Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

I gave my opinions.

‘Do you mean that?’ she queried.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Stay where you are,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get my husband. He writes about literature. Very interested in Riley. Wait a moment. I’ll be back.’

I watched her push past people towards the kitchen. What did she say her name was? Hilda? No. Wilda? Shit. No, Gilda. Shouldn’t be impossible to remember.

Then she reappeared through the throng, this time with a man in tow. Oh, as soon as I saw him I knew the type. He had university written all over his face from a long distance.

‘Now you can say what you told me!’ Gilda said.

I did. But her passion was wasted on both him and me, so when the conversation tailed off, and it didn’t take long, I made my apologies and went to the kitchen to get some food, now that the queues were shorter. Geir stood chatting with someone by the window and Linda was with a small group by the bookshelves. I sat down on the sofa and began to gnaw at a chicken thigh when I met the eyes of a dark-haired woman, who took this as an invitation, because the very next moment she was standing in front of me.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

I swallowed and put the chicken down on the paper plate as I looked up at her. Tried to sit up straight on the deep soft sofa, unsuccessfully, I felt as though I was falling to one side. And my cheeks, they must have glistened with chicken fat.

‘Karl Ove,’ I said. ‘I’m from Norway. I’ve just moved here. A few weeks ago. And you?’

‘Melinda.’

‘And what do you do?’

‘I’m an actor.’

‘Oh yes!’ I said with what was left of the Bergman euphoria in my voice. ‘Are you in Romeo and Juliet then?’

She nodded.

‘Who do you play?’

‘Juliet.’

‘Ah!’

‘That’s Romeo over there,’ she said.

A good-looking muscular man came over to join her. He kissed her on the cheeks and looked at me.

Damn the bloody sofa. I felt like a dwarf from where I was sitting.

I nodded and smiled. He nodded back.

‘Have you had some food?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said, and then they were gone. I lifted the chicken back to my mouth. There was nothing for it but to drink.

The last thing I did before I left that evening was to look at a photo album belonging to an equine homeopath with a plunging neckline. The alcohol had not made me soar, as it was wont to do, into a mood where everything was great and there were no obstacles; it made me sink into a spiritual well, from which nothing I had inside could raise me. All that happened was that everything became foggier and more unclear. The day after, I was profoundly grateful I’d had the presence of mind to go home, and not sit there until everyone had gone in the hope that something interesting might happen of its own accord. I assumed Linda was a lost cause — we had hardly exchanged a word all evening, which for the most part I had spent slumped in the chair I had begun to consider as ‘mine’ — and the little I said, which could have been written on a postcard, no woman in the world would have found interesting. Nonetheless, I rang her the following evening, politeness demanded I thank her. And then, while I was standing with my mobile to my ear surveying Stockholm spread out beneath me, illuminated by the broad red light from the setting sun, a pregnant moment arose. I had said hi, thanked her, said it had been a nice party, she had thanked me, said she thought it had been nice too, and she added she hoped I’d had a trevlig time. I had, I said. And then there was a silence. She didn’t say anything; I didn’t say anything. Should I wrap up the conversation? That was my natural instinct. I had taught myself in such situations to say as little as possible. In that way I wouldn’t say anything foolish. Or should I go on? The seconds ticked. If I had said, yes, well, I just wanted to thank you and had rung off, that would have probably been that. Such a mess I’d made of everything the night before. But what the hell, what did I have to lose?

‘What are you doing?’ I asked after this long silence, by any criteria.

‘Watching ice hockey on TV,’ she said.

‘Ice hockey?’ I said. And then we chatted for a quarter of an hour. And decided we would meet again.

We did, but nothing happened, there was no excitement, or rather the excitement was so great it didn’t allow us to move, it was as if we were caught in it, all the things we wanted to say to each other, but couldn’t.

Polite phrases. Little openings, leading elsewhere, her everyday life, she had a mother in Stockholm, and a brother, and all her friends. Apart from six months in Florence she had lived in Stockholm all her life. Where had I lived?

Arendal, Kristiansand, Bergen. Six months in Iceland, four months in Norwich.

Did I have any brothers or sisters?

A brother, a half-sister.

You were married, weren’t you?

Yes. In a way I still am.

Oh.

Early one evening, in the middle of April, she rang. Did I feel like meeting her? Of course. I was out with Geir and Christina, I said, we were in Guldapan, you could join us if you like.

Half an hour later she was there.

She was beaming.

‘I’ve been accepted by the Dramatiska Institut today,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy, it’s just wonderful. And then I suddenly felt like meeting you,’ she said, looking at me.

I smiled at her.

We were out all evening, got drunk, walked back to my place together, I gave her a hug outside the gate and went up to the flat.

The next day Geir rang.

‘She’s in love with you, man,’ he said. ‘You can see it miles off. That was the first thing Christina said when we left. She’s almost luminous with it. Unbelievably in love with Karl Ove.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘She was happy she’s got into the Dramatiska Institut.’

‘Why would she ring you if that was all it was?’

‘How should I know? Why don’t you ring her and ask?’

‘And what’s the situation with your feelings?’

‘Fine.’

Linda and I went to the cinema. For some idiotic reason we saw the new Star Wars film, it was for children, and having confirmed that, we went to Folkoperan and sat without saying much.

I was depressed as I left, I was so incredibly sick of having everything inside me, being unable to say the simplest thing to anyone.

It passed. I was fine on my own, Stockholm was still new to me, spring had arrived, every second day at twelve I put on my trainers and ran around Söder, it was ten kilometres, on the days between I swam a thousand metres. I had lost ten kilos, and I had started to write again. I got up at five, had a cigarette and a couple of coffees on the roof terrace, from which there was a view of the whole of Stockholm, then I worked until twelve, ran or swam, and afterwards went into town and sat in a café reading, or just drifted around, unless I met Geir. At half past eight, as the sun was setting and colouring the wall blood-red above the bed, I lay down to read. I started The Karinhall Hunters by Carl Henning Wijkmark, Geir had recommended it, I read in the glow of the sinking sun, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I was imbued with a wild, dizzy feeling of happiness. I was free, completely free, and life was fantastic. I could on occasion be seized by this feeling, perhaps once every six months, it was strong, it lasted for a few minutes, and then it passed. The oddity this time was that it didn’t pass. I woke up and was happy, buggered if I could remember that happening since I was a little boy. I sat on the terrace and sang in the pale sunlight, and when I wrote I didn’t care if it was bad, there were other, better things in the world than writing novels, and when I ran my body was as light as a feather, while my brain, which was usually focused on surviving and not much else on my runs, looked around and enjoyed the dense leafy greenery, the blue water of the many canals, the crowds of people everywhere, the beautiful and less beautiful buildings. After returning home and taking a shower I had some soup and crispbread, and then I went to the park to read some more of Wijkmark’s debut novel, about the Norwegian marathon runner who slips into Goering’s hunting castle during the Berlin Olympics in 1936, rang Espen or Tore or Eirik or mum or Yngve or Tonje, whom I was still with, nothing else had been said, went to bed early, got up in the middle of the night and ate plums or apples without knowing until I woke and found the remains on the floor beside the bed. At the beginning of May I went to Biskops-Arnö, six months ago I had agreed to give a talk there, phoned Lemhagen when I came to Stockholm and said I would have to cancel, I had nothing to talk about, he had said I could go anyway, listen to the other talks, perhaps participate in the discussions and do a reading or two in the evening, if I had anything new.