Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Three

My eyes were almost blind with tears.

John threw it back to Sverre.

He held it up in the air and gazed at it.

“Look! What nice flowers!” he said. “Oh, how pretty they are!”

“Give it to him,” someone said. “He’s crying.”

“Oh, the poor baby. Do you want this lovely cap back?” he said and threw it to where I had been sitting. I walked back, put it in my bag, took my towel, and went in for a shower, stood under the hot jet for a brief moment, dried, dressed, and was the first to leave the changing room, found my boots among all the others in the front hall, put them on, opened the glass door, and stepped out into the playground, where the large, shallow puddles, visible only because they were a little shinier than the surrounding tarmac, were lashed by rain. There wasn’t a soul around. I walked toward the school building, which was almost identical to ours, and saw the green Beetle parked exactly where Mom had dropped us just over an hour ago.

I opened the door and got into the back.

“Hi,” Mom said, turning to me. Her face was illuminated by the gleam of a lamp hanging over the edge of the school like a vulture.

“Hi,” I said.

“Did it all go well?”

“Fine.”

“Where are Geir and Leif Tore?”

“They’re coming.”

“Can you swim now?”

“Nearly,” I said. “But we swam mostly on land.”

“On land?”

“Yes, on some mats. To learn the strokes.”

“Oh, I see,” Mom said, turning back. The smoke from the cigarette she held in her hand hung under the sloping windshield, thick and gray. She took another drag, then pulled out the little metal ashtray and stubbed out the cigarette. From the swimming pool door swarmed a mass of kids. A car headlight swept across the tarmac, then another. The two cars drove almost right up to the entrance.

“Perhaps I’d better tell them you’re here,” I said, opening the door.

“Geir! Leif Tore!” I shouted. “Car’s over here!”

They both looked at me, but they didn’t come, they stayed with the kids collecting around the entrance.

“Geir! Leif Tore!” I shouted. “Come on!”

And then they came. Said something to the others first, then they set off, side by side, at a jog across the playground. White plastic bags hanging from their hands, the only things about them that reflected any light and they resembled heads.

“Hello, Fru Knausgård,” they said, getting onto the back seat.

“Hello,” Mom said. “Was it good?”

“Not bad,” they said. They looked at me.

“Yes, it was fun,” I said. “But the teacher was strict.”

“Was he?” Mom said, starting the car.

“It was a she,” I said.

“Oh,” Mom said.

When, four days later, I was walking up through the forest with Geir, Leif Tore, and Trond, after the brief and unsuccessful hunt for treasure at the end of the rainbow, the fantasy of being able to swim among the trees there made me pause to wonder whether I would ever be able to swim at all. Grandad couldn’t swim, and at one time he had even been a fisherman. I didn’t know if Grandma could, but I found it difficult to imagine her swimming.

Behind the swaying pine trees clouds scudded across the sky.

What was the time, I wondered.

“Do you have your watch on, Geir?” I said.

He shook his head.

“I do,” Trond said, thrusting his hand forward and up, making his sleeve glide back, so that his watch was visible.

“Twenty-five past one, no, past two,” he said.

“Twenty-five past two?” I said.

He nodded and my stomach churned. On Saturdays we had rice pudding at one.

Oh no, oh no.

I broke into a run, as if that would help.

“Got a rocket up your ass, or what?” said Leif Tore behind me. I craned my head.

“Lunch was supposed to be at one,” I said. “I’d better go.”

Up the soft fir-needle-strewn incline, over the little algae-green stream, past the tall spruce and up the slope to the road. Both Mom’s and Dad’s cars were there. But not Yngve’s bike. Had he been home, eaten, and cycled off again? Or he was he late as well?

The thought, unlikely though it was, kept a little hope burning within me.

Across the road, into the drive. Dad might be behind the house, might come round the corner at any second. Might be waiting for me in the hall, might be in his study, and tear the door open when he heard me. Might be standing at the kitchen window waiting for me to appear.

I closed the door gently behind me and stood still for a couple of seconds. Footsteps on the kitchen floor above me. Dad’s. I took off my boots, placed them by the wall, unbuttoned my waterproof jacket, pulled down my waterproof trousers, took them into the boiler room, and hung them on the line there. Stopped and glanced at myself in the mirror above the chest of drawers. My cheeks were red, my hair was a mess, there was some shiny snot under my nose. My teeth stuck out as always. Buckteeth, as people called them. I went upstairs and into the kitchen. Mom was doing the dishes; Dad was sitting at the table eating crab claws. Both looked at me. The pot of rice was on the stove, the orange plastic ladle protruding.

“I lost track of time,” I said. “Sorry. We were having a lot of fun.”

“Sit down,” Dad said. “You must be hungry, I imagine.”

Mom took a dish from the cupboard, filled it with rice pudding, and put a bowl of sugar, a packet of margarine, and a cinnamon shaker, which hadn’t been put away with the other spices, beside it.

“What have you been up to?” she said. “Oh, you need a spoon as well.”

“This and that,” I said.

“You and …?” Dad said, without looking at me. He folded the small white bits that stuck out from the end of the hairy orange claw to the side and put the claw to his mouth. Sucked at it with a short slurp. I could hear the meat being released and sliding into his mouth.

“Geir, Leif Tore, and Trond,” I said. He broke the empty claw at the joint and began to suck on the next. I put a knob of margarine on the rice, even though it wasn’t warm enough to melt, and sprinkled some cinnamon and sugar on it.

“I’ve cleaned the roof gutters,” he said. “You should have been here.”

“Oh, yes,” I said.

“But now I’m going to chop a bit of wood. As soon as you’ve eaten up, you can join me.”

I nodded and tried to look happy, but he could read my thoughts. “We’ll be finished in time for the match,” he said. “Who’s playing today?”

“Stoke and Norwich,” I said.

“Noritsch,” he said, correcting my pronunciation.

“Nowitsch,” I said.

I liked Norwich, I liked their yellow-and-green uniforms. I liked Stoke, too, with their red-and-white-striped shirts. But best of all I liked the Wolverhampton Wanderers, who played in gold and black and whose mascot was a wolf’s head. Wolves, that was my team.

I would have preferred to lie down and read until the match started, but I couldn’t say no to Dad, and bearing in mind what could have happened I had to count myself lucky.

The rice was so cold that I ate it in a couple of minutes.

“Are you full?” Dad said.

I nodded.

“Let’s go then,” he said.

He scooped the empty crab shells into the trash can, put the plates on the counter, and went out, with me hard on his heels. From Yngve’s room came the sound of music. I looked at the door, nonplussed. How could that be? His bike wasn’t there.

“Come on,” Dad said, already on the landing. I followed him. On with my jacket and boots, out onto the gravel, wait for him. He came a few minutes later with an ax in his hand and a playful glint in his eye. Follow him over the flagstones, then across the waterlogged lawn. We weren’t allowed to walk on the grass, but when I was with him, such edicts could be lifted.