Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Linda said. ‘This can’t be true.’

I could hardly hear what she was saying.

‘It’s not even eleven o’clock yet,’ I said. ‘And it’s Friday evening. So we won’t get anywhere.’

‘I don’t care,’ Linda said. ‘I’m going to ring. This is damn well not on.’

She had barely got up and left the room when the music stopped. We went back to bed. This time I was asleep when it started. At the same unbelievable volume. I looked at the clock. Half past eleven.

‘Will you ring?’ Linda asked. ‘I haven’t had a wink of sleep.’

But the same thing happened. After a few minutes she switched it off and there was silence below.

‘I’ll sleep in the living room,’ Linda said

That night she turned on the music full blast twice more. The last time she had the audacity to play it for a full half-hour before switching off. It was ridiculous but also unpleasant. She was out of her mind, and had apparently developed a hatred for us. Anything could happen, we felt. But more than a week passed before the next incident occurred. We were putting some potted plants on the windowsill in the stairwell outside our door, this was a communal area and strictly speaking not any concern of ours, but on the floor above they had done the same, and surely no one could object to the cold staircase being brightened up a bit? Two days later the plants were gone. That didn’t matter so much, but the pots had once belonged to my great-grandmother, some of the few items I had brought with me from the house in Kristiansand when my father’s mother died — they were from the early 1900s, and so it was quite irritating that they had gone. Or had someone stolen them? But who would steal flower pots? Or had someone removed them because they took exception to our initiative? We decided to put a notice on the board asking if anyone had seen them. That same evening the notice was adorned with expletives and accusations written in blue ink and bad Swedish. Were we accusing the residents of stealing? If so, we could move out this minute. Who the hell did we think we were? A few days later I was assembling a nappy-changing table we had bought at Ikea, a bit of hammering was required, but as it was only seven in the evening I didn’t think this would be a problem. But it was: after the first bangs with the hammer there was a wild pounding on the pipes below, it was our Russian neighbour’s way of protesting about what she clearly regarded as a violation of house rules. But I couldn’t let her stop me finishing, so I continued. A minute later the door below slammed and she was outside ours. I opened up. How could we complain about her when we made such a racket ourselves? I tried to explain to her the difference between playing loud music in the middle of the night and assembling a table at seven in the evening, but this fell on deaf ears. With the same wild eyes and indignant gestures she stuck to her guns. She had been asleep; we had woken her up. We thought we were better than her, but we were not…

From that day on she had a set strategy. Whenever a sound carried down to her, even if it was only me walking heavily across the floor, she banged on the pipes. The reverberation was penetrating, and since the sender was not visible, like a kind of bad conscience in the room. I hated it; it was as though I wasn’t allowed to have any peace anywhere, not even in my own home.

Then, in the days before Christmas, all went quiet downstairs. We bought a Christmas tree from a stall in Humlegården; it had been dark, the air was laden with snow, and the typical pre-Christmas chaos reigned in the streets, with people racing past, oblivious to one another and the world. We chose one, the overalls-clad salesman pulled a net over it for ease of transport, I paid and lugged it over my shoulder. Only then did it strike me it might have been a trifle on the large side. Half an hour later, after innumerable stops on the way, I dragged it into our flat. We laughed when we saw it upright in the living room. It was enormous. We had bought a gigantic Christmas tree. But perhaps that was not so stupid, as this was the last Christmas we would be celebrating on our own. On Christmas Eve we ate the Swedish festive fare Linda’s mother had brought us, unwrapped presents and watched Chaplin’s Circus because we had bought ourselves a box set of all his films. We worked our way through the lot over the Christmas period, went for long walks in the holiday-empty streets, waited and waited. We forgot about the Russian, the outside world didn’t exist for the whole of the Christmas weekend. We went to see Linda’s mother, stayed there a few days, and on our return we started to prepare for a New Year’s Eve dinner with Geir and Christina and Anders and Helena.

I cleaned the whole flat that morning, went shopping for dinner, ironed the big white tablecloth, inserted the extra leaf in the dining room table and laid it, polished the silverware and candlesticks, folded the serviettes and placed bowls of fruit on the table, such that by the time the guests arrived at seven the place was sparkling and glittering with bourgeois respectability. The first to arrive were Anders and Helena and their daughter. Helena and Linda had got to know each other when Helena took lessons with Linda’s mother, and even though Helena was seven years older than Linda they had become the best of friends. Anders had been with her for the last three years. She was an actress; he was… well, a kind of criminal.

Faces flushed with the cold, they stood in the stairwell smiling when I opened the door.

‘Hi there, old boy!’ Anders said. He was wearing a brown leather cap with ear flaps, a large blue Puffa jacket and smart black shoes. Elegant he was not, but in some bizarre way he still blended in with Helena, who with her white coat, black boots and white fur hat most definitely was.

Beside them sat their daughter in her buggy, examining me with a serious gaze.

‘Hi,’ I said, looking her in the eye.

Not a muscle moved in her face.

‘Come in!’ I said, retreating a few steps.

‘Can we bring the buggy in?’ Helena asked.

‘Of course,’ I answered. ‘Will it fit, do you think? Or should I open the second door?’

While Helena pushed the buggy forward and coaxed it into position between the door frames, Anders removed his outdoor clothing in the hall.

‘Where’s the señorita?’ he asked.

‘She’s having a lie-down,’ I said.

‘Everything OK?’

‘Yes, fine.’

‘Good!’ he said, rubbing his hands. ‘So bloody cold outside!’

Helena came through the door, her hands gripping the buggy handle tightly. She activated the brake and lifted her daughter out, took off her hat and unzipped the red romper suit while her daughter stood stock still on the floor. Underneath, the little girl wore a dark blue dress, white tights and white shoes.

Linda came in from the bedroom. Her face was beaming. First of all, she hugged Helena, they held the embrace for a long time and looked each other in the eye.

‘How pretty you look!’ Helena said. ‘How do you do it? I remember when I was in the ninth month…’

‘It’s just an old maternity dress,’ Linda said.

‘Yes, but all of you looks so nice!’

Linda smiled with pleasure, then leaned forward and gave Anders a hug.

‘What a spread!’ Helena exclaimed as she entered the living room. ‘Wow!’

I didn’t quite know what to do with myself so I went into the kitchen as if to check something or other while waiting for them to come down to earth. The next moment there was another ring at the door.

‘So?’ Geir said as I opened the door. ‘Have you finished cleaning the place up?’

‘Didn’t know you two were coming,’ I said. ‘Thought we said Monday, didn’t we? We’re having a New Year’s party here, so I’m afraid it’s not very convenient right now. But, well, perhaps we can squeeze you in…’