Authors: Tore Renberg
The nausea seethes like boiling milk. Suddenly she’s afraid of vomiting up the child, it’s as though she can feel the little baby kick, punch and cry in there.
‘Fucking yellow peril!’ Rudi shouts, eyes blazing.
Tong stands sneering, some blood still dripping from the edge of the knife in his hand. ‘Come on then, birdshit skin, I’m right here.’
Cecilie hears Pål crying quietly, he’s stretched his feet out to locate Zitha’s form, which is still warm, the bandana around his head is damp with tears and he whispers: ‘Zitha, Zitha, oh Jesus, what has Daddy done.’ She understands that she only has a few seconds to halt a crisis no one will be able to handle. But what will she do; is there anything that can restrain a man who finds out his mate has slept with his girlfriend?
‘I’m going to reach down your throat and rip your tongue out!’
‘Yikes.’ Tong tosses the knife back and forth between his hands. ‘I’m shitting myself.’
Rudi is snorting like a horse and shaking like a drill, and in a matter of moments he’s going to explode. Fly at Tong’s face and tear it to pieces with his teeth, rip his heart out and rend it into small pieces, and nobody’s going to be able to prevent it, not her, not Jan Inge, not Jesus, not God, not Steven Tyler and not even Lemmy, but she needs to come up with something, so what will she do?
It’s like Jan Inge has dropped out of himself, or the opposite; he has sunk into himself. That happens sometimes, he loses everything he’s built up, and when Jan Inge diminishes there’s nobody smaller, as a result Bro isn’t going to be of any help; what will she do?
Rudi stands like a cat ready to pounce, facing Tong, still calmly tossing the knife back and forth between his hands. ‘I’ve never fucking liked you, China man.’
‘Same here,’ Tong smirks, ‘same here, I’ve detested you from day one.’
Hey Dad, what is it you always say?
When storm clouds gather, what is you say to do again?
Just tell the truth, honeybunch, then everything will be just fine.
Vein after vein is becoming visible through Rudi’s skin, his teeth are chattering.
The truth, Dad?
Cecilie clears her throat and shuts her eyes for a second. Then she reopens them, and looking at the man sitting sobbing on the chair says: ‘I’m pregnant.’
Her voice carries clearly and her words fill the room.
No one looks at her at first. Rudi just quivers, Tong just sneers. It’s as though the sentence is spoken in a language nobody understands, slowly catching and drawing them in. Jan Inge’s near-void blueberry eyes, Tong’s iron stare, Rudi’s coffee-brown ADHD eyes, even Pål turns his face towards her.
Rudi sways, looking ready to collapse like a house of cards. ‘You’re what?’
Tong snorts.
Cecilie dries a tear from under one eye. ‘I’m pregnant. With—’
‘But—’ Rudi raises the back of his hand to his mouth, wiping it hard across his lips as if he had shit on them.
‘Yeah,’ she repeats, watching Rudi as his brain labours, his face reflecting each step until it dawns on him.
‘But—’
‘Yes, Rudi. Yes. By one of you.’
Laughter. Lean, derisive laughter.
Cecilie sinks down on to one of the dining chairs near Pål, perhaps in the place where one of the sisters usually sits. Who knows, she thinks, picturing a home life she wishes were her own, before looking at what she has in front of her: three boys – one crazy and wild, one scornful and hard-hearted, one at a complete loss; a badly beaten man with a broken nose, dangling blood and
mucus dropping on to his thighs, broken fingers and a cut-up face, and a dead dog.
She places her hand on her stomach, not because the baby bids her to, but because she’s frightened.
Rudi grinds his teeth. There’s just as much chance of him letting loose on her and the child as there is of him going for Tong. She hadn’t considered it before, but now it’s obvious.
‘Rudi, you mustn’t, you hear me,’ she gets to her feet, reaching for his hands, trying to make eye contact, ‘are you listening to me, you mustn’t. I can see what you’re thinking … you know I’m Chessi … listen … Rudi … please—’
There it is again, Tong’s laughter.
