Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Two

They praised the food, I cleared the table, put on some coffee and set the table for dessert while Karin and Frederik settled their child down in the bedroom beside where Vanja was already asleep in her cot.

‘By the way, your flat was on Norwegian TV just before Christmas,’ I said when their son had fallen asleep and they had both sat down again and helped themselves to hot blackberries and ice cream.

‘Your flat’ was my office, actually a one-room flat with a bathroom and a small kitchenette which I rented from Fredrik.

‘Oh yes?’ he said.

‘I was interviewed by Dagsrevyen, the Norwegian TV news programme. At first they wanted to do it here. I said no, of course. Then they’d heard I was looking after our child at the moment and wondered if they could film me with Vanja. I said no again, of course. But they persisted. They didn’t need to film her, the buggy would be enough. What about if I pushed the buggy through town and then handed Vanja over to Linda — before the interview started as it were? What could I say?’

‘What about no?’ Fredrik said.

‘But I had to throw them a bone. They absolutely refused to do it in a café or anything like that. It had to be about something. So the interview was in your office, plus I went looking for an angel to buy for Vanja in the Old Town. Oh, it was so stupid it could drive you to tears. But that’s what it’s like. They need to have something.’

‘Turned out well though,’ Linda said.

‘No, it didn’t,’ I said. ‘But I find it hard to understand how it could have been better in fact. Under the circumstances.’

‘So you’re big in Norway then, are you?’ Fredrik said with a knowing look.

‘No, no, no,’ I said. ‘It’s just because I was nominated for a prize.’

‘Aha,’ he said. Then he laughed. ‘I was just winding you up. But in fact I’ve just read an excerpt from your novel in a Swedish journal. It was immensely evocative.’

I smiled at him.

To divert attention from the fact that there had been a touch of smugness about the theme I had just introduced, I got up and said, ‘Ah, I almost forgot. We bought a little bottle of cognac for the meal today. Would you like some? And I was on my way to the kitchen before he could answer. On my return, the conversation had turned to alcohol and breastfeeding, which a doctor had told Linda was not a problem, at least in moderation, but she wasn’t taking any chances as the Swedish health authorities recommended total abstinence. Alcohol and pregnancy were one thing, when the foetus was in direct contact with the mother’s blood, breastfeeding was quite another. From there it was a swift jump to pregnancies in general and then to births. I chimed in with something or other, added a snippet here and there and otherwise listened in silence for the main part. Births are an intimate and sensitive topic of conversation for women, there is a lot of covert prestige, and as a man the only possible option is to keep well away. To refrain from expressing an opinion. Which both Fredrik and I did. Until the subject of Caesareans came up. Then I couldn’t restrain myself any longer.

‘It’s absurd that Caesareans are an alternative form of giving birth,’ I said. ‘If there are no medical grounds for it, if the mother is hale and hearty, why should you cut open the belly and take the baby out that way? I watched an operation on TV once and, hell, it was cruel: one minute the baby’s inside, the next it’s out in the light. That must be a terrible shock for the child. And for the mother. Birth is a transition and it’s slow. It’s meant to be a way of preparing the mother and the baby. I don’t doubt for a second that it happens in this way for a reason, that there’s some meaning in it. However, like this, you forgo the whole process and everything that is set in motion within the child during that time and which takes place completely outside our control, because it’s simpler to cut open the belly and take out the baby. It’s sick, if you ask me.’

Silence. The mood was broken. Linda looked embarrassed. I gathered that I had unwittingly crossed a line. The situation had to be saved, but as I didn’t know what I had done wrong, it wouldn’t be by me. Instead it was Fredrik.

‘A genuine reactionary Norwegian!’ he said with a smile. ‘And an author on top of that. Hail Hamsun!’

I eyed him in amazement. He winked at me and smiled again. For the rest of the evening he called me Hamsun. Hey, Hamsun, is there any coffee left in the pot? he would say, for example. Or: What do you reckon, Hamsun? Should we move into the country or continue living in towns?

