The fjord down there. Those three islands out there. Eh?’

  You don’t get it, Tiril. You’re so knotted up in your emo brain that you don’t understand. One day you’ll suddenly have been cocky one time too many. Suddenly the pain you flirt with will turn serious. Suddenly you’ll have lost everything you can’t live without. What do you think life is? A game about suffering?

  They stop at the top of the hill. Look at one another.

  Dad isn’t there. Zitha isn’t there.

  Tiril gives a self-assured shrug. She purses her lips, assumes that cheeky look, the one that makes her look like a fox. ‘There you go,’ she says and blows a bubble with her chewing gum. It bursts in the wind with a dry snap. ‘Now what do you say? Isn’t it just like I said?’

  Malene grabs hold of her sister. And then she slaps her across the face.

  29. HERE’S TO YOU MR HEDGEHOG (Cecilie)

  A dog. A nice little dog. A black-and-white one, maybe. Would you like that? Baby? A black and white one?

  Cecilie carries the hedgehog in her arms, resting against her stomach. It still feels warm to her, as though death hadn’t prevailed just yet.

  He looked kind, that Pål guy, she felt it in her gut. His eyes looked frightened, but kind all the same, he had shiny skin. He ought not to get mixed up with them. He doesn’t belong in our world, thinks Cecilie.

  Rudi’s actually kind as well, he’s just not always able to show it, just so much crap with him. ADHD. That’s what he says. ‘It’s the ADHD, Chessi, you know how it makes me act. But so what. Never bothered me,’ he says. But that’s bullshit. She’s well aware of that. It’s a load of bullshit. When a guy sits there jiggling his foot day in day out for forty years then it does something to him. He’s got beetles on his brain.

  Cecilie emerges from the darkness of the woods and walks over to the car. Holding the hedgehog with one hand, she opens the boot. There’s usually all kinds of odds and ends in there. It’s a storeroom so to speak, the Volvo. She picks up a hammer, looks at it, thinks it over, then takes it out and slams the boot. With the hammer in one hand and the hedgehog resting against her stomach she takes a few steps into the woods. She halts when she comes to a little patch of grass.

  Yeah.

  You can rest here.

  Mr Hedgehog.

  Here’s to you. Sorry.

  Cecilie puts the hedgehog down carefully. It sinks down and spreads out a little, as though it were breathing out heavily. ‘Look, baby,’ she whispers. ‘Do you see the hedgehog? Do you see, its ears are just as small as your Mummy’s, see? It’s lovely, isn’t it?’

  She waits, as if for an answer, and nods.

  ‘Yeah,’ she whispers. ‘It’s really lovely. Now we’ll bury it. Hallelujah.’

  Cecilie takes hold of the hammer and begins making a furrow with the cleft end, the part you pull out nails and things like that with, whatever it’s called. Yes, she thinks, you can tell by looking at people if they’re kind or not and that guy Pål, he looked kind.

  She has a calm feeling in her chest. Digging up the earth does her good. Friends of my own, she thinks, girls. No. She’d just feel stupid if she had a load of friends. They’d know all kinds of stuff while she doesn’t know too much at all.

  But it would be nice to have some friends all the same.

  But if she was to have friends she couldn’t have Rudi.

  But if she sets Tong on Rudi?

  Then there’ll be war.

  The strongest will win and the weakest will die.

  Five hundred kroner to take away my ashes.

  Cecilie gets to her feet. She looks at the little grave she’s made. ‘See,’ she whispers and points. ‘There we go. Hmm?’

  Again she waits, as though for an answer.

  ‘Yeah. You’re right. It’s deep enough now. Cheers, Mr Hedgehog. You can rest here, can’t you?’

  She crouches down and picks up the animal. It’s cold now. Stiffer as well. She lays it down in the hollow and covers it with earth.

  I could always get a job, she thinks. Could find something to do with plants and flowers. I’m good at working with soil. Jesus, I’m so lucky I don’t have to work, Jani says. Work? Do you know how much money people would pay not to work? says Rudi.


  But I’m good at screwing.

  I’ve been good at that since I was small.

  Cecilie puts her foot over the soil and flattens it with the tip of her shoe. Then she stands there for a few moments looking at what is just a plain patch of earth, before grabbing the hammer and heading back towards the car.

  She lights up a cigarette.

