Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

I spotted her as she jumped off her bike outside. She guided the front wheel into the stand and locked her bike, peered through the window, perhaps looking at herself, opened the door and came in. It was pretty full, but she saw me straight away and came over.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘I’ll just go and order,’ she said. ‘Anything you want?’

‘No, thanks,’ I answered.

She was rounder than she had been, that was the first thing I noticed. The boyish leanness was gone.

She placed a hand on the counter, craned her head in the direction of the waiter standing behind the hissing coffee machine. There was a hollow in the pit of my stomach.

I lit a cigarette.

She returned, put a cup of tea on the table and sat down.

‘Hi,’ she repeated.

‘Hi,’ I said.

Her eyes were greyish-green and could widen all of a sudden, I recalled, for no apparent reason.

She removed the tea strainer, lifted the cup to her lips and blew on the surface.

‘It’s been a long time,’ I said. ‘Is everything going well?’

She took a small sip of the tea and set the cup down on the table.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is. I’ve just been to Brazil with a girlfriend. And then I went to Visby straight afterwards. I’m still not really here yet.’

‘But you’re writing?’

She grimaced, looked down.

‘I’m trying. And you?’

‘Same here. I’m trying.’

She smiled.

‘Were you serious when you said you’re going to live in Stockholm?’

I shrugged.

‘For a while at any rate.’

‘Nice,’ she said. ‘We can meet then. I mean do something together.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know anyone else here?’

‘Just one person. His name’s Geir. Norwegian. Otherwise no one.’

‘You know Mirja a little, don’t you? From Biskops-Arnö, I mean.’

‘Oh, very little. How is she, by the way?’

‘Fine, I think.’

We didn’t say anything for a few moments.

There was so much we could not talk about. There were so many subjects we could not touch on. But now we were here we had to talk about something .

‘It was very good, the short story you had in Vagant ,’ I said. ‘It was very good, really.’

She smiled, eyes downcast.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘The language was so unbelievably explosive. Well, just very beautiful. Like a… ah, it’s difficult to talk about, but… it was hypnotic I think I was trying to say.’

She was still looking down.

‘Do you write short stories now?’

‘Yes, I suppose I do. Prose anyway.’

‘Hm, that’s good.’

‘And you?’

‘Well, nothing. I’ve been trying to write a novel for four years, but just before I left I binned the lot.’

Another silence. I lit another cigarette.

‘It’s nice to see you again,’ I said.

‘And you too,’ she said.

‘I was reading a manuscript before you came,’ I said, nodding towards the pile beside me on the sofa. ‘Kristine Næss. Do you know her?’

‘Yes, in fact, I do. I haven’t read anything by her, but she was at Biskops-Arnö with two male writers when I went there.’

‘Is that right?’ I said. ‘That’s odd. You see she writes about Biskops-Arnö. About a Norwegian girl who goes there.’

What the hell was I doing? What was I blathering about?

Linda smiled.

‘I don’t read much,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know if I’m a real writer.’

‘Of course you are!’

‘But I can remember the writers from Norway. I thought they were so incredibly ambitious, especially the two men. And they knew so much about literature.’

‘What were their names?’

She took a deep breath.

‘One was called Tore, I’m sure of that. They were from Vagant .’

‘Oh, that ’s who they were,’ I said. ‘Tore Renberg and Espen Stueland. I can remember they went there.’

‘Yes, that’s them.’

‘They’re two of my best friends.’

‘Are they?’

‘Yes, but they fight like cat and dog. You can’t have them in the same room any more.’

‘So you know them separately?’

‘Yes, you could put it like that.’

‘I was impressed by you as well,’ she said.

‘By me?’

‘Yes. Ingmar Lemhagen was talking about your book a long time before you came. And that was all he wanted to talk about when we were there.’

Another silence.

She got up and headed for the toilet.

It was hopeless, I thought. What idiotic things was I coming up with? But what else could you say?

What the hell did people talk about, actually?

The coffee machine hissed and sputtered. A long queue of people with impatient body language stood at the bar. It was grey outside. The grass in the park below was yellow and wet.

She returned and sat down.

‘What do you do during the day? Have you started to get to know the town?’

I shook my head.

‘Only a bit. No, I write. And then I swim in the pool at Medborgarplatsen every day.’

‘Do you? I swim there too. Not every day, but almost.’

We smiled at each other.

I took out my mobile and checked the time.

‘I’m afraid I’ll have to go soon,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘But we can meet again, can’t we?’

‘Yes, we can. When?’

She shrugged. ‘You can just ring me, can’t you?’

‘Yep.’

I put the manuscript and the mobile phone in my bag, and got up.

‘I’ll phone you then. Nice to see you again!’

‘ Hej då ,’ she said. Bye.

Bag in hand, I strode down the street, alongside the park and into the broad avenue where the flat was. Nothing had changed, we hadn’t changed anything; when we took our leave it was all as it was before we met.

But what had I been expecting?

We weren’t going anywhere after all.

I hadn’t asked about flats, either. Or contacts. Nothing.

I was fat as well.

After arriving home I lay back on the water bed and studied the ceiling. She had been completely different. She was almost like a different person.

At Biskops-Arnö perhaps the most striking feature of her personality had been her determination to go as far as she had to, which I had sensed at once and was deeply attracted by. It had disappeared. The hardness, bordering on ruthlessness, yet as fragile as glass, was gone too. There was still something fragile about her, but in a different way, this time I hadn’t thought that she could be crushed or go to pieces, as I had then. Now her fragility was joined by a softness, and her indifferent side, which said you’ll never get close to me, had changed. She was shy but somehow also open. Hadn’t there been something open about her?

The autumn after we had been to Biskops-Arnö she had got together with Arve, and through him I had heard what happened to her in the winter and spring. She had gone through a manic-depressive phase, was eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital, that was all I knew. During the manic periods she had rung me twice to ask if I could get hold of Arve. I did both times, asked his friends to tell him to call me, and when he did I could hear he was disappointed it was actually Linda trying to contact him. And once she rang just to talk to me, it was six o’clock in the morning, she told me she was about to begin a creative writing course, and was leaving for Gothenburg in an hour. Tonje was awake in the bedroom, wondering who would ring at this crazy hour, I said, Linda, you know, the Swede I met, who’s with Arne. Why would she ring you? Tonje asked, no idea, I said, think she’s going through a manic-depressive phase.

We couldn’t talk about any of this.

And if we couldn’t talk about this, we couldn’t talk about anything.