Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

When I had finished I sat down on the sofa with a pile of newspapers. The only jobs left were to iron the tablecloth, set the table and cook the food. But it was a simple meal, wouldn’t take more than half an hour, so I had plenty of time. Darkness was drawing in. From the flat across the way came the sound of a guitar, it was the bearded forty-something practising his blues songs.

Linda stood in the doorway.

‘Can you take Vanja?’ she said. ‘I need a break as well.’

‘I’ve just sat down,’ I said. ‘I’ve cleaned the whole bloody flat, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.’

‘And I’ve had Vanja,’ she said. ‘Do you consider that less demanding?’

Well, in fact, I did. I could have Vanja on my own and clean the flat. There were a few tears, but it worked fine. However, that was not a line I could take unless I wanted a head-on confrontation.

‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘But I have Vanja all week.’

‘Me too,’ she said. ‘In the morning and in the afternoon.’

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I’m the one who’s at home with her.’

‘When I was at home with her, what did you do? Did you take her in the mornings and the afternoons? And did I perhaps go to the café every day when you came home, like you do now?’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll have her. Sit down.’

‘Not if you take that kind of attitude. I’ll have her myself.’

‘Surely it doesn’t matter what kind of attitude I have? I take her, you get a break. Simple. Everyone happy.’

‘And you keep going out and having cigarette breaks. I don’t. Have you thought about that?’

‘You’ll have to start smoking then,’ I said.

‘Perhaps I will,’ she said.

I walked past her, without meeting her stare, to Vanja, who was sitting on the floor and blowing into a recorder which she held in one hand while waving the other up and down. I stood by the windowsill and crossed my arms. I was definitely not going to fulfil Vanja’s every little wish. She had to be able to survive a few minutes without being fully occupied, like other children.

From the living room I could hear Linda flicking through the newspaper.

Should I tell her she could iron the tablecloth, set the table and cook the food? Or act surprised and say she was responsible for that now, when she came to take care of Vanja again? We had swapped, hadn’t we?

An acrid fetid smell began to spread through the room. Vanja had stopped blowing into the recorder and was sitting still and staring into the distance. I turned and looked out of the window. Snowflakes being blown through the street below, where the gleam from the hanging lights picked them out, but which were invisible until the moment they hit the window with a tiny, barely perceptible tap. The door of US Video forever opening and closing. Cars going past at intervals regulated by traffic lights out of my eyeshot. Windows in the flats opposite, which were so far away that residents were only visible as vague intrusions in the subdued light of the panes.

I turned back.

‘Have you finished now?’ I asked Vanja and met her eyes. She smiled. I took her under my arms and threw her onto the bed. She started laughing.

‘I’m going to change you now,’ I said. ‘It’s important that you lie still. Have you got that?’

I lifted her and threw her again.

‘Have you got that, you little troll?’

She laughed so much she could hardly breathe. I pulled off her trousers and she wriggled round and tried to crawl up the bed. I grabbed her ankles and dragged her back.

‘Lie still, will you. Do you understand?’ I said, and for a moment it was as though she did understand, because she was lying quite still and staring at me with her round eyes. With one hand I lifted her legs into the air while releasing the tabs with the other and removing her nappy. Then she tried to wriggle free, squirmed round and because I had a tight grip on her, she contorted like some epileptic.

‘No, no, no,’ I said, throwing her back onto the bed. She laughed, I pulled some wipes from the packet as fast as I could, she swung round again, I pressed her down and wiped her clean while breathing through my nose and trying not to react to the irritation I could feel was brewing inside me now. I had forgotten to put the full nappy away, she had her whole foot in it, I nudged it to the side and wiped her foot, somewhat half-heartedly, because I knew wipes were no longer up to the job. I lifted her and carried her to the bathroom, where with Vanja kicking and struggling under my arm I took the showerhead from the holder, turned on the water, adjusted it until it was warm on the back of my hand and began to spray the lower half of her body carefully while she gripped the ends of the yellow shower curtain. Once this was done I dried her with a towel and got her into a new nappy, after thwarting another bid for freedom. All that was left to do was to dispose of the used one, put it in a plastic bag, tie a knot and chuck it outside the front door.