  Jani never misses Mum, he hates her. Cecilie hates her too, but sometimes she misses her as well. In a way. Maybe not in a Mum-the-way-she-was way, but Mum all the same. Mum the way she could be, perhaps. Mum the way she wasn’t? Is that possible? To miss Mum the way she wasn’t?

  But Dad.

  He was always so happy. Dad was like a funfair.

  If Cecilie was to make a list of her top five heavy rock ballads, then it’d be:

  ‘Dream on’ by Aerosmith. Obviously. ‘Carrie’ by Europe. ‘Still Loving You’ by Scorpions. ‘Dreamer’ by Ozzy. ‘When the Children Cry’ by White Lion. And ‘Jump’ by Van Halen. But that would make six. No matter. David Lee Roth would have to be on there. Even though ‘Jump’ isn’t a ballad. Puss would say it wasn’t a good list if there’s no Motörhead. It’s not her fault Lemmy’s no good at ballads.

  ‘Baby,’ she whispers. ‘We’re going to listen to heavy rock, you and me. We’re going to raise our hands in the air and listen to heavy rock, you and me.’

  Cecilie snaps out of the thoughts going round her head as she spots a boy emerging from the woods. She lowers her head, puts her hand to her stomach and looks at the ground. A girl follows just after. She shivers a little, looks away, trying to make herself invisible.

  Puss.

  Sometimes she wants to kill him and sometimes she wants to marry him. It’s practically the same thing, Cecilie feels.

  Baby, she thinks, watching the boy and girl scurry out of sight. We’ll get Uncle Jani to fix up a nice room for you in the basement. And then we’ll get a nice dog, you and me. A black-and-white one. Or maybe we can get a place of our own. A house. Maybe.

  I smoke too much but I need a cigarette now.

  I’m not pretty but Rudi thinks I am.

  And so does Tong. Friday. That’s when I’m picking him up and then anything could happen.

  Cecilie makes her way back over to the hedgehog’s grave. Once again she pats the topsoil with the tip of her shoe.

  30. THEY’RE TAKING OVER THE WHOLE WORLD (Daniel William)

  A thousand kilometres underground.

  I want to go down, I want to go down, a thousand kilometres beneath the earth. To the place where dreams are boiled in rusty oil drums, where feet scrape across bleeding stones, where small boys pluck squirrel eyes under the light from hanged girls. You’re going down, you hear me? A thousand kilometres under the earth. Don’t touch me, you hear, don’t fucking touch me. You can just lie there, you bitch, you can just lie on your back, being all sexy, closing your eyes and whimpering with glossy lips but you have no idea, you hear me, no idea.

  Daniel darts like a ragged dog across the forest floor. Setting his heels down hard into the ground, gritted teeth, breathing through his nose with his fists clenched. If he could hit someone he would; smash a face to a pulp, kick someone in the guts, break them up and hollow them out until they were dust.

  Nobody is ever going to put their hands on me again.

  Play the drums while Veronika watches, drink with Dejan and the others, work out until I’m built like a brick shithouse. Full stop.

  Bury girls a thousand kilometres underground.

  He slid in and out of her, once, twice, then it cascaded through him. It was impossible to control. He shouted at himself, pull back, keep calm, but it didn’t help. It was just a wild storm. No matter what he did, no matter what he screamed at himself, it was impossible to hold back. It pumped through him and he just about managed to pull out of her, just about managed to cover himself with his hands before it blasted out of him, wave after wave.

  So unbelievably embarrassing. So unmanly.

  Daniel keeps a look out for his helmet. Have to just strike that whole girl idea, shit plan anyway, having yourself depend on something as fickle as a girl. What the hell did he do with that bloody helmet. There you have it. Girls, they screw your head up. Just because they’re gorgeous. He’s been walking around like an idiot the last few weeks, a silly grin on his face, only sleeping two or three hours a night, thinking about roses and all kinds of girly crap, even thinking about a house and kids, no wonder he just tossed his helmet someplace. It’s not right, hardly recognise myself, he thinks, as though nothing matters any more, apart from her, apart from her body, apart from getting inside her.

  He doesn’t like it.

  Daniel speeds up.

  Losing control.

  I don’t like that one fucking bit.

  Anyhow, it’s the last time I’ll ride out to these woods and snog a fifteen-year-old who sings in a choir, wears a cross round her neck, has a lawyer daddy and a Jesus freak for a mother and thinks the world is a lollypop.

