Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

Linda was happy, but there were always these feelings of abyss inside her which made her afraid of everything. Would she be able to take care of the baby when it came? And would it come? She could lose it — that happened — and nothing I said or did could stem the fear that was roaming loose inside her, out of her control, but fortunately that too passed.

At the end of June we went on holiday to Norway, first of all to Tromøya, where we spent a couple of days, then to Espen and Anne’s in Larkollen, who had lent us a cabin to stay in, and finally to mum’s in Jølster. Neither of us had a driving licence, so I dragged our cases round onto planes, trains, buses and taxis with Linda, who couldn’t carry anything heavier than an apple, by my side. Arvid met us in Arendal, he was a few years older than me, from Tromøya, and initially he was one of Yngve’s friends, but we saw quite a bit of one another in Bergen, where he had also studied, and not so many months ago he had visited us in Stockholm. Now he wanted to drive us back to his place. I knew Linda was tired and wanted to go to the cabin we had rented, and to get the point across I told Arvid straight away Linda was expecting a baby.

This came as a bolt from the blue in the sunlit Arendal street.

‘Oh, congratulations!’ Arvid said.

‘So it would be best if we went to the cabin first, to have a rest…’

‘We can arrange that,’ Arvid said. ‘I’ll drive you there. Then I can pick you up by boat later.’

It was a log cabin, low quality, I regretted it the moment I saw it. The idea had been I would show her where I came from. That was nice for me. This was not.

She slept for a couple of hours, we walked out on the mole, and Arvid arrived, skimming across the water in his boat. We would go to the island of Hisøya, where Arvid lived. Passed small white houses on rocks, reddish in the afternoon sun, surrounded by green trees, in the midst of the blue arch of sea and sky, and I thought to myself, my God, this is wonderful here. And then the wind that came with the sunset every afternoon. It made the landscape alien, I could see that now, and I had seen it when I was growing up here. Alien because what unified all the elements of the landscape fell apart like a rock struck by a sledgehammer when the wind gusted in.

We went ashore, up to the house and sat around a table in the garden. Linda was shut inside herself in a way that appeared unfriendly, and I suffered, we sat there with his family and friends, it was the first time they had met her, of course I wanted to show them what a wonderful partner I had, and then she was so unwilling. I held her arm under the table and squeezed it. She looked at me without a smile. I felt like shouting she should pull herself together. I knew how charming she could be, how talented she was at exactly this, sitting around a table with other people and chatting, telling stories and laughing. On the other hand, I remembered how I used to be when I was with some of Linda’s friends I didn’t know so well. Silent, stiff and shy, someone who could go through an entire dinner without saying more than what was absolutely necessary.

What was she thinking?

What had put her out?

Arvid? The slightly boastful manner that could occasionally steal over him?

Anna?

Atle?

Or was it me?

Had I said something during the afternoon?

Or was it inside her? Something which had nothing to do with this at all?

After eating we went for a boat ride, around Hisøya and out to Mærdø, and as we came into open water Arvid hit the accelerator. The swift slim boat skimmed across the surface, the waves were crashing into and bouncing off the bows. Linda’s face was white, she was three months pregnant, perhaps these violent movements would be enough to cause her to lose the baby, that was what she was thinking, I could see.

‘Tell him to slow down!’ she hissed. ‘This is dangerous for me!’

I looked at Arvid, who sat behind the wheel with a smile on his face, his eyes scrunched up against the fresh salty air streaming towards us. I didn’t think this was dangerous and could not bring myself to interfere and tell Arvid to slow down, it was too stupid. At the same time Linda sat there burning with fear and anger. For her sake surely I could step in, even if I made a fool of myself?

‘It’s fine,’ I said to Linda. ‘It’s not dangerous.’

‘Karl Ove!’ she hissed. ‘Tell him to slow down. This is extremely dangerous. Don’t you understand?’

I straightened up and moved closer to Arvid. The island of Mærdø was approaching at a furious pace. He looked at me and smiled.

‘She runs well, doesn’t she.’

I nodded and smiled back. I was on the point of asking him to slow down, but I held back, sat down beside Linda.

‘It’s not dangerous,’ I said.

She said nothing, sat there with her arms wrapped around her, face tense and white.

We strolled around Mærdø, a rug was spread out on a field, coffee was drunk, biscuits were eaten and then we went back to the boat. On the way along the quay I sidled up to Arvid.

‘Linda was a bit scared when you throttled up. She’s pregnant, you know, so the movements… well, you understand. Could you take it a bit easier going back?’

‘No problem,’ he said.

He piloted the boat all the way to Hove at a snail’s pace. I wondered if he was trying to tell us something or was being especially considerate. Whatever it was, it was embarrassing. Both the fact that I had spoken to him and that I hadn’t been able to intervene on the way there. Surely it should have been the easiest thing in the world to do, shouldn’t it, to tell someone to slow down, my girlfriend was pregnant?

Especially because Linda’s fears and unease came from a different source than most people’s. It was barely three years since she had been discharged after suffering from manic depression for two years. Having a baby after that kind of experience was not without its risks. She had no idea how she would react. Perhaps she would be plunged into a further bout of manic depression? Maybe so serious that she would be readmitted to hospital. And what would happen to the child then? However, she was out of it and anchored in the world in quite a different way from how she had been before the breakdown and, having seen her every day for almost a year, I knew she would be fine. I viewed what had happened as a crisis. It had been lengthy and all-embracing, but it was over. She was healthy; the mood swings that still existed in her life were all within normal behaviour.

We caught the train to Moss, Espen picked us up at the station and we drove to their home in Larkollen. Linda had a slight temperature and went to bed, Espen and I walked to a nearby pitch to kick around a football, in the evening we had a barbecue, I sat up with Espen and Anne, later only Espen. Linda was asleep. The next day Espen drove us to the cabin on the island of Jeløya, where we stayed for a week while they travelled to Stockholm and occupied our flat. I got up at around five and worked on my novel, for this was what the manuscript had become, until Linda got up at around ten. We had breakfast, now and then I read bits of what I had written aloud, she invariably said it was very good, we went swimming on a beach a few kilometres away, did some shopping and made lunch, I went fishing in the afternoons while she slept, in the evenings we lit the fire and we talked or read or made love. When the week was up we caught the train from Moss to Oslo and took the Bergen line on to Flåm, whence we went by boat to Balestrand and stayed at Kvikne’s Hotel and then caught the ferry to Fjærland the next day. Where we met Tomas Espedal — he was on a walking trip with a friend, heading for a place he had in Sunnfjord. I hadn’t met him since I lived in Bergen and just the sight of him cheered me up, he was one of the best people I had ever met. Mum was waiting on the quay in Fjærland, and we drove past the glacier, which shone greyish white against the blue sky, through the long tunnel into the long dark narrow valley where so often there were avalanches, and into Skei, where the gentle luxuriant Jølster countryside opened out.