Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Three

He thrust open the door. Took a step inside and stopped, looked at me.

His eyes were narrow, his lips clenched.

“What are you doing, boy?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said, eyes downcast.

“Look at me when you talk to me!” he said.

I looked at him. But I couldn’t. I looked down again.

“Something wrong with your ears as well?” he said. “LOOK AT ME!”

I looked at him. But his eyes, I couldn’t meet them.

He took three quick strides across the floor, grabbed my ear, and twisted it as he dragged me to my feet.

“What did I tell you about switching on the TV?” he said.

I fought for breath and was unable to answer.

“WHAT DID I SAY?” he said, twisting harder.

“That I … that I sh … sh … shouldn’t do it,” I said.

He let go of my ear, grabbed both of my arms, and shook me.

“NOW LOOK AT ME!” he yelled.

I raised my head. Tears almost blurred him out.

His fingers squeezed harder.

“Didn’t I tell you to keep away from the TV? Eh? Didn’t I tell you? Now we’ll have to buy a new TV and where will we get the money from? Can you answer me that, eh!”

“No-o-o-o,” I sobbed.

He threw me down on the bed.

“Now you stay in your room until I tell you otherwise. Have you understood?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re grounded tonight, and you’re grounded tomorrow.”

“OK.”

Then he was gone. I was crying so much I couldn’t hear where he went. My breathing was jerky, as though it was moving up a staircase. My chest was trembling, my hands were trembling. I lay there crying for twenty minutes perhaps. Then it started to ease. I knelt on the bed and gazed out of the window. My legs were still shaking, my hands were shaking, but it was loosening its hold on me, I could feel, it was as though I had entered a quiet room after a storm.

From the window I could see Prestbakmo’s house and the entire front of their garden, which bordered ours, Gustavsen’s house and the front of their garden, a bit of Karlsen’s house, and a bit of Christensen’s at the top. I had a view of the road as far as the mailbox stand. The sun, which seemed to become a touch fuller in the afternoon, hung in the sky above the trees on the ridge. The air was perfectly still, not a tree or a bush stirred. People never sat in their front gardens, that would be “displaying yourself,” as Dad would say, making yourself visible to all; behind the houses was where all the garden furniture and the grills were in this neighborhood.

Then something happened. Kent came out of the door of Karlsen’s house. I saw just his head above the parked car, the coruscating white hair gliding along like a puppet in a puppet show. He was gone for a few seconds, then he reappeared on his bike. He stood up on the pedals, jerking them backward to brake, shot out onto the road, and built up a pretty good speed before braking hard and swerving and coming to a halt in front of Gustavsen’s house. He had lost his father, who had been a sailor, two years ago. I could barely remember him; in fact, I had only one image of him, once when we were walking down the hill, it was sunny and cold, but there was no snow, I was holding my small orange skates with three blades and straps to attach them to your shoes, so we must have been on our way to Lake Tjenna. I could also remember when I found out that he had died. Leif Tore had been standing by the line of concrete barriers that separated Nordåsen Ringvei from Elgstien, just outside our house, and had said that Kent Arne’s father was dead. While he was telling me we looked up at their house. He had been trying to pull someone out of a tank that was being cleaned, it had been full of gas and they had fainted, and then he, too, had lost consciousness and died. We never talked about Kent Arne’s father when he was there, or about death. Another man had just moved in, whose name, strangely enough, was also Karlsen.

If Dag Lothar was number one, then Kent Arne was number two, even though he was a year younger than us and two years younger than Dag Lothar. Leif Tore was number three, Geir Håkon number four, Trond number five, Geir number six, and I was number seven.

“Leif Tore, are you coming out?!” Kent Arne shouted in front of the house. Soon after he emerged, wearing only blue denim shorts and sneakers, got on Rolf’s bike, and they cycled down the hill and were gone. Prestbakmo’s cat lay motionless on the flat rock between Gustavsen’s and Hansen’s properties.

I lay back on the bed. Read some comics, got up, and flattened my ear against the door to hear if anything was happening in the living room, but not a sound, they were still outside. My grandparents were visiting, so it was unthinkable that I wouldn’t be given any supper. Or was it?

Half an hour later they came upstairs. One of them went into the bathroom, which was adjacent to my room. It wasn’t Dad, I could tell that from the footsteps, which were lighter than his. But I couldn’t tell whether it was Mom, Grandma, or Grandad, until the flushing of the toilet was followed by a loud banging from the hot-water pipes, which only Grandma or Grandad could have caused.

Now I was seriously hungry.

The shadows that descended over the ground outside were so long and distorted that they no longer bore any resemblance to the forms that created them. As though they had sprung forth in their own right, as though there existed a parallel reality of darkness, with dark-fences, dark-trees, dark-houses, populated by dark-people, somehow stranded here in the light, where they seemed so misshapen and helpless, as far from their element as a reef with seaweed and shells and crabs is from the receding water, one might imagine. Oh, isn’t that why shadows get longer and longer in the evening? They are reaching out for the night, this tidal water of darkness that washes over the earth to fulfill for a few hours the shadows’ innermost yearnings.

I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes past nine. In twenty minutes it would be bedtime.

In the afternoon, the worst part of being grounded was that you couldn’t go out and you stood at the window watching everyone else outside. In the evening, the worst part was that there was no clear dividing line between the various phases that usually constituted an evening. After sitting up for some hours I simply pulled off my clothes and got into bed. The difference between the two states, which was normally so great, was almost completely eradicated when you were grounded, and that led to my becoming aware of myself in a way that I normally didn’t. It was as if the person I was while doing whatever I was doing, such as eating supper, brushing my teeth, washing my face, or putting on my pajamas, not only revealed itself but also filled my whole being, as if all of a sudden there was simply nothing else. I was exactly the same person when I was sitting on the bed fully dressed as I was lying in it without my clothes on. In fact, there were no real dividing lines or transitions.

It was an irksome feeling.

I went to the door and placed my ear against it again. At first it was quiet, then I heard some voices, then it was quiet again. I cried a few tears, then I took off my T-shirt and shorts and got into bed with the duvet drawn up to my chin. The sun still shone on the wall opposite. I read some comics, then I put them on the floor, and closed my eyes. My last thought before I fell asleep was that it hadn’t been my fault.

I woke up, looked at my wristwatch. The two luminous snakes showed it was ten minutes past two. I lay quite still for a while in an attempt to work out what had woken me. Apart from my pulse, which throbbed as if whispering in my ear, everything was silent. No cars on the road, no boats in Tromøya Sound, no planes flying overhead. No footsteps, no voices, nothing. Nor from our house.