Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

When I came to Stockholm she was the only person I knew apart from Geir. I had her number, and the second day I was there I rang her from Geir and Christina’s flat. What had happened at Biskops-Arnö was dead and buried, there were no longer any feelings for her in me, but I needed contacts in town, she was a writer, she was bound to know many more, perhaps also someone with a place to live.

No one answered. I put the phone down and turned to Geir, who was pretending he hadn’t been following.

‘No one at home,’ I said.

‘Try again later then,’ he said.

I did. But no one ever answered.

With Christina’s help I put an advertisement in the Stockholm newspapers. Norwegian author seeks flat/place to write, it said, we had spoken for ages before arriving at this, they thought there were lots of culture vultures that would jump at the word ‘author’, and ‘Norwegian’ was synonymous with easy-going and harmless. They must have had a point because I was inundated with calls. Most of the flats I was offered were in the satellite towns outside Stockholm. I turned them down, there didn’t seem to be much point being stuck in a tower block somewhere in a forest, and while I waited for a better offer I moved into the Norstedts flat, then into the very feminine flat. After a week there an offer turned up: someone wanted to rent a flat in Söder, and I went there, waited outside the door, two women so similar they had to be twins, around fifty years old, stepped out of a car, I greeted them, they said they were from Poland and wanted to rent out the flat for at least a year, sounds very interesting, I said, come on up, they said, we can sign the contract straight away if you like it.

The flat was absolutely fine, one and a half rooms, around thirty square metres, kitchen and bathroom, acceptable standard, perfect location. I signed. But something nagged, something was wrong, I couldn’t work out what, walked slowly downstairs, stopped by the board with the list of the block’s occupants. First of all, I read the address, Brännkyrkgatan 92, there was something familiar about it, I had seen it somewhere, but where? Where? I wondered, scanning the list of names.

Oh, bugger it.

Linda Boström , it said.

A chill ran down my spine.

That was her address! Of course. I had written to her asking for a contribution for Vagant , and I had sent it to bloody Brännkyrkgatan 92.

What were the odds of that happening?

One and a half million people lived in this city. I knew one of them. I put an advertisement in the paper, get an interesting response from two complete strangers, Polish twins, and it turns out the flat is in the same block !

I sauntered down to the Metro station, squirmed nervously in my seat all the way home to my girly flat. What would Linda think if I moved into the floor above? That I was stalking her?

It was no good. I couldn’t. Not after the terrible business at Biskops-Arnö.

The first thing I did when I came in the door was to ring the Poles and say I had changed my mind, I didn’t want the flat after all, a better offer had come up, I was really sorry, I really was.

‘That’s fine,’ she said.

Back to square one.

‘Are you crazy?’ Geir said when I told him. ‘You’ve turned down a flat in the middle of Söder which, on top of everything else, was cheap, because you think someone you don’t really know might feel she was being stalked? Do you realise how many years I’ve spent trying to get my hands on a flat in the centre? Do you know how difficult it is? It’s impossible . Then you come along with a four-leaved clover up your arse and get one, then another, and then you say no!’

‘That’s how it is now anyway,’ I said. ‘Is it OK if I drop by occasionally? You feel a bit like my family. And if I come out here for Sunday lunch with you?’

‘Apart from the fact that it’s Monday, I have the same feeling. But I find it hard to make the father — son relationship fit. So it would have to be Caesar and Brutus.’

‘Which of us is Caesar?’

‘Don’t ask such a silly question. Sooner or later you’ll stab me in the back. But just come. We can continue talking out here.’

We ate, I went onto the tiny balcony to smoke and drink coffee, Geir joined me, we discussed the relativist attitude we both had to the world, how the world changed when culture changed, yet everything was always such that you couldn’t see what was outside, and therefore it didn’t exist, whether this view came from the fact that we had gone to university precisely when post-structuralism and postmodernism were at their zenith and everyone was reading Foucault and Derrida, or whether it actually was like that, and whether in that case it was the fixed, unchanging and non-relativist point we were denying. Geir told me about an acquaintance of his who wouldn’t talk to him any more after a discussion they’d had about the real and the absolute. I thought it a strange point to invest so much in, but said nothing. For me society is everything, Geir said. Humanity. I’m not interested in anything beyond that. But I am, I said. Oh yes? Geir queried. What then? Trees, I answered. He laughed. Patterns in plants. Patterns in crystals. Patterns in stones. In rock formations. And in galaxies. Are you talking about fractals? Yes, for example. But everything that binds the living and the dead, all the dominant forms that exist. Clouds! Sand dunes! That interests me. Oh God, how boring, Geir said. No, it isn’t, I said. Yes, it is, he said. Shall we go in? I said.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and asked Geir if I could use the phone.

‘Of course,’ he answered. ‘Who are you phoning?’

‘Linda. You know, the…’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. The woman whose flat you turned down.’

I keyed in the number, probably for the fifteenth time. To my surprise she picked up.

‘Linda here,’ she said.

‘Oh hi, this is Karl Ove Knausgaard speaking,’ I said.

‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Is it really you?’

‘Yes. I’m in Stockholm.’

‘Are you? On holiday?’

‘We-ell, I’m not quite sure. I was thinking of living here for a bit.’

‘Are you? Cool!’

‘Yes. I’ve already been here a few weeks. I tried to call you, but didn’t get an answer.’

‘No, I’ve been away, in Visby.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I was writing.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘Yes, it was great. I didn’t get a lot done, but…’

‘Right,’ I said.

There was a pause.

‘Linda, I was wondering… if you fancied a cup of coffee one day?’

‘Very much. I’m here for the foreseeable.’

‘Tomorrow perhaps? Have you got time?’

‘Yes, think so. In the morning anyway.’

‘Perfect.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘By Nytorget.’

‘Oh great! Could we meet there then? Do you know where the pizza place is, on the corner? There’s a café opposite. There?’

‘OK. What time suits you best? Eleven? Twelve?’

‘Twelve’s fine.’

‘Brilliant. See you then.’

‘Yes. Bye.’

‘Bye.’

I rang off and went in to Geir, who was sitting on the sofa with a cup in his hand and looking at me.

‘So?’ he said. ‘Finally got a bite?’

‘Yes. I’m meeting her tomorrow.’

‘Good! I’ll drop by in the evening and you can tell me all about it.’

I went there an hour before I was supposed to meet her, carrying a manuscript I was doing a report on, the new novel by Kristine Næss, and sat working. Tiny quivers of anticipation ran through me whenever I thought about her. Not that I had any intentions, I had written them off once and for all, it was more the unknown, how things would turn out.