See You Tomorrow

by Tore Renberg

  Soon be dinnertime.

  This house is poisoned.

  She’s lain on this same sofa, year in year out, thinking exactly the same thoughts. Watched horror films. Watched Rudi or Jani walking in and out, carrying boxes of cigarettes, carrying TVs, carrying all kinds of shit. Lain here thinking the same thoughts: get away. And now she’s lying here again, and not just by herself; she’s two people and the problems are piling up around her. So much has happened in such a short space of time and Cecilie doesn’t quite know who she is or what she’s going to do. That’s the thing about love, she thinks. It’s so bloody difficult. She loves Rudi, just the idea of not being with him makes her so sad, but still the thought of him makes her want to throw up. And Tong? Is that love? She pictures him clearly, standing there, sees his rigid stare, hears the chugging of his breath, sees the sinews straining on his forearms: I’d do anything for you.

  Would you, Tong?

  Anything for Cecilie?

  Would you kill Rudi for me, Tong?

  She puts her hands in front of her and pushes at the air, as if to shove her problems away. She feels like having ice cream. She felt the same way yesterday, and the day before that as well, and she has to smile because now she realises what it is.

  ‘Baby,’ she whispers, gets to her feet, scoots into the kitchen, opens the freezer and says, ‘of course you can have ice cream.’

  She takes out a three-litre of Neapolitan. Then quickly grabs a spoon from the cutlery drawer. She opens the tub, using all her strength to sink the spoon into the firm ice cream, sees it bend back, the ice cream yielding. She sits down and starts to eat. Can’t manage to stop, can’t manage to stop.

  Cecilie closes her eyes.

  Ah sweet Jesus, that’s so good.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, what are you at now?! Ice cream? Right before dinner?!’

  Weird – she didn’t hear them coming in. She didn’t hear the car, the stomping, the slamming of doors. Rudi stands in front of her shaking his head. She doesn’t dignify him with a glance, just brings another spoonful to her mouth.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Rudi says, smiling, ‘you’re my woman, Chessi, from here to eternity and the whole way back, and I’m damned if I’m going to come between you and your ice cream. Let me look at you.’

  He reaches both his hands towards her face but she recoils, can’t stomach the thought of him touching her, just can’t stomach it.

  ‘Heh heh,’ says Rudi. ‘Jani! Come on in and take a look at this girl who’s all sexied up from the skincare shithole. She’s radiant! Hey, Jani, there’s a sunbeam sitting in our kitch—’

  Jan Inge walks in and Rudi lowers his voice.

  ‘Yeah, a sunbeam, in our kitchen.’

  They look at her.

  ‘We’ll have to have you do this once a month,’ says Rudi, then bends over and gives her a peck on the cheek, and once again she recoils.

  ‘She doesn’t want her make-up ruined, all fancy now,’ Rudi laughs. ‘Just how it ought to be. That’s why we have women in the world, so they can look good. Yesss – and we’ve had a killer day, I can tell you that. Rudi has been able to knock some sense into Hansi’s head, we’ve got a van and a trailer, so you don’t need to worry about the car, baby. You can drive out to Åne and have a real good time.’

  Cecilie is momentarily thrown. ‘A good time?’

  ‘Aerosmith, the open road, good humour … you know. The lot!’

  She puts the tub of ice cream down. No one, absolutely no one, can be so simple and good and as full of energy as Rudi. When he stands in front of her, his face lit up like a little boy’s and he showers her with loving droplets from his heart, then it’s completely impossible to imagine a single day without that bloody idiot.

  She smiles at him.

  She hadn’t planned to.

  But she does.

  ‘Moron,’ she says.

  ‘Yup! That’s me,’ Rudi says, laughing. Then he walks into the hall. ‘The moron is heading down into the basement to get a few things ready for tomorrow – how many baseball bats? Three, I guess. Tong is coming along after all, nothing he likes more than smashing things with a bat. Fuck me, this moron can’t wait to see that little Korean again!’

  Sometimes she thinks that he’s jabbered away so much in this house that sooner or later the walls and the floors will learn how to speak, and the day they do, they’re going to sound like Rudi. Cecilie gets up. He can’t wait to see Tong again, that’s what he says. What a fucking mess. What’ll I do? Maybe I’ll just tell him, right now? Hey Rudi, I’m screwing Tong! He might be the father of the baby you don’t know about!

