Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

‘Deh!’ she said.

‘Yes, there,’ I said. ‘Three seagulls!’

One child was absolutely out of the question for me, two was too few and too close together, but three, I reckoned, was perfect. Then the children outnumbered the parents, there were lots of permutations possible, then we were a gang. I had nothing but contempt for precise plans to pinpoint the most suitable time, both as far as our own lives were concerned and which ages went best together. After all this was not a business we were running. I wanted to let chance decide, let what happened happen, and then deal with the consequences as they emerged. Wasn’t that what life was about? So when I walked down the street with Vanja, when I fed and changed her, with these wild longings for a different life hammering away in my chest, this was the consequence of a decision and I had to live with it. There was no way out, other than the old well-travelled route: endurance. The fact that I cast a pall over the lives of those around me in doing so, well, that was just another consequence which had to be endured. If we had another child, and we would, regardless of whether Linda was pregnant now or not, and then another, which was equally inevitable, surely this would transcend duty, transcend my longings and end up as something wild and free in its own right? If not, what would I do then?

Be there, do what I had to do. In my life this was the only thing I had to hold on to, my sole fixed point, and it was carved in stone.

Or was it?

A few weeks ago Jeppe had phoned me, he was in town, could we meet for a few beers? I had a lot of respect for him, but I had never managed to talk to him, as was the case with so many people, but we loosened up after I had knocked back several beers in quick succession. I told him what my life was like now. He looked at me and said with that natural authority which was typical of him, ‘But you must write , Karl Ove!’

And when push came to shove, when a knife was at my throat, this was what mattered most.

But why?

Children were life, and who would turn their back on life?

And writing, what else was it but death? Letters, what else were they but bones in a cemetery?

The Djurgård ferry rounded the spit at the end of the island. On the other side was Gröna Lund, the vast amusement park, with all the machines empty and motionless, some covered with tarpaulins. A couple of hundred metres away was the building that housed the Vasa ship.

‘Shall we take the ferry across?’ Linda asked. ‘Then we can have lunch at Blå Porten.’

‘We’ve only just had breakfast,’ I said.

‘A coffee then.’

‘Yes, we can. Have you got any cash on you?’

She nodded, and we waited where the ferry berthed. After only a few seconds Vanja started complaining. Linda found a banana in the bag and handed it to her. Happy, she sat back in the buggy and stared across the sea while stuffing bits of banana into her mouth. I was reminded of the very first time I had been out with her on my own, because this was where we came. She had been a week old. I had almost run around the island with the buggy in front of me, frightened she would stop breathing, frightened she would wake up and scream. At home we had the situation under control: there was breastfeeding, sleeping, changing nappies in a soporific yet somehow quietly triumphant system. Away from home, we no longer had a structure to cling to. The first time we took her out was the third day, she had to go for a check-up and it was like we were transporting a bomb. Obstacle number one was all the clothes she had to wear because the temperature outside was more than fifteen degrees below. The second was the child seat. How do you attach it in a taxi? The third was the eyes that studied us in the reception area. But all went well, we survived, albeit with an immense amount of fuss, but it was all worth it when some minutes later she was placid and gently kicking her legs on the changing table as she was being examined. She was in perfect health and in an irresistibly good mood because she suddenly smiled at the nurse bent over her. That was a smile, the nurse said. It wasn’t gripe. It’s rare for babies to smile so early on! We luxuriated in the compliment, it said something about us as parents, only several months later did it strike me that the line, it’s rare for babies to smile so early on, was probably used to accomplish that very effect. But, oh, the low, somehow timid January light that fell through the window and over our daughter on the table, whom we still weren’t remotely used to, the ice outside glinting in the freezing temperatures, Linda’s utterly open relaxed face, made this one of the few memories that did not contain the slightest trace of ambivalence. It lasted until we were in the corridor and ready to go, and Vanja began to scream her head off. What should we do? Pick her up? Yes, we had to. Should Linda give her a feed? If so, how? She was wearing so many clothes she looked like a balloon. Should we undress her again? While she was screaming? Was that what you did? What about if she didn’t calm down?

Oh, how Vanja screamed as Linda fiddled with her clothing in her nervous, irresolute way.

‘Let me do it,’ I said.

Her eyes flashed as they met mine.

Vanja went silent for some seconds as her lips closed around the nipple. But then she jerked her head back and continued to scream her head off.

‘Not that then,’ Linda said. ‘What is it? Is she ill?’

‘No, I doubt that,’ Linda said. ‘After all, she’s just been checked over by a doctor.’

Vanja screamed and screamed. The whole of her little face was in convulsion.

‘What shall we do?’ Linda said in desperation.

‘Hold her for a while and we’ll see,’ I said.

The second couple, the ones after us, came out with their baby in a car seat. They studiously avoided looking at us as they passed.

‘We can’t stand here,’ I said. ‘Let’s go. Come on. She’ll just have to scream.’

‘Have you rung for a taxi?’

‘No.’

‘Then do it!’

She looked down at Vanja, whom she was hugging, not that it helped, there wasn’t much reassurance in the contact between Vanja’s romper suit and Linda’s Puffa jacket. I took out my mobile and tapped in the taxi number, holding the car seat in my other hand, and walked towards the stairs at the end of the corridor.

‘Hang on,’ Linda said. ‘I just have to put on her hat.’

She screamed all the time we waited for the taxi. Fortunately it arrived a few minutes later. I opened the rear door, put the seat in and tried to secure it with the seat belt, which I had managed an hour earlier without a problem, but now it appeared to be absolutely impossible. I tried attaching it in every conceivable way, through, over and under the bloody seat, and none worked. All with Vanja screaming and Linda looking daggers at me. In the end the driver got out to help me. At first I refused to move, I could damn well manage this on my own, thank you, but after another minute’s fumbling I had to concede defeat and let him, a moustachioed Iraqi-looking man, fasten it at a stroke.

All the way through snowy glistening Stockholm she screamed. Only when we were through the door, at home and she was lying undressed on the bed with Linda did she stop.

We were both drenched in sweat.

‘That was a bit of an ordeal!’ Linda said as she got up from Vanja, asleep on the bed.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There’s some life in her anyway.’

Later that day I heard Linda telling her mother about the medical check-up. Not a word about all the screaming or the panic we had felt, no, what she told her was that Vanja smiled when she was on the table being examined. How happy and proud Linda was! Vanja had smiled, she was in perfect health, and the low sunlight outside, seemingly elevated by the snow-covered surfaces, made everything in the room soft and shiny, even Vanja, as she lay naked on the blanket kicking her legs.