Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book One

We had pondered for a while how we were going to get to Søm. Both Jan Vidar’s father and my mother would certainly have offered to give us a ride, which in fact they did as soon as we told them of our plans. But the two bags of beer ruled out that possibility. The solution we arrived at was that Jan Vidar would tell his parents that my mother was taking us while I would say that it was Jan Vidar’s father who was taking us. This was a bit of a risk because our parents did occasionally meet, but the odds on the driver question surfacing in conversation were so minute it was a chance we were prepared to take. Once that was resolved there was just the matter of getting there. Buses didn’t come out here on New Year’s Eve, but we found out that some passed the Timenes intersection about ten kilometers away. So we would have to hitch a ride — if we were lucky a car would take us the whole way, if not, we could catch the bus from there. To avoid questions and suspicion it would all have to happen after the guests had arrived. That is, after seven o’clock. The bus left at ten past eight, so with a bit of luck everything would work out fine.

Getting drunk required careful planning. Alcohol had to be procured safely in advance, a secure place for storage had to be found, transport there and back had to be arranged, and parents had to be avoided when you got home. After the first blissful occasion in Oslo I had therefore got drunk only twice. The second time threatened to go awry. Jan Vidar’s sister Liv had just got engaged to Stig, a soldier she had met in Kjevik, where her and Jan Vidar’s father worked. She wanted to get married