  She stretches out.

  Then we’d see a murder.

  It’s not criminals who are behind all the killings in society.

  It’s love.

  Jan Inge has already started making the food. He’s put on the apron they bought in Houston the last time they visited Dad, seven years ago, the purple-and-white one with ‘Fuck Y’all I’m from Texas’ written across it.

  ‘I’m going to have a kip for a half-hour,’ she says, and leaves the room. ‘Call me when dinner’s ready.’

  ‘Don’t I always?’

  She sighs and walks down the hall.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she says in a low voice. ‘What is it, by the way?’

  ‘Fishcakes!’ comes the reply from the kitchen.

  Cecilie opens the door, falls on to the bed. Fishcakes, she thinks, I couldn’t face a morsel of fishcake.

  She knows things will be different in the future, but how exactly, she doesn’t have a clue. She wants ice cream and she wants to sleep. Her body is so heavy. She never had many muscles, but now it feels like she has none at all.

  She sinks into the mattress.

  She takes out her mobile, pulls up her list of contacts, and presses on a number. It takes a little while before a click sounds and a voice says:

  ‘Hi, you’ve reached Thor Haraldsen and Southern Oil. I’m not here at the moment. Please leave a message and I’ll be sure to call you back.’

  She takes a breath. ‘Hi Dad,’ she says. ‘Just Cecilie here … well, not calling about anything in particular. I just remembered … I was out stretching my legs today and … didn’t you and I used to take walks down behind the silos? I was just wondering if you, like, remembered that? All right. Hope everything’s good. Talk to you again. Bye bye. Feel free to give me a ring. Talk soon. Bye bye.’

  She sinks down into the mattress, sinks and sinks.

  A half-hour later Cecilie is sitting at the dining table in the living room with Rudi and Jan Inge, the table that’s been there since she was a child. This is the nice time of the day, but not for her. She might have thought so before but not now. Motörhead fills the room, Iron Fist at full blast, and nobody speaks; they just relax, as well as they can, all of them. That’s how it is every day. Rudi and Jan Inge love this part of the day, peace and calm and heavy metal. Not everyone understands just how peaceful Motörhead can feel, Rudi maintains. Jan Inge says that even though he’s a country man in his heart of hearts, that it’s actually this time of the day that all his thoughts take shape.

  This used to be really nice, I used to enjoy it too, thinks Cecilie. But I’m not able to feel that way any more.

  Maybe I shouldn’t go on living, she thinks, feeling just as tired as before she slept. Maybe not, little baby. Maybe that would be for the best. That neither you, nor I, lived. That we were the ones to die. We, who don’t know who your father is. You, who have an ugly slut of a mother. Me, with a slut’s baby in my tummy. Maybe that would be best? My little baby? So people wouldn’t have to be bothered with us? So they wouldn’t have to beat each other to death? Wouldn’t have to hate each other?

  Hm?

  Baby?

  Just a little?

  Just die a little?

  You and me?

  Baby?

  54. YOU NEED TO BREATHE EASY (Sandra)

  She walks by the clothes racks with her hand out, her fingers r
unning along the material of garment after garment.

  The light in Hennes & Mauritz is cold and glaring; she’s been there a half-hour without really looking at one single article of clothing. Other customers have come in, the clock has ticked, past five o’clock, getting on for six, work and school are finished, outside the sun is sinking on the horizon, the afternoon is slipping into evening.

  She’s had to stop several times and draw breath, close her eyes and swallow so as not to burst out crying. If this is love, she doesn’t understand what it wants with her. She thought love would make her feel good. But what it’s doing is dishing out pain, rending and tearing at her and thrusting her into something unknown and dangerous.

  We were supposed to be good to one another, Daniel.

  Sandra holds an ocean-blue headscarf between her fingers. She can’t remember having picked it out to look at. Blue, her mother always says, blue suits you, Sandra, nice colour on you, brings out your eyes.