Rudi shuts his eyes, like he does at times when he looks truly beautiful, then turns his head to the left, stretching it around until the muscles make a cracking sound. He opens his eyes again, places his palm on the left side of his chest while keeping his gaze fixed on Cecilie. He thumps his hand resolutely over his own heart and says: ‘Sometimes, Chessi, I wonder if you know who I am.’
‘Huh?’ Her mouth trembles. ‘What do you mean, sweetheart?’
Rudi’s eyes spin. He’s really high and really scary.
‘If you know who I am, Chessi. I wonder about it sometimes. If even after having lived with me for all these years you know who I am.’
‘I kn—’
He bends down, his face right up in hers, his warm breath on her skin and she doesn’t know whether she’s going to live or die.
‘I’m a man of love,’ he whispers.
She feels the touch of his finger, stroking her across the cheek.
‘Meandyou, baby, from here to heaven,’ he whispers.
She nods.
‘I don’t give a shit who you’ve screwed,’ he says, and turns to Tong. ‘You know what Gran used to say:
I can trust you, Rune.
’
Then he bounds at Tong. He shoots through the air like a vengeful dog, sending Pål and the chair tumbling to the ground, the back of his head seeming almost to rattle, but nobody has time to attend to him as he lies moaning.
Tong protects himself as he’s knocked to the floor, bringing a
knee up into Rudi’s stomach, who in turn tenses his abdominal muscles, the way he learned in the eighties fighting the Ullandhaug Gang, thwarting the worst of the intent. Tong gets hold of his face with his fingers, tightening and squeezing as hard as he can, searching for Rudi’s eyes with his thumb and middle finger, but Rudi has the upper hand, has the advantage of his bodyweight on Tong and he’s in possession of the strongest weapon a person can have, raging love. He quickly raises his right arm, angles it and plants an elbow in Tong’s mouth, filling the room with a crunching sound, while he employs his legs to try and gain control over the wriggling body beneath.
‘What the fuck have you been playing at!’ Rudi pounds his elbow repeatedly into Tong’s mouth. ‘What the fuck have you been playing at!’
‘I haven’t been playing at anything,’ Tong screams, his mouth bleeding as he spits out a tooth. ‘She’s a slag! She’s the one who came on to me.
‘Like I’d fucking believe you,’ Rudi yells. ‘She loves me, you twisted fuck!’
Jan Inge stands looking immobile, flummoxed and tiny next to where the fight is taking place. He has given up. His eyes have always been small, it’s one of the few things Cecilie can remember her mother saying,
That boy’s eyes are so small they scare the life out of me
; now they resemble minute little pebbles.
Tong exerts himself and manages to tip Rudi off him. Rudi is sent rolling across the floor, crashing into the kitchen table, both feet smashing into Pål’s head, which is still resting on the ground. The table is knocked on its side and Tong is nimbly back on his feet and within seconds is astride Rudi, pinning him to the floor, the knife in his hand.
‘Jan Inge!’ Cecilie screams.
Her brother turns his head slowly towards her. He’s broken out in a rash, the same purple blotches he had so often on his cheeks when he was young, which vanished when Rudi started coming to the house. He has those red streaks in the whites of his eyes, which she hasn’t seen in years either. He looks like a little boy who’s going to walk out a door alone, into darkness, never to return.
‘Jani! You have to do something!’
Tong straddles Rudi, immobilising him with his thigh muscles. He pauses to bring the knife to his own mouth and pick at his incisors with the blade, just like he always did in the eighties when they sat in the living room watching video after video, when boys were in and out of the house, boys with cartons of cigarettes and VCRs, boys that Jan Inge paid with her.
‘Aren’t you going to fucking do something!’
Jan Inge strokes Cecilie across the cheek.
What a useless pile of shit to have for a brother.
Is he thinking it would be best if he could rent her out again, like before? How could she have been so stupid, why has she never just left?
Then Jan Inge goes down on his knees, reaches his hands to the bag by his feet, unzips it and takes out the pump-action shotgun. He nods to Cecilie, lifts up the shotgun and holds it at stomach height.
‘Tong,’ Jan Inge says, ‘you’ve gone too far. This is precisely what all good horror deals with. And you haven’t understood anything I’ve taught you.’
