Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

Perhaps the worst aspect of all this was that Sweden was so admired in Norway. I had been the same when I lived there. I knew nothing of course. But now that I knew and tried to tell people at home in Norway, no one understood what I meant. It is impossible to describe exactly how conformist this country is. Also because the conformity is laid bare by an absence, opinions diverging from the norm do not in fact exist in public. It takes time for you to notice.

Such was the situation on that evening in February 2005 when, with a book by Dostoevsky in one hand and an NK carrier bag in the other, I passed the Russian on the stairs. For her to avoid my gaze was not so unusual. When we put the buggy in the cycle room in the afternoon, the following day we often found it pushed against the wall, with the hood pressed down on one side or the other, sometimes the duvet had been slung on the floor, all obviously done in haste and a bout of fury. Once the sporty little model we had bought second-hand was placed under the sign grovsopor, bulky rubbish, so the dustcart had taken it in the morning. It was hard to imagine anyone else could be behind that. But it was not impossible. None of the other neighbours exactly greeted us with warmth either.

I opened the door, went in, leaned forward and unlaced my boots.

‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Hello,’ Linda said from inside the living room.

No unfriendliness in her voice.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said and stood up, took off my scarf and jacket and hung them on the clothes hanger in the wardrobe. ‘But I lost track of time while I was reading.’

‘No problem,’ Linda said. ‘I gave Vanja a leisurely bath and put her to bed. It was wonderful.’

‘Good,’ I said, and joined her in the living room. She was sitting on the sofa and watching TV, wearing my dark green woollen jumper.

‘Are you wearing my jumper?’

She turned off the television with the remote and got up.

‘Yes?’ she said. ‘I miss you, you know.’

‘I do live here,’ I said. ‘I’m here all the time.’

‘You know what I mean,’ she said, reaching up to give me a kiss. We hugged each other for a while.

‘I remember Espen’s girlfriend complaining that his mother used to wear his jumpers while she was there,’ I said. ‘I think she thought the mother was communicating a kind of possession over him. That it was a hostile act.’

‘Which it obviously was,’ she said. ‘But this is just you and me. And we aren’t enemies, are we?’

‘No, not at all,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and make some food. Would you like a glass of red in the meantime?’

She looked at me askance.

‘Oh, that’s right, you’re breastfeeding,’ I said. ‘But a glass wouldn’t be a problem, would it? Come on.’

‘Would be nice, but I think I’ll wait. You have one!’

‘I’ll just have a peep at Vanja first. She’s asleep, isn’t she?’

Linda nodded, and we went into the bedroom, where she lay in her cot beside our double bed. She slept in a sort of kneeling position with her bottom in the air, her head boring into the pillow and her arms out to the side.

I smiled.

Linda covered her with the blanket and I went to the hallway, carried the bag to the kitchen, switched on the oven, washed the potatoes, forked them one by one, placed them on the tray which I had greased with a bit of oil, put it in the oven and filled a pan with water for the broccoli. Linda came in and sat at the table.

‘I finished an edit today,’ she said. ‘Could you listen to it afterwards? I might not have to do any more to it.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

She was working on a documentary about her father which she had to hand in on Wednesday. She had interviewed him a few times over recent weeks, and so he had entered her life again after having been absent for some years, despite the fact that he lived in a flat fifty metres from us.

I put the entrecôte steaks on a broad wooden board, tore off some kitchen roll and dried them.

‘That looks good,’ Linda said.

‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘I daren’t tell you what the price per kilo was.’

The potatoes were so small they barely needed more than ten minutes in the oven, so I took the frying pan, put it on the hotplate and dropped the broccoli into the saucepan, where the water had started to boil.

‘I can set the table,’ she said. ‘We’re eating in the living room, aren’t we?’

‘Can do.’

She got up, reached down two of the green plates, took two wine glasses from the cupboard and carried them into the living room. I followed with the bottle of wine and the mineral water. As I entered she was putting out the candlestick.

‘Have you got a lighter?’

I nodded, dug it up from my pocket and passed it to her.

‘That’s cosier now, isn’t it?’ she said with a smile.

‘Yes, it is,’ I said. Opened the wine and poured it into one glass.

‘Shame you can’t have any,’ I said.

‘I suppose I could have a mouthful,’ she said. ‘To taste it. But I’ll wait until the food’s ready.’

‘OK,’ I said.

On the way to the kitchen I stopped by Vanja’s bed again. Now she was lying on her back, with her arms out, as though she had been thrown there from a great height. Her head was as round as a ball and her short body more than well padded. The health visitor who examined Vanja suggested last time that we should try to slim her down. That maybe she didn’t need milk every time she cried.

They were crazy in this country.

I supported myself on the bed and leaned over her. She was sleeping with her mouth open and exhaling little wheezes. Now and then I could see Yngve in her face, but only in flashes; otherwise she didn’t have the slightest resemblance to me or anyone in my family.

‘Isn’t she lovely?’ Linda said, stroking my shoulder as she passed.

‘Mm,’ I said. ‘Whatever that means.’

When the doctor had examined her, a few hours after birth, Linda had tried to make her say she was not only a lovely child but an especially lovely child. The doctor complied, but Linda was not happy with her low-key response. I had glanced at her in some surprise. Was this how maternal love expressed itself, forcing all considerations to cede to it?

Oh, what a time this had been. We were so unused to dealing with small babies that every little operation was a mixture of anxiety and pleasure.

Now we were more used to it.

In the kitchen the butter in the pan was smoking and had turned dark brown. Steam was rising from the saucepan beside it. The lid was banging against the edge. I put the two pieces of meat in the pan with a hiss, removed the potatoes from the oven and slid them into a bowl, drained the water from the broccoli, kept it on the hotplate for a few seconds, turned the steaks, remembered I had forgotten the mushrooms, got out another frying pan, put them in with two tomato halves and turned on the heat full. Then I opened the window to get rid of the frying fumes, which were sucked out of the room at once. Placed the steaks on a white dish with the broccoli and poked my head out of the window while waiting for the mushrooms. The cold air settled on my face. The offices opposite were empty and dark, but on the pavement below people drifted past, well wrapped up and silent. Some sat around a table at the back of a restaurant, which had to be doing badly, while the chefs in the adjacent room, invisible to them but not to me, shuttled back and forth between worktops and stoves, their movements unerring and fleet. A little queue had formed in front of the entrance to the adjacent jazz club, Nalen. A man wearing a cap got off the Swedish Radio bus and went through the door. Something hung from some string around his neck, probably an ID card. I turned and shook the pan of mushrooms to turn them over. Almost no one lived in this district, it consisted of office buildings and shops in the main, so when they closed at the end of the afternoon street life died. People walking here in the evening were going to restaurants, of which there was a plethora. Bringing a child up here was unthinkable. There was nothing for them.