Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

‘I’ve always been fascinated by airships,’ I said. ‘Ever since I was little. For me, it’s as close to fantasy as I can imagine. A world of airships! Oh, it does something to me, that does, but I’m damned if I know what. What do you think it is?’

‘If I’ve understood you correctly you used to be fascinated by divers, sailing boats, space travel and airships when you were a boy. You said once that you made drawings of divers, astronauts and sailing boats, didn’t you? Was that all?’

‘Yes, more or less.’

‘Well, what can one say about that? An insatiable travel bug? Divers, that’s as far down as you can go. Astronauts, that’s as high as you can go. Sailing boats, that’s a long way back in our history. And airships, that’s the world that never materialised.’

‘I suppose that’s right. Not as a big, dominant mode of transport anyway. It was more on the periphery, if you know what I mean. When you’re small you’re full of the world, that’s what life’s all about. It’s impossible to resist. And you don’t have to, either. At least not always.’

‘Well then?’ she said.

‘Well what?’

‘Do you long to get away now?’

‘Are you crazy? This summer must be the first since I was sixteen that I haven’t.’

We got up and headed towards Djurgården Bridge.

‘Did you know that the first airships couldn’t be steered, and so to solve the problem they tried to train birds of prey, falcons I suppose, but perhaps eagles as well, to fly with long cables in their beaks?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘All I know is that I love you.’

Even during these new days, which in quite a different way from previously were filled with routines, there was a great feeling of freedom for me. We got up early, Linda cycled off to school, I sat writing all day, unless I popped up to Filmhuset and had lunch with her, and then we met again early in the evening and were together until we went to bed. At the weekends we ate out and got drunk at night, in the bar at Folkoperan, which was our local, or at Guldapan, another favourite haunt, at Folkhemmet or the big bar in Odenplan.

Everything was as it had been, yet it wasn’t, for imperceptibly, so imperceptibly that it seemed as if it wasn’t happening, something in our lives lost its lustre. The fire that drove us towards each other and into the world no longer burned as bright. Atmospheres could spring up. One Saturday I awoke thinking how nice it would be to have some time for myself, visit some second-hand bookshops, go to a café and read the papers… We got up, went to the nearest café, ordered breakfast — porridge, yoghurt, toast, eggs, juice and coffee — I read the papers, Linda stared down at the table or into the room, said at length, do you have to read, couldn’t we talk? Yes, of course, I said, closing the newspaper, and we chatted, it was fine, the tiny black spot in my heart was barely noticeable, a little hankering to be alone and read in peace without anyone demanding anything of me was forgotten in a flash. But then came the time when it wasn’t, when on the contrary it led to ensuing atmospheres and actions. If you really love me, you have to come to me without demands, I thought but didn’t say, I wanted her to notice on her own.

One evening Yngve called, he was wondering if I wanted to go with him and Asbjørn to London, I said, yes, of course, perfect. As I rang off Linda was watching me from the other side of the room.

‘Who was that?’ she asked.

‘Yngve. He wanted me to go to London with him.’

‘I hope you didn’t say yes?’

‘I did. Shouldn’t I have done?’

‘But we were going to travel together. You can’t travel with him before you travel with me!’

‘What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with you.’

She looked down at the book she was reading. Her eyes were black. I didn’t want her to lose her temper. But to have the disagreement hanging in the air was intolerable for me, I needed clarity.

‘I haven’t spent a moment with Yngve for an incredibly long time. You have to remember I don’t know anyone here except your friends. Mine live in Norway.’

‘Yngve has just been here, hasn’t he.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘Just go then,’ she said.

‘OK,’ I said.

Afterwards, when we were in bed, she apologised for having been so uncharitable. It didn’t matter, I said. It was nothing.

‘We haven’t been apart since we got together,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it’s time we were.’

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘We can’t live on top of each other for the rest of our lives,’ I said.

‘I think we’re fine,’ she said.

‘Yes, we are fine,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure I agree.’

From London I rang her twice every day, and spent almost all my money on a present for her, it was her thirtieth a few weeks later. At the same time I realised, presumably because I saw our Stockholm life from a distance for the first time, that I would have to knuckle down when I got home, start working harder, for not only had the whole of the long summer disappeared in happiness, and inner and outer extravagance, but September had also passed without my having achieved anything. It was four years since I had made my debut, and a second book was nowhere in sight, apart from the 800 pages with a variety of beginnings I had accumulated since then. I had written my debut novel at night, got up at eight in the evening and worked right through until the next morning, and the freedom that lay in it, in the space the night opened, was perhaps what was necessary to find a way into something new. I had been close in recent weeks in Bergen and the first few in Stockholm, with the story that had aroused my interest about a father who went crabbing one summer’s night with his two sons, one obviously me, I found a dead seagull I showed dad, he told me seagulls had once been angels, and we left in the boat with live crabs crawling inside a bucket on the deck. Geir Gulliksen had said, ‘There’s your opening,’ and he had been right, but I didn’t know where it would lead, and I had been grappling with it for the last few months. I had written about a woman in a maternity ward in the 1940s, the child she gave birth to was Henrik Vankel’s father, and the house waiting for her return with the baby was originally an old hovel, full of bottles, which they had demolished to build a new house. But the story wasn’t genuine, everything sounded false, I was going nowhere. So I tried another tack, in the same house, where two brothers are asleep at night, their father is dead, one lies looking at the other sleeping. That sounded equally false, and my despair grew, would I ever be able to write another novel?

The first Monday after I had returned from London I told Linda we couldn’t meet the next evening because I had to work through the night. Yes, fine, no problem. At nine she texted me, I answered, she sent another message, she was out with Cora, they were at a place nearby having a beer, I texted, have a good time, said I loved her, a couple more texts went to and fro, then all went quiet and I thought she had gone back to her place. But she hadn’t, at around twelve she knocked on my door.

‘Are you here?’ I said. ‘I told you I was going to write.’

‘Yes, but your texts were so warm and loving. I thought you would want me to come.’

‘I have to work,’ I said. ‘I’m serious.’

‘I understand,’ she said, already out of her jacket and shoes. ‘But can’t I sleep here while you’re working?’

‘You know I won’t be able to. I can’t even write with a cat in the room.’

‘You’ve never tried with me in the room. I may have a good effect.’