Jan Inge puts the muzzle of the gun to Tong’s temple.
‘Get up.’
Tong smirks and gets to his feet. ‘What are you planning to do? Shoot me? Like you fucking have it in you.’
‘Move,’ Jan Inge says, poking Tong. ‘Move.’
Rudi gets up stiffly, Cecilie wobbles on her skinny knees and watches her brother push Tong into the hall, prodding him in the back with the shotgun, towards the door that leads to the garage.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Tong says, ‘what the hell are you going do?’
Pål lies writhing on the kitchen floor. Cecilie gives him an apologetic look before she and Rudi follow Jan Inge.
At the end of the hall, Jan Inge puts his elbow on the door handle, presses down and pushes the door open, still holding his hands on the shotgun. Then he orders Tong to step through on to the cement floor inside.
‘Rudi?’
‘Yeah?’
Jan Inge motions with the shotgun in the direction of the van. ‘Will you open the back doors?’
Rudi scurries past his best friend and opens the doors. Jan Inge places the muzzle to the back of Tong’s neck and compels him to walk towards the open doors. When they reach them, Tong resists slightly, but Jan Inge presses the barrel harder against the nape of his neck. Tong gives in after a couple of seconds, squats down and climbs into the van.
‘Jan Inge,’ he says, sneering, ‘you’re such a fucking idiot.’
‘Sit down,’ Jan Inge says.
‘Jesus,’ says Tong, shaking his head. Then he sits down.
Jan Inge shoots Tong in the face.
Rudi looks at his best friend with a mixture of admiration and horror.
Tong lies stretched out on the floor of the van, his face torn asunder. The roof and sides splattered in blood, skin and flesh.
Jan Inge lowers the shotgun, the rash on his face beginning to wane.
In the kitchen, Pål’s thighs shudder when he hears the powerful, resounding bang from the garage. He swings his head from side to side, making the mucus and stringy blood swing under his chin. ‘Wha? Hello? What’s happened?’
Cecilie takes a step forward. She looks at her brother.
‘I couldn’t very well spray-paint the kitchen with his DNA,’ Jan Inge says calmly.
What a fantastic brother.
See, little one, see what a fantastic uncle you’ve got?
Then Cecilie hears a click in her ear as a switch from the past is flicked on. She pictures the man who’s lost his dog, the man who’s lying in there on the kitchen floor and she remembers him, Pål Fagerland, from an afternoon in 1985, an afternoon smelling strongly of vanilla. She can picture the room as it was back then, the poster of the ochre cat hanging to the right of the window, the pink hairbrush on the desk, the hair elastics beside it, the red desk lamp and the globe, a crack going from north to south, the Aerosmith poster, the Foreigner poster, the Lois jeans sticker on the door, she can hear the muffled sounds from the living room, a
horror movie on the TV, and she can see Pål’s young body, so thin and hairless, and she can see his gentle, frightened face, and she can hear her own voice saying: ‘Come on, I don’t bite.’
‘Seventh,’ she whispers.
Daniel raises his head, but his eyes remain downcast. He should never have got messed up in this. He should have done what Dejan suggested a couple of months ago:
Hey, Dano! What do you say – me and you, we rob a bank, get the fuck outta here, go and live like kings in Dubai, eh, man?
But the girls came into the picture and Dubai went out the window.
Minutes from now, maybe a few hours, and he’ll be sitting in the police station.
Daniel brings his finger to the button and presses it.
She knows her way around here. Veronika has been in and out of hospital since she was a little girl. She’s been back and forth together with Inger, check-up after check-up at the audiology clinic. Seventh floor, said the woman at reception, and nodded to Veronika the way you nod to somebody you’re used to seeing, but she struggled to maintain a natural expression when she saw the mesh of cuts on her face.
‘Sandra Vikadal? Seventh floor.’
The lift is slow and heavy. Veronika seeks out his hand, finds his fingers.
‘My finger friend.’
What is she on about? Daniel shoots her a puzzled look.
She laughs. ‘Just popped into my head.’
‘You come out with some weird stuff.’