  She pays. 69.50. She goes out of the shop and down the escalators, out into the fading light on Domkirkeplassen, the square in front of the cathedral. A normal day in Stavanger. Market traders selling fruit and vegetables, a thin man with a hot-dog stand at the entrance to the SR-Bank chatting with passers-by, a beggar wearing a shawl, a 7-Eleven cup in her hands, sitting cross-legged in Laugmannsgaten, and over by ‘Ting’, a junkie in light-coloured jeans and a tracksuit top selling Asfalt.

  Sandra notices daily life around her, but doesn’t take it in. She feels small, she feels afraid. She keeps her eyes lowered, tightens her grip on her H&M bag, enters Arneageren Square, without looking at anyone and steering clear of the teenagers sitting outside Kulturhuset; she opens the door to McDonald’s.

  Sandra hopes Malene comes soon, because right now she needs a friend. She’s taken out her mobile a thousand times and begun writing a text to Daniel, a thousand times she’s pulled his number up on the screen to ring it.

  Dear, precious, Daniel. Nothing matters, nothing apart from you and me.

  Daniel, you’re everything to me. I love you.

  She hasn’t sent either message. She doesn’t like what she has written. Is this how it is? Does love bring out all the pain inside people? Is that love’s secret, the one the Bible doesn’t dare talk about? Maybe this is what every grown-up knows, but avoids saying to their children. Maybe that’s why all grown-ups have something of an ash-grey look in their eyes. Because they know that love is the same as pain.

  Sandra orders a cheeseburger and a coke. She sits down with her back against the wall, sets the tray on the table in front of her. She takes a sip of her drink, but can’t taste anything. She lifts up the cheeseburger, brings it to her mouth, takes a bite, not good. Pain in her stomach.

  Suddenly something jolts in her mind.

  She sits up straight.

  Has it been like this the whole time, has she just been blind to it? Facial expressions and words spoken begin detonating in her head, bursting like soap bubbles; an ugly sneer playing on his mouth, his eyes turning steely all of a sudden, his hands going limp, the reticence that sometimes comes over him. Is he toying with me? She feels something spread across her chest, feels her mind begin to clear. The risk of weeping begins to subside. Is this the truth? That he caught sight of her that night in the shop, and what he saw was a stick of candy, something he wanted to taste, as long as it had some flavour? In her mind Sandra goes though the times she’s tried talking to him about something other than exactly what he wants to talk about. What does he do then? He just shuts off, closes down completely.

  Sandra clears her throat, almost loudly.

  The sick stuff he’s done. Beaten people up. Killed his parents. Whatever it may be. The way he just rides around on his moped. She knows he bunks school a few days a week.

  He’s dangerous is what he is.

  It’s strange how her heart settles when she has these thoughts. Gradually she begins to notice the people around her, the single father in the Smiths T-shirt sitting with his son over at the steps; he’s finished his food and he’s waiting for his son to do the same, they’re probably going to the cinema. Outside the window, four teenagers, sixth-formers, talking, laughing and waving their hands about, one boy constantly bumping up against a very pretty girl.

  Malene opens the door. Her new friend walks with her back straight, with colour in her cheeks and red lipstick on. She’s very pretty, with a body a lot of girls at school envy; it says as much on her Facebook page – oh, such a nice bod, Malene.

  ‘Hi Sandra, I came as quick as I could…’ Malene sits down, bringing fresh air with her. ‘How are things with you?’

  ‘Okay.’ Sandra nods and takes a sip of coke to conceal her thoughts.

  Malene looks surprised. ‘But you didn’t sound so—’

  ‘I bought a headscarf.’

  Malene leans back into the seat. ‘Cool … let’s have a gander. Hennes?’

  ‘Mhm,’ Sandra nods, ‘it’s all right.’ She takes the headscarf out of the bag. Hands it to her friend. Malene examines it.

  ‘It’s nice … blue suits you.’

  ‘I think I’ll break up with him.’

  Malene’s eyes open wide.

  ‘With Daniel, yeah, I—’

  ‘What?’

  Don’t start crying now. Sandra takes another sip of coke, a bite of the cheeseburger.

  ‘Jesus, Sandra, what’s happened—’

  Sandra looks at her friend. ‘I can’t handle it,’ she says, taking back the headscarf and beginning to tie it around her head, under her hairline. ‘I don’t know who he is. He … I just can’t handle it—’

  ‘But, I mean, you love him, he loves you, you—’

  Sandra nods. Don’t say it, she thinks, don’t say it.