Linda was skimming through the newspaper in the living room. Vanja banged one of the building bricks she had been given as an autumn present by Öllegård on the floor. I lay back on the bed with my arms behind my head. The next moment there was a thunderous knocking on the pipes.

‘Don’t take any notice of her,’ Linda said. ‘Let Vanja play as she likes.’

But I couldn’t. I got up, went over to Vanja and took the brick from her. And handed her a cloth lamb instead. She threw it away. Even when I put on a silly voice and bounced the lamb back and forth she still wasn’t interested. It was the brick she wanted; she was attracted by the sound of it banging on the floor. Well, she can have it then. She took two from the box and began to bang them on the floor. The very next second the pipes thundered again. What was this? Was she standing there and waiting ? I took one of the bricks from the box and hammered it with all my strength against the radiator. Vanja watched me and laughed. The next second I heard the door below slam again. I went through the living room into the hallway. When the bell rang I snatched open the door. The Russian was looking at me with a furious expression on her face. I stepped out so that I was only a few centimetres from her.

‘What the HELL do you want?’ I shouted. ‘What do you BLOODY mean by coming up here? I don’t want you here. Don’t you UNDERSTAND?’

She hadn’t expected that. She recoiled, tried to say something, but as the first word escaped her lips I went on the attack again.

‘NOW PISS OFF!’ I shouted. ‘IF YOU COME HERE AGAIN I’LL CALL THE POLICE.’

At that moment a woman in her fifties came up the stairs. She was one of the people who lived on the floor above. She looked down at the floor as she passed. Nevertheless, a witness. Perhaps that gave the Russian courage because she didn’t go.

‘DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I SAID? OR ARE YOU A RETARD? GO AWAY, I SAID. GO, GO, GO!’

After saying this I took another step towards her. She turned and set off down the stairs. After a couple of steps she turned back to me.

‘This will have consequences,’ she said.

‘I don’t give a shit,’ I said. ‘Who do you think they’ll believe? A lonely alcoholic Russian or an established couple with a small child?’

Then I closed the door and went back in. Linda stood looking at me from the living-room doorway. I walked past without a glance.

‘That wasn’t perhaps the wisest move,’ I said. ‘But it felt good.’

‘I can imagine,’ she said.

I went into the bedroom and took the bricks from Vanja, put them in the box, which I put on top of the dresser so that she couldn’t reach them. To distract her from the despondency she felt I lifted her and put her on the windowsill. We watched cars for a while. But I was too angry to be able to stand still for long, so I sat her back on the floor and went into the bathroom, where I washed my hands — they were always so cold in winter — in warm water, dried them, studied my reflection, which did not betray a single one of the thoughts or feelings stirring inside me. Perhaps my clearest childhood legacy was that loud voices and aggression frightened me. I hated rows and scenes. And for a long time I had managed to avoid them in my adult life. There hadn’t been any slanging matches in any of the relationships I’d had; any disagreements had proceeded according to my method, which was irony, sarcasm, unfriendliness, sulking and silence. It was only when Linda came into my life that this changed. And how it changed. As for me, I was afraid. It wasn’t a rational fear, physically I was stronger than she was, of course, and as far as the balance of the relationship was concerned she needed me more than I needed her, in the sense that I had no problem being alone, being alone was not only an option for me, it was also an enticement, whereas she feared being alone more than anything; however, despite the fact that I was in a stronger position, I was afraid when she had a go at me. Afraid in the way I was afraid when I was a boy. Oh, I was not proud of this, but so what? It wasn’t something I could control by thought or will, it was something quite different, which was released in me, anchored deeper, down in what was perhaps the very foundation of my personality. All of this, though, was unknown to Linda. You couldn’t see that I was frightened. When I defended myself my voice would break because I was on the verge of tears, but to her that could easily have been caused by my anger, for all I knew. No, now that I came to think about it, somewhere inside her she must have known. But perhaps not the precise extent of how awful the experience was for me.