Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Three

When I turned off the light, after reading the last page, it was nearly twelve o’clock and my eyes were full of tears.

He was the shadow!

At least once, often twice, a week during that autumn and winter I was on my own in the house. Dad was at meetings, Yngve was at rehearsals with the school band or training with the volleyball or soccer teams, or at his friends’ houses. I liked being at home on my own, it was a wonderful feeling not to have someone telling me what to do, yet I didn’t like it that much either because the nights were drawing in and the reflection from the windows, of my figure wandering around, was extremely unpleasant to see, it smacked of death and the dead.

I knew this was not how it was, but what good did this knowledge do?

It was especially spooky when I was engrossed in what I was reading because it was as if I wasn’t attached anywhere when I lifted my head from my page and got up. All alone, that was the feeling I had, I was absolutely alone, isolated by the darkness that rose like a wall outside.

Oh, I could always run the bath if I had enough time before Dad returned, he didn’t like me having a bath at all hours, once a week he felt was enough and he kept a beady eye on this, like everything else I did. But if I took a liberty now and ran the bath, got in, switched on my cassette recorder, and let the hot water wash over my body, I could see myself from the outside, my mouth agape, as it were, as though my head were a skull. I sang, the voice rebounded, I submerged my head and was terrified: I couldn’t see anything! Someone could sneak up on me! Was anyone there? The two, three, four seconds I had been underwater represented a hole in time, and someone might have snuck in through that hole. Perhaps not into the bathroom, no, there was no one there, but they could have snuck into the house.

The best I could do in this situation was to switch off the kitchen light, or my bedroom light, and look out because outside, when there was no reflection from the windows, there were the other houses, there were the other families, and sometimes the other children, too. Nothing made you feel more secure than that.

On one such evening I was kneeling on a kitchen stool in the darkness and staring out, it was snowing and a gale was blowing. The wind was howling across the landscape, rushing down the chimney, and the roof gutters were rattling. It was pitch black outside, under the yellow glow from the street lamps, there wasn’t a soul, only gusting snow.

A car drove up. It turned into Nordåsen Ringvei, coming toward our house. Was it coming here?

It was. It came into our drive and parked.

Who could it be?

I ran out of the kitchen, down the stairs, and onto the porch.

There I stopped.

Surely no one was coming to visit us?

Who could it be?

I was frightened.

Went to the door and pressed my nose against the wavy glass. I didn’t need to open the door; I could stand there and see if I recognized the late-night visitor.

The car door opened and a figure fell out!

The figure was moving on all fours !

Oh no! Oh no!

Swaying from side to side like a bear, it came toward me. It stopped by the bell and rose onto two legs!

I backed away.

What sort of creature was this?

Ding dong, the bell went.

The figure dropped to all fours again.

The abominable snowman? Lightfoot?

But here? In Tybakken?

The figure raised itself again, rang the bell, and fell back onto all fours.

My heart was pounding.

But then it hit me.

Oh, of course.

It was the local councilman, the one who was paralyzed.

It had to be.

The abominable snowman didn’t drive a car.

I opened the door as the figure was starting to crawl away. It turned.

It was him.

“Hello,” he said. “Is your father at home?”

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “He’s at a meeting.”

The man, who had a beard and glasses and a bit of saliva at the corners of his mouth, and who often drove around with young people in his custom-designed car, sighed.

“Say hello and tell him I was here,” he said.

“OK,” I said.

He dragged himself to the car using his arms, opened the door, and lifted himself up into the seat. I watched him through widened eyes. In the car, his slow, helpless movements were transformed, he revved the engine and reversed up the incline at speed, shot down the road, and was gone.

I closed the door and went to my room. No sooner was I lying on the bed than the door downstairs opened.

From the sounds I worked out that it was Yngve.

“Are you here?” he shouted up the stairs. I got up and went out.

“I’m so hungry,” he said. “Want to have supper now?”

“It’s only a little after eight,” I said.

“The earlier, the better,” he said. “And I can make some tea for us. I’m absolutely ravenous.”

“Call me when it’s ready,” I said.

A quarter of an hour later we were at the table eating bread, each with a big mug of tea in front of us.

“Was there a car here this evening?” Yngve said.

I nodded. “The paralyzed guy on the council.”

“What did he want?”

“How should I know?”

Yngve looked at me.

“Someone was talking about you today,” he said.

My blood ran cold.

“Oh?” I said.

“Yes, Ellen.”

“What did she say?”

“She said you had a funny walk.”

“She didn’t!”

“Yes, she did. But it’s true, isn’t it. You do have a funny walk. Haven’t you ever noticed?”

“I do NOT!” I shouted.

“Oh yes, you do,” Yngve said. “Little shrimp can’t even walk normally.”

He got up and walked across the kitchen floor, falling forward with every step. I watched him with tears in my eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with my walk,” I said.

“Ellen said it, not me,” he said, sitting down. “They talk about you, you know. You’re a little weird.”

“I AM NOT!” I shouted, throwing my bread at him as hard as I could. He moved his head to one side, and it hit the stove with a soft splat.

“Is Karlikins upset now?” he said.

I stood up with my mug in my hand. When Yngve saw that he got up, too. I hurled the hot tea at him. It hit him in the stomach.

“You’re so sweet when you’re angry, Karl Ove,” he said. “Poor little shrimp. Want me to teach you how to walk? I’m good at walking, you know.”

My eyes were filled with tears, but that wasn’t why I couldn’t see anything, it was because I was seething with anger inside and the red mist had descended.

I flew at him and punched him with all my strength in the stomach. He grabbed my arms and twisted me round, I tried to wriggle loose, he held me tight, I kicked out, he pulled me harder to him, I tried to bite him on the hand, and he pushed me away.

“Now, now,” he said.

I flew at him again, intent only on punching him in the face, smashing his nose, and if there had been a knife there I wouldn’t have hesitated to plunge it into his stomach, but he knew all that, it had happened many times before, so he did what he always did, held me tight and squeezed while calling me a little shrimp and saying I was so sweet when I was angry until I tried to bite him and he couldn’t keep my head at a distance and he pushed me away. This time I didn’t go for him again; instead I ran out of the kitchen. On the living-room table there was a fruit bowl from which I took an orange and I flung it at the floor with all my might. It split open and a thin jet of orange juice spurted up and sprayed the wallpaper.

Yngve stood in the doorway watching.

“What have you done?” he said.