Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Three

One evening when they were with us Dad bought some crabs. For him they were the apotheosis of festive food, and even though it was early in the season there was meat in the ones he had managed to find. But my grandparents, they didn’t eat crab. If Grandad got crabs in the net, well, he would throw them back. Dad would later tell stories about this, he viewed it as comical, a kind of superstition, that crabs should be less clean than fish, just because they crawled over the seabed and didn’t swim as they pleased through the water above. Crabs might eat dead bodies, since they eat everything that falls to the bottom, but what were the odds of these crabs having chanced upon a corpse in the depths of the Skagerrak?

One afternoon we had been sitting in the garden drinking coffee and juice, afterward I had gone to my room, where I lay on my bed reading comic books, and I heard Grandma and Grandad coming up the stairs. They didn’t say anything, trod heavily on the steps, and went into the living room. The sunlight on the wall of my room was golden. The lawn outside had great patches of yellow and even brown, although Dad switched on the sprinkler the instant the local council gave permission. Everything I could see along the road, all the houses, all the gardens, all the cars, and all the tools leaning against walls and doorsteps, was in a state of slumber, it seemed to me. My sweaty chest stuck uncomfortably to the duvet cover. I got up, opened the door, and went into the living room, where Grandma and Grandad were sitting in their separate chairs.

“Would you like to watch TV?” I asked.

“Yes, the news is on soon, isn’t it?” Grandma said. “That’s what interests us, you know.”

I went over and switched on the TV. A few seconds passed before the picture appeared. Then the screen slowly lit up, the “N” of Dagsrevyen grew larger and larger as the simple xylophone jingle sounded, ding-dong-ding-dooong, faint at first, then louder and louder. I took a step back. Grandad leaned forward in his chair, the pipe stem pointing away from his hand.

“There we are,” I said.

Actually, I wasn’t allowed to turn on the TV, nor the large radio on the shelf by the wall, I always had to ask Mom or Dad if they could do it for me when there was something I wanted to see or listen to. But now I was doing it for Grandma and Grandad, surely Dad wouldn’t object to that.

All of a sudden the picture started flickering wildly. The colors became distorted. Then there was a flash, a loud puff! , and then the screen went black.

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

“What happened to the TV?” Grandad asked.

“It’s broken,” I said, my eyes full of tears.

It was me who had broken it.

“It can happen,” Grandad said. “And actually we like the news on the radio better.”

He got up from his chair and shuffled over to the radio with his small steps. I went into my room. Chill with fear, my stomach churning, I lay down on the bed. The duvet cover was cool against my hot, bare skin. I took a comic from the pile on the floor. But I was unable to read. Soon he would come in, go over to the TV, and switch it on. If it had broken while I had been alone perhaps I could have acted as if nothing had happened, then he would have thought it had stopped working of its own accord. Although probably he would have figured out that it was me even so, because he had a nose for anything untoward, one glance at me was enough for him to know something was wrong and he put two and two together. Now, however, I couldn’t feign ignorance, Grandma and Grandad had been witnesses, they would tell him what had happened, and if I tried to hide anything it would make matters much, much worse.

I sat up on the bed. I had a knot in my stomach, but there was no hint of the warmth and softness that illness brought with it, it was cold and painful and so tight that no tears in the world could undo it.

For a while I sat crying.

If only Yngve had been at home. Then I could have stayed with him in his room for as long as possible. But he was out swimming with Steinar and Kåre.

A sense that I would be nearer to him if I went into his room, even though it was empty, brought me to my feet. I opened the door, tiptoed along the landing, and into his room. His bed had been painted blue, mine orange, in the same way as his cupboard doors were blue and mine were orange. The room smelled of Yngve. I went to the bed and sat down.

The window was ajar!

That was more than I had dared hope for. Now I could hear their voices down on the terrace without their knowing I was here. If the window had been closed I would have revealed my presence when I opened it.

Dad’s voice rose and sank in the calm manner it did when he was in a good mood. Now and then I caught Mom’s brighter, gentler voice. From the living room came the sound of the radio. For some reason I had the impression that my grandparents were asleep, each in their separate chairs, their mouths open and their eyes closed, perhaps they often sat like that in Sørbøvåg when we visited them.

There was a clink of cups outside.

Were they clearing the table?

Yes, because afterward I heard the flip-flop of Mom’s sandals as she walked around the house.

At once I wanted to have her for myself! Then I would be able to tell her first!

I waited until I heard the door below being opened. Then, as Mom came upstairs carrying a tray of cups, dishes, glasses, and the shiny coffee pot with the red lid atop a garland of clothespins that Yngve had made at Mom’s arts and crafts workshop I went out onto the landing.

“Are you inside in this hot weather?” she said.

“Yes,” I answered.

She was about to walk past, but then she stopped.

“Is there something the matter?” she asked.

I looked down.

“Is there?”

“The TV’s busted,” I said.

“Oh no,” she said. “That’s a pity. Are Grandma and Grandad in there?”

I nodded.

“I was just about to go and get them. It’s such a fantastic evening. You come out, too, come on. You can have some more juice if you want.”

I shook my head and went back into my room. Stopped inside the door. Perhaps it would be wisest to join them outside? He wouldn’t do anything if they were there, even if he found out I had broken the TV.

But that in itself could make him even more furious. Last time we had been to Sørbøvåg everyone had been sitting round the dinner table, and Kjartan had been saying that Yngve had had a fight with Bjørn Atle, the boy on the neighboring farm. Everyone had laughed at that, Dad too. But when Mom had taken me to the shop and the others were having a midday nap, and Yngve had gone to bed to read a comic, Dad had gone in, lifted him up, and shaken him about because he had been fighting.

Nope, the best would be to stay here. If Grandad or Mom said the TV was broken he might lose his temper while he was sitting there with them.

I lay back down on my bed. My chest trembled uncontrollably; another flood of tears was set in motion.

Ohhhh. Ohhhh. Ohhhh.

He would be coming soon.

I knew it.

Soon he would be here.

I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes and tried to pretend nothing existed. Only this darkness and this breathing.

But a feeling of defenselessness overcame me, and I did the opposite, knelt on the bed and looked out of the window, at the flood of light falling across the landscape, the glowing roof tiles and glinting windowpanes.

The door downstairs was opened and slammed.

I cast around wildly. Got up, pulled the chair from under the desk, and sat down.

Footsteps on the stairs. They were heavy; it was him.

I couldn’t sit with my back to the door and got up again. Perched on the edge of the bed.