Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Three

That was how little kids who didn’t know any better held them.

It hurt me to watch, but I couldn’t say anything. Instead I took my hands out and then threaded them through again so that, if he was paying attention, he could see how it was done.

But he wasn’t watching me; he was looking up at the little ridge of hills above the sand quarry.

“Let’s get going then!” he said.

Although I had never seen him ski before, I could never have dreamed in my wildest imagination that he couldn’t ski. But he couldn’t. He didn’t glide with the skis, he walked as he normally walked, without skis, taking short, plodding steps, which on top of everything else were unsteady, which meant that every so often he had to stop and poke his poles into the snow so as not to topple over.

I thought perhaps this was just the beginning and soon he would find his rhythm and glide as he should glide along the piste. But when we reached the ridge, where the sea was visible between the trees, gray with frothy white-flecked waves, and started to follow the ski tracks he was still walking in the same way.

Occasionally he would turn and smile at me.

I felt so sorry for him I could have shouted out aloud as I skied.

Poor Dad. Poor, poor Dad.

At the same time I was embarrassed, my own father couldn’t ski, and I stayed some distance behind him so that potential passers-by wouldn’t associate me with him. He was just someone out ahead, a tourist, I was on my own, this was where I came from, I knew how to ski.

The piste wound back into the forest, but if the view of the sea was gone its sounds lingered between the trees, rising and falling, and the aroma of salt water and rotten seaweed was everywhere, it blended with the forest’s other faintly wintry smells, of which the snow’s curious mixture of raw and gentle was perhaps the most obvious.

He stopped and hung on his ski poles. I came alongside him. A ship was moving on the horizon. The sky above us was light gray. A pale, grayish-yellow glow above the two lighthouses on Torungen revealed where the sun was.

He looked at me.

“Skis running well?” he said.

“Pretty well,” I said. “How about you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go on, shall we? It’ll soon be time to head home. We have to make dinner as well. So, away you go!”

“Don’t you want to go first?”

“No, you head off. I’ll follow.”

The new arrangement turned everything in my head upside down. If he was behind me he would see how I, someone who knew how to ski, skied and realize how clumsy his own style was. I saw every single pole plant through his eyes. They cut through my consciousness like knives. After very few meters I slowed down, I began to ski in a slower, more staccato style, not unlike his, just not as clumsy, so that he would understand what I was doing, and that was even worse. Beneath us, the white, frothy breakers washed lazily onto the pebble beach. On the rocks, in some places, the wind whirled snow into the air. A seagull floated past, its wings unmoving. We were approaching the car, and on the last little slope I had an idea, I changed the tempo, and went as fast as I could for a few meters, then pretended to lose balance and threw myself into the snow beside the piste. I got up as quickly as possible and was brushing my trousers down as he whistled past.

“It’s all about staying on your feet,” he said.

We drove home in silence, and I was relieved when we finally turned into our drive and the skiing trip was definitively over.

Standing in the hall and taking off our skiing gear, we didn’t say anything, either. But then, as he opened the door to the staircase, he turned to me.

“Come and keep me company while I’m cooking,” he said.

I nodded and followed him up.

In the living room he stopped and looked at the wall.

“What on earth …,” he said. “Have you noticed this before?”

I had forgotten all about the streak of orange juice. My surprise as I shook my head must have had a dash of authenticity about it because his attention wandered as he bent down and ran his finger over the thin line of orange. Even his imagination would hardly stretch far enough to guess it was caused by my flinging an orange at the floor just there, on the landing outside the kitchen.

He straightened up and walked into the kitchen, I sat down on the stool as usual, he took a packet of pollock from the fridge, placed it on the counter, fetched flour, salt, and pepper from the cupboard, sprinkled them on a plate, and began to turn the soft, slippery fillets in the mixture.

“Tomorrow after school we’ll go to Arendal and buy you a birthday present,” he said without looking at me.

“Shall I go with you? Isn’t it supposed to be a secret?” I said.

“Well, you know what you want, don’t you?” he said. “Soccer uniform, right?”

“Yes.”

“You can try it on and then we’ll know if it fits,” he said, pushing a knob of butter from the knife into the frying pan with his finger.

What I wanted was Liverpool colors. But when we went to the Intersport shop they didn’t have Liverpool uniforms on the stand.

“Can’t we ask one of the people working here? Perhaps they’ve got some in stock?”

“If it’s not hanging up, they haven’t got it,” Dad said. “Take one of the others.”

“But I support Liverpool.”

“Take Everton then,” he said. “It’s the same town.”

I looked at the Everton shirt. Blue with white shorts. Umbro.

I looked at Dad. He seemed impatient, his eyes were wandering.

I put on the shirt over my sweater and held the shorts in front of me.

“Well, it looks good,” I said.

“Let’s take it then,” Dad said, grabbing the shirt and shorts and going to pay. They wrapped them up while he counted the notes in his fat wallet, combed his hair back with his hand, and looked into the street outside, which was crowded with shoppers, now, three weeks before Christmas.

On my birthday I woke up very early. The parcel containing the soccer uniform was in my wardrobe. I couldn’t wait to try it on. Tore off the paper, took out the outfit, pressed it against my nose, was there any better smell than new clothes? I put on the glistening shorts, then the shirt, which was rougher, a bit uneven against your skin, and the white socks. Then I went into the bathroom to look at myself.

Turned from side to side.

It looked good.

It wasn’t Liverpool, but it looked good, and they were from the same city.

Suddenly Dad swung open the bathroom door.

“What are you up to, boy?” he said.

He eyed me.

“Have you opened your present?” he shouted. “On your own?”

He grabbed my arm and hauled me into my bedroom.

“Now you wrap it up again!” he said. “NOW!”

I cried and took off the uniform, tried to fold it as well as I could, placed it in the paper, and stuck it together with a bit of the tape that was still sticky.

Dad oversaw everything. As soon as I had finished, he snatched the parcel out of my hands and left.

“Actually I should have taken it from you,” he said. “But now I’ll keep it until we give you the rest of your presents. It is your birthday, after all.”

As I knew what I was getting and I had even tried the uniform on in the shop, I had been sure it was the day that was important and that on the day I could wear it. I hadn’t seen it as one of the presents I would be given when we ate the birthday cake in the afternoon. It was impossible to make him understand. But I was right, he wasn’t. The uniform was mine when all was said and done! On that day it became mine!

I lay in bed crying until the others got up. Mom was in high spirits and wished me a happy birthday when I went into the kitchen, she had baked fresh rolls the evening before, which she was warming up in the oven, and she was boiling some eggs, but I didn’t care, my hatred for Dad cast a cloud over everything.