  Cotton Candy, sunbullet mine

  Explode my body out of time

  Bowlegged baby, how you shine

  Running over space and time

  Bring my shovel, bring my axe

  Bring my rifle, fill your cracks

  First I fuck you, then I kill you

  First I fuck you, then I kill you

  Cause I see you running, whore

  I see you running, whore

  Bandylegged you set ashore

  Away with another man

  Daniel nods to himself as he feels the lyrics tick out in his head. It’s like the words burrow their way up through the dirt in his mind. The lyrics are suddenly there, totally complete. He just needs to remember them, just needs to get them down on paper as soon as he gets home.

  Daniel glances up, holds his breath.

  There’s that dog again.

  Closer now.

  And voices?

  Daniel catches sight of the substation, not too far off. He slows down. There’re people behind the tall weeds. Two of them. He hears one of them say:

  ‘Calm down, man! Make the dog shut up! Listen to me now!’

  Daniel comes to a halt. He looks right, then left. He takes a few steps into the woods and gets behind a tree. He squints.

  There’re two of them. Two men. Both around forty or something. One of them, who’s really lanky, must be all of two metres, is waving and swinging his arms around, he looks like a tree in a storm. The other one isn’t that tall and he’s kind of difficult to see. He’s the one with the dog on a lead.

  ‘Okay,’ he hears the guy with the dog say.

  ‘Good,’ says the tall guy in a raspy voice. ‘You need to calm down, Påli, if this is going to work out. That’s one of the fundamental principles right there. Keep cool! What’s important here is to think, you get me?’

  What’s going on here?

  ‘Okay, you’re a Motörhead man, so that probably makes you a Metallica man, am I right?’

  ‘Yeah, or I used to…’

  ‘Darkness imprisoning me, all that I see, absolute horror, I cannot live, I cannot die, trapped in myself – is that how you feel, hombre?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Where do I take this pain of mine – I run but it stays right by my side?’

  ‘Well I…’

  ‘Maybe you’re a Judas Priest man too, eh Kåli?’

  ‘Ehh…’

  ‘Breaking the law, breaking the law…’

  ‘Can’t really—’

  ‘Too bad Rob Halford turned out to be a queer, but there are a lot of things in life you have to turn a blind eye to, or whaddayasay, Gnåli?’

  What’s going on here?

  Daniel hears footsteps, he turns around – it’s Sandra. Reacting as quickly as he can, he hurries on to the path, nods in the direction of the men behind him and pulls her into the darkness of the woods, whispering: ‘Don’t make a sound.’

  He points. Sandra twists herself loose. She looks angr
y, her eyes are red, but there’s no time for him to think about that, he points again in the direction of the two men and whispers as quietly as he can: ‘Just listen!’

  She looks over at the men behind the substation. The taller one lays his hands on the shorter man’s shoulders.

  ‘Okay,’ they hear him say. ‘You think I’m a magician. A wizard. You’re right, and you’re wrong. You’ve got problems. It’s understandable. What we’ll do is…’

  Sandra gives a start, takes a step forward, craning her neck.

  ‘Th—’

  ‘Shhh!’

  She mouths something.

  There’s that light again. That expression in her face. Sweet Jesus. There’s not one girl, not in the whole world, who’s as beautiful. What’s she trying to say?

  I know him.

  Feeling how bloody gorgeous she is, feeling it all through him, Daniel mouths a reply.

  Do you know him?

  She opens that beautiful mouth, still without uttering a sound:

  Yes.

  He moves his lips soundlessly once more:

  Who is he?

  ‘…I’ll go back to my people, Tråli. You go back to yours. I’ll see what I can come up with. And l’ll see you tomorrow. All right?’

  Sandra stands on tiptoes, crying, she takes hold of Daniel’s face, kisses him and then whispers: ‘He’s the father of Tiril, the one I work with, and Malene, a girl in my class, he’s their dad.’

  ‘She’s in your class?’

  Sandra nods. ‘Mhm.’

  ‘Okay,’ says the shorter guy. The one who’s the father of these girls. ‘Where will we meet? When?’

  ‘It’ll have to be here. No surveillance cameras in the woods, y’know. Same time. Then we’ll see if we have a solution to your problem. And remember: the internet is the root of all evil. So don’t you go turning on that computer now, dude! Set aside a little time with a few good records instead. Number of the Beast! Overkill! Sabbath Bloody Sabbath! Or what do I know, maybe you listen to Coldplay when nobody’s around? Ha ha, fucking bedwetters. Okay, brother. See you tomorrow!’