The latter was a topic we often discussed, for not only were we thinking about moving from Stockholm, perhaps to one of the islands along the south or west coast of Norway, but Fredrik and Karin were also toying with the idea, especially Fredrik, who cherished romantic notions of a life on a smallholding in a forest somewhere and would occasionally even show us places for sale they had found on the Net. But the Hamsun twist at the end suddenly cast our motivation in a completely new light. And all because I had said that a Caesarean might not be the best way to give birth to a child.

How was it possible?

After they had gone, effusive with their ‘Thanks for a nice evening’ and ‘We must do this again,’ and after I had tidied the room, cleared the table and switched on the dishwasher I sat up for a bit while Linda and Vanja slept in the bedroom. I wasn’t used to drinking any more, so I could feel the cognac, a warm flame burning behind my thoughts and casting a glow of abandon over them. I wasn’t drunk though. After sitting still on the sofa for half an hour, without thinking about anything special, I went into the kitchen, drank a few glasses of water, took an apple and sat down in front of the computer. When it started I went into Google Earth. Slowly rotated the globe, found the tip of South America and moved gently upwards, first from a great distance, until I saw a fjord cutting into the land mass and zoomed in. A river came down a valley, rugged mountains soared sharply on one bank, on the other the river branched into what appeared to be a wetlands area. Further out, by the edge of the fjord, lay a town, Rio Gallegos. The streets dividing it into blocks were as straight as a ruler. From the size of the cars I concluded the buildings were low. Most of them had flat roofs. Broad streets, low buildings, flat roofs: the province. The habitations became more and more sparse closer to the sea. The beaches seemed abandoned with the exception of some harbour areas. I zoomed out again and saw the green gleam of scattered patches of shallow water off the shoreline and the dark blue where it was deeper. The clouds hanging over the surface of the sea. Then I continued up the coast of this desolate countryside, which must have been Patagonia, and stopped by another town, Puerto Deseado. It was small and had something desert-like and golden about it. There was a mountain in the centre, with very few buildings, and there were two lakes, which looked dead. By the sea was a refinery plant with quays alongside huge tankers. The countryside around the town consisted of tall unoccupied vegetation-less mountains, the odd narrow road winding inwards, a lake or two, a valley or two with rivers, trees and houses. I moved away again and zoomed in on Buenos Aires on the Rio Plata opposite Montevideo, chose a place by the coastline and focused on the airport. The planes stood close to the terminal like a flock of white birds, a stone’s throw from the water, which was bordered by a tree-lined road. I followed it and arrived at what seemed like three enormous swimming pools in the middle of a park. What could it be? I zoomed in closer. Aha! An aqua park! Beyond, I knew, on the other side of the road in the great open space it traversed was the River Plate Stadium. The width of it was striking, there was not only a running track around the pitch, outside it on two sides were also two semicircles of turf before the towering stands. The World Cup final between Holland and Argentina, which was played here in 1978, was one of the first I could remember seeing on TV. All the white confetti, the huge crowd, Argentina’s blue and white striped shirts and Holland’s orange against the green of the grass. Holland, who lost a second final in a row. Then I came out again, found the river a bit further up and followed it downwards. Heavy industry on both sides, docks with cranes and big ships, crossed by road and rail bridges. Several football pitches here too. Where the river flowed into the centre of town the boats appeared to be more for pleasure. Behind it was the district with all the colourful timber buildings, I knew that. La Boca. Beneath it an eight-lane motorway crossed the river, and I followed that instead. It bordered the harbour for a while. Great barges on both sides. Perhaps ten blocks further was the city centre with its parks, monuments and magnificent buildings. I zoomed in on where the Teatro Cervantes ought to be, but the image resolution was too poor, everything blurred into contourless green and grey, so I switched off, had a final glass of water in the kitchen, went to the bedroom and lay down beside Linda.