Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Three

“Concentrate, Karl Ove!” Øyvind shouted. “Training first, girls later!”

After the session I dipped my head in the bucket of water on the touchline and tried to act as normal. But it wasn’t easy; the knowledge that she was up there, and not just her, but also her friends, looking at me, was burned into my consciousness.

Then she came down.

“Are you going to get changed?” she said.

I nodded.

“I’ll come with you. I’ve got something to tell you afterward.”

Tell me? Was she going to finish it?

I started walking. She stretched out her hand. It brushed against mine. Had it been by chance? Or could I hold it?

I looked at her.

She smiled at me.

I grabbed her hand in one swift movement.

Someone was whispering behind us. I turned. It was Lars and John. They were rolling their eyes. I smiled. She gently squeezed my hand.

The walk across the field had never been as long as it was this evening. Holding her hand was almost more than I could bear; all the time I felt an urge to withdraw my hand to bring this unbearable happiness to an end.

“Hurry up,” she said when we were there.

“OK,” I said.

On the bench I leaned back against the wall. My heart was pounding and pounding. Then I pulled myself together, threw on my clothes, and left. Kajsa’s friends were standing on the road beneath the field with their bikes. I went over and stood beside Kajsa. She looked happy. She stroked a strand of hair from her face with her small hand. Her nails were painted in a semitransparent pink varnish. Her friends got on their bikes as if at a signal and cycled off.

“This Saturday I’ll be at home without my parents,” she said. “I’ve told Mom that Sunnva’s coming. So she’s going to make a pizza and buy Coke for us. But Sunnva isn’t coming. Would you like to come?”

I swallowed.

“Sure,” I said.

Some of the other boys on the team cheered us from the shed. Kajsa stood with one hand on the handlebars and the other down by her side.

“Shall we go?” I said.

“Let’s,” she said.

“Down?” I said.

She nodded and we got on our bikes. We pedaled along the shaded gravel road, me in front, Kajsa right behind. At the crest of the long hill I braked so that we could race down side by side. The sun lit up the ridge on the other side. The insects swarming in the air were like glitter someone had scattered. Halfway down, there was an old forest track to the right and it suddenly struck me that it might lead to a suitable place, so with the wind streaming through our hair I shouted to Kajsa that we would go up there, she nodded, we turned off and must have gone ten meters before our bikes slowed down and we dismounted. She said nothing, I said nothing, we walked up the grassy track strewn with bark and bits of tree. Reaching the top and looking into the forest I could see it wasn’t suitable. The ground was covered with tree stumps and where they stopped, the spruces were so close together it was like a wall.

“No,” I said. “That’s no good. Let’s go on.”

Kajsa still said nothing, just got on her bike as well and coasted down, standing on the pedals and braking harder than me.

No, the path above the Fina station was the place to be.

The thought sent a wave of terror through me. It was like having climbed up a rock too high and looking down at the water, knowing you either had to conquer your fear and dive or chicken out.

Did she know what was going to happen?

I sneaked a glance at her.

Oh, the ripple of her breasts.

Oh, oh, oh.

But her face was serious. What did that mean?

We jumped off our bikes and walked up the hill to the main road, beneath the deep shadows from the trees whose tops stretched far above us. We hadn’t said a word since we were in Kjenna. If I said something now it had to be important, it couldn’t be some triviality.

Her trousers were cotton, a pastel green color and secured around the waist by a rope belt. They hung loose over her thighs but were tighter around the groin and across the bottom. On her chest, she was wearing a T-shirt with a thin cardigan over it, which was white with a hint of yellow. Her sandaled feet were bare. Her toenails were painted with the same polish as her fingers. She had a chain around one ankle.

She looked fantastic.

When we came to the main road and only a long hill down and a long hill up separated us from what was to happen, what I most wanted to do was cycle off and leave her. Just step on the pedals and cycle out of her life. And then why stop at that? I could cycle from our house. Tybakken, Tromøya, Aust-Agder, Norway, Europe, I could leave everything behind me. I would be called the Cycling Dutchman. Damned forever to cycle around the world, with a ghostly light from the lamp on the handlebars illuminating the country roads.

“Where are we going actually?” she said as we sped down the hill.

“I know somewhere nice,” I said. “It’s not far.”

She didn’t say anything. We cycled past the Fina station, I pointed up the hill between the trees, again she jumped off as soon as the road became steeper. A thin layer of sweat glistened on her forehead. We walked past the old, white house and the old, red barn. The sky was clear and blue. The sun hung over the ridges to the west, a silent blaze. Its light gave the leaves on the trees in front of us an intense glow. The air was filled with bird song. I was close to throwing up. We entered the path. Light filtered down between the treetops, as I had imagined it. It was refracted in a similar way to the way it was refracted under water. Pillars of light sloped into the ground.

I stopped.

“We can put our bikes here,” I said.

We did. Both of us kicked out the stands and stood our bikes upright. I started walking. She followed. I looked for a suitable place to lie down. Grass or moss. Our footsteps sounded unnaturally loud. I didn’t dare look at her. But she was right behind me. There. There was a good spot.

“We can lie down here,” I said. Without looking at her I sat down. After some hesitation she sat down next to me. I put my hand in my pocket and located my watch. I took it out and held it in my open palm in front of her.

“Shall we time how long we can kiss?” I said.

“What!” she said.

“I’ve got a watch,” I said. “Tor managed ten minutes. We can beat that.”

I put the watch down on the ground, it was eighteen minutes to eight, I noted, placed my hands on her shoulders and gently leaned her back while pressing my lips against hers. When we were both lying down I inserted my tongue in her mouth, it met hers, pointed and soft like a little animal, and I began to move my tongue round and round inside. I had my hands alongside my body, I wasn’t touching her with anything except my lips and my tongue. Our bodies lay like two small boats laid up on land beneath the treetops. I concentrated on getting my tongue to go round as smoothly as possible while the thought of her breasts, which were so close to me, and her thighs, which were so close to me, and what was between her thighs, under her trousers, under her panties, was seared into my consciousness. But I didn’t dare touch her. She lay with her eyes closed rotating her tongue around mine, I had my eyes open, groped for the watch, found it, and held it within reach. Three minutes so far. Some saliva ran down from the corner of her mouth. She wriggled. I pressed my groin against the ground letting my tongue go round and round, round and round. This wasn’t as good as I had imagined, in fact, it was quite strenuous. Some dry leaves crunched beneath her head as she shifted position. Our mouths were full of thick saliva. Seven minutes now. Four left. Mmm, she said, but this was not a sound of pleasure, there was something wrong, she stirred, but I didn’t let go, she moved her head while I continued to rotate my tongue. She opened her eyes, but didn’t look at me, they were staring up at the sky above us. Nine minutes. The root of my tongue ached. More saliva from the corners of our mouths. My braces occasionally knocked against her teeth. Actually we didn’t need to continue for more than ten minutes and one second to beat Tor’s record. And that was now. We had beaten him now. But we could beat him by a large margin. Fifteen minutes, that ought to be possible. Five left then. But my tongue ached, it seemed to be swelling, and the saliva, which you didn’t notice much when it was hot, left you with a slight feeling of revulsion when it ran down your chin, not quite so hot. Twelve minutes. Isn’t that enough? Enough now? No, a bit more. A bit more, a bit more.