‘What did you say?’ She looks at him with that expression she always gets in her eyes when she doesn’t catch what’s been said. Vigilant, the tiniest bit offended.
‘Nothing,’ Daniel says, ‘nothing.’
The lift ascends, passing floor after floor. A sterile smell pervades, even in here, the odour of hospital and of unease. People go quiet when they use lifts, doubly so in hospitals.
The doors slide open.
‘Hey?’ She squeezes his hand.
‘Mhm?’
‘It’s okay, you know. I’m with you, all right?’
Daniel nods. He can’t bring himself to speak.
‘We’ll go in, you get to see her, and after that you’re mine. Yeah? We’ll just ride. You and me. Far from here. We still have time.’
He nods, but he doesn’t believe what she’s saying. They exit the lift and set their feet on the linoleum of the seventh floor. It’s almost as though the ground is swaying beneath them. There are double doors to either side of them and Veronika points to the ones to the right. Daniel doesn’t say anything, just nods and lets her lead the way.
She wants to hold him by the hand, reaches for his, but he avoids her attempt. He speeds up, noses a few inches ahead of her as they walk down the corridor. A doctor and a nurse are walking towards them. Daniel looks down. They pass empty chairs, doors and rooms, people inside with pain in their bodies. Veronika draws level with him, tries to take hold of his hand once more. Daniel brings his fingers to his eye, pretends to have something in it.
Then they halt. A man and a woman are standing outside a room about fifty feet in front of them. Daniel takes an audible intake of breath and makes as if to turn back.
‘Who’s that?’
He gives her a quick glance and she understands who it is.
The man is tall and slim, wears a suit and shirt and has polished shoes. The woman is petite, slender, dressed in a blue jacket, with a neckerchief and her hair neatly styled.
‘Relax,’ Veronika says, ‘do they know who you are?’
Daniel tugs her with him, back towards the lift, but she resists.
‘Wait, stand still. Don’t look at them. Look at me. Have you met them?’
‘No, I haven’t met them,’ he says, angrily.
‘Take it easy, Daniel,’ she says. ‘They’re talking to a doctor. Look. He’s quite calm. The father has his arm round the mother. She’s crying.’
Daniel brings his hands to his head. Massages his forehead with his fingertips.
Then they see them. Two uniformed police. A man and a woman. They come out of the same room. The woman tilts her head to the side, says something into the radio mounted almost at her shoulder. The other speaks to the doctor and Sandra’s parents.
Daniel and Veronika turn and walk quickly away. They don’t stop until they make it around the corner by the lift.
‘What are we going to do?’ Daniel’s eyes flash fiercely.
Veronika takes a step to the side, looks down the corridor.
‘They’re talking,’ she says.
Daniel swallows.
‘Wait,’ she says, ‘wait, they’re leaving.’
‘What?’
‘They’re going the other way.’
‘The other way?’
Daniel sticks his head round the corner to take a look. She’s right. The doctor and the police are accompanying Sandra’s parents further down the corridor. The doctor opens a door and shows them in.
‘Come on,’ Veronika says, giving him a tug, ‘now.’ She begins to walk towards the room Sandra is in.
Daniel hesitates, but she’s stronger. Veronika won’t hear him. She doesn’t want to hear him. That’s how this girl is. She says weird things and has no trouble crossing boundaries others wouldn’t dare contemplate. She lacks something other people have. She possesses something they do not.
Daniel is on the verge of letting her go into Sandra’s room on her own, on the brink of turning around and leaving. But he’s unable to resist her. She’s too much. That copper-red hair. That pursuable body. She’s like pure metal.
They reach the mint-green door and Veronika reaches for the handle, pressing it down gently.
Daniel wavers as she enters, but follows her in.
It’s a single room. A narrow entrance with a bathroom to the side, a window ahead with the curtains opened. The late September light shines into the room. A poster of a flower arrangement hangs on the wall to the right. To the left, a bed with curtains drawn around it. A low hum from the air conditioner. A chair facing the bed.
‘I can’t do this.’ Daniel closes his eyes.
‘You can,’ Veronika whispers, reaching her hand towards the curtain.