Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

The waitress came and cleared the table. We ordered two more beers. Sat for a while without saying anything. I smoked a cigarette and manoeuvred the soft ash into a little pile in the shiny ashtray with the tip.

‘I’m paying today, just so that you know,’ I said.

‘OK,’ Geir said.

If I didn’t say straight out I was seeing to the bill he would, and when he had made up his mind it was impossible to change it. Once we had been out, all four of us, Geir and Christina and Linda and me, to a Thai restaurant at the end of Birger Jarlsgatan, and he had said he was going to pay, and I had said no, we should at least share, no, he said, I’m paying and that’s that. After the waiter had taken his card I had pulled out half the sum in cash and put it on the table in front of him. He made no move to take it, in fact, it didn’t seem as if he had even seen it. The coffee came, we drank it and as we got up to go, ten minutes later, he still hadn’t touched the money. Hey, take the money, I said, we’re sharing this one. Come on now. No, I’m paying, he repeated. It’s your money. You take it. So I had no choice but to pick up the money and stuff it back into my pocket. If I hadn’t it would have been left there, I knew. Then he smiled his most obnoxious I-knew-you-would smile. And I regretted not having paid. No sacrifice was too great for Geir when it was about not losing face. But from Christina’s face, which was so incredibly sensitive and betrayed all her thoughts, she appeared to be ashamed of him. Or at least found the situation embarrassing. I had never entered into open conflict with him. Wisely, perhaps, for there was something in him I would never defeat. If we had a competition to outstare each other, the way you do when you’re young, he would have held my stare for a week if need be. I would have held his as well, but sooner or later I would have thought this was unnecessary and looked down. He would never entertain such an idea.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘How has your day been?

‘I’ve been writing about the Grenzsituation , the border situation. To be precise, about Stockholm in the eighteenth century. How high the mortality rate was, how short their lives were and what they did with the lives they had, compared with ours. Then Cecilia came into the office wanting to chat. We went for lunch together. She had been out last night with her partner and his friend. She had flirted with the friend all evening, she said, and her partner had been livid when they got home, of course.’

‘How long have they been together?’

‘Six years.’

‘Was she thinking of leaving him?’

‘No, not at all. On the contrary, she wants children with him.’

‘So why the flirting?’ I asked.

Geir looked at me.

‘She wants to have her cake and eat it, obviously.’

‘What did you say to her? I assume she went to you for advice?’

‘I said she should deny it. Deny everything. She hadn’t been flirting, she’d just been friendly. Say no, no, no. And then don’t be so bloody stupid next time, wait for an opportunity to offer itself and go about it calmly and collectedly. I don’t blame her for doing what she did. I blame her for being inconsiderate. She hurt him. That was uncalled for.’

‘She must have known you would say that. Otherwise she wouldn’t have gone to you.’

‘I agree. Had she gone to you, on the other hand, it would have been to get advice about admitting everything, going down on her knees and begging for forgiveness and then sticking to her lawful husband from then on.’

‘Yes, either that or leaving him.’

‘The worst is that you mean it.’

‘Of course I mean it,’ I said. ‘The year after I was unfaithful to Tonje and didn’t say anything was the worst year I’ve ever experienced. It was blackest night. One long, endless bloody night. I thought about it all the time. Jumped out of the chair in alarm whenever the phone rang. And if the word infidelity was mentioned on TV I blushed from head to toe. I was on fire inside. When we hired films I studiously avoided anything connected with it because I knew that sooner or later she would notice me squirming like a grub whenever the topic came up. And the fact that I had been guilty destroyed everything else in my life, I couldn’t say anything with heartfelt sincerity, it was all lies and pretence. It was a nightmare.’

‘Would you own up now?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the events on Gotland?’

‘That wasn’t infidelity.’

‘But it still torments you?’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Cecilia wasn’t unfaithful. Why should she tell her partner what she was thinking of doing?’

‘That’s not what this is about. It’s about intent. As long as it’s there you have to take the consequences.’

‘What about your intentions on Gotland?’

‘I was drunk. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d been sober.’

‘But you would have thought it?’

‘Maybe. It’s a huge leap, though.’

‘Tony’s a Catholic, as you know. His priest said once, and I took note, sinning is putting yourself in a position where a sin becomes possible. Getting drunk, when you know what’s on your mind and what pressure there is inside you, is putting yourself in such a position.’

‘Yes, but I thought I was absolutely safe before I started drinking.’

‘Ha ha ha!’

‘It’s true.’

‘Karl Ove. What you did was nothing. A bagatelle. And everyone understands that. Everyone. What did you do actually? Knock on a door?’

‘For half an hour, yes. In the middle of the night.’

‘But she didn’t let you in?’

‘No, no. She opened the door and gave me a bottle of water, and closed it again.’

‘Ha ha ha! And for that you sat shaking, white-faced, when I met you. You looked as though you’d killed someone.’

‘It felt like it.’

‘But actually it was nothing, was it?’

‘Possibly. But I can’t forgive myself. And that’s the way it will be until my dying day. I have a long list of things I’ve done when I didn’t behave well. And that’s what it’s about. For Christ’s sake, you shouldn’t cheat. And one would have thought it was an easy ideal to uphold. For some it is. I know some people, not many, but some who always do the right thing. Who are always good, decent people. I’m not talking about those who don’t do anything wrong because they don’t do anything, because the lives they lead are so trivial that nothing can be destroyed, for they exist as well. I’m talking about those people who are fair to the last fibre of their being, and those who always know the best way to act in every situation. Those who don’t put themselves first, who don’t betray their principles. You’ve met them as well. People good through to the core, right? And they wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Precisely because it’s not something they have given any thought to, they don’t think like that, that they should be good; they just are , and are unaware of it. They take care of their friends, they’re considerate to their partners, they’re good parents, but not in a feminine way, always do a good job, they want whatever is good and do whatever is good. Whole people. Jon Olav, for example, you know, my cousin.’

‘Yes, I’ve met him.’

‘He’s always been an idealist, but not in order to achieve anything for himself. He’s always stood up for everyone who’s needed him. And he’s not in the slightest bit corrupt. The same applies to Hans. His integrity — yes, that’s the word I was after. Integrity. If you have integrity you do the right thing. I have so little integrity, there’s always something… well, not sick exactly, but something base, fawning, creeping, it oozes out of me. If I get into a situation that requires prudence, where everyone knows prudence is required, I can just steam in, right, and why? Because I only think about myself, only see myself, ooze out of myself. I can be good to others, but then I need to have it formulated in advance. It’s not in my blood. It’s not in my nature.’