  ‘Don’t you? Do you not love him any more?’

  Sandra ties the headscarf at the nape of her neck.

  ‘But if you love him, if he is the love of your life—’

  ‘Yeah, but what if all that love of your life, the one stuff, is just a…’ She can’t manage to finish the sentence. The tears are coming.

  Shit. Sandra tries to hold them back but they won’t be bossed. She shuts her eyes, places her fingers over them, inhales and exhales.

  When she opens them again, she catches sight of him. And her. Daniel and Veronika are standing a few metres from the window, between McDonald’s and the fountain in the square. No doubt about it. It’s them. Sandra has a rushing sensation in her head, as though a thousand tiny spears are flying from one side of her brain to the other: his head tilted to one side, his hand going to her hair, his fingers moving a lock from her cheek.

  Daniel and Veronika.

  ‘Sandra, what is it—’

  That’s it. That’s what it’s all about.

  Malene turns and looks out the window.

  ‘Oh my God, isn’t that—’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘But—’

  Daniel puts his arms around Veronika. He pulls her close and runs his hand up and down her back. She leans into him, resting her head on his chest.

  Malene looks at Sandra in confusion.

  ‘But I don’t understand, is he, have they—’

  She turns back towards the window.

  Daniel lets go of Veronika. They stand looking at one another. The deaf girl’s face is covered in lines going up and down and across, as though it were divided into pieces. Daniel brings his hand to her face, tracing the lines with his fingers, opens his mouth and says something. Veronika nods and smiles and then they leave. Walking past the fountain, out of sight, into the gathering darkness.

  ‘You need to breathe easy,’ Malene whispers.

  ‘I can hardly breathe at all,’ Sandra whispers back.

  55. GIRLS’ MEETING (Tiril)

  Thea unrolled the hose from the basement, Tiril sprayed the entrails off the window, feeling cool standing there with her feet apart and a cig hanging from the side of her mouth as the jet of water hit the pane. Thea fetch
ed her father’s hammer, but looked away as Tiril pulled the nail from the tree and out through the cat’s head. She had to stand on a lawn chair and use all the strength she had, the bark of the tree made a whining sound as the nail came free, the head and pelt of the cat landing with a smack at the foot of the tree. Tiril was satisfied. They had withstood the attack from Bunny’s big brother. Thea fetched two big black bin liners. As if to demonstrate it was no problem for her, Tiril put out her cigarette in the carcass of the dead cat before lifting it up from the ground – uuchh, Tiril, disgusting – and throwing it into the bag. She tied the bag tightly, double-wrapped it in the other bin liner and then said: ‘I’ll take care of this.’

  ‘So, like, what are you going to do with it?’

  Tiril held the bag up in Thea’s face and shook it about.

  ‘Uhhyuu! Quit it!’

  Tiril threw the bag to Thea. She reacted as though a live rat had landed on her lap and flung it quickly back.

  ‘Tiril! Quit it!’

  ‘I said I’d take care of it, didn’t I?’ Tiril laughed and began to make her way out of the garden.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Tiril halted. ‘Are there any of the neighbours you don’t like?’

  ‘What?’

  Tiril put one hand on her hip and swung the rubbish bag round in the other.

  ‘Do you think this is all a joke? Do you think my mum and dad aren’t going to twig that something’s gone on here? Do you think the neighbours aren’t going to discover what’s happened if they find a cat in their rubbish?’

  Tiril walked back to her friend. She placed her hand on her shoulder. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so.’

  A little over an hour later, Thea’s parents arrived home. The girls were practising, Thea by the piano, edgy and ill-at-ease, Tiril seated beside her, singing, better than ever. She felt something had loosened in her chest when she sang the lines she loved: this pain is just too real. When the parents first entered the living room they stood still and listened. After a while they sat down on the sofa by the window and when the girls finished they clapped and said it was one of the most beautiful things they’d ever heard, and as the four of them made their way to the kitchen, Tiril mouthed ‘I told you so’ to Thea, before she turned to Thea’s parents and said: ‘It’s so great we get to practise here, we’ve been at it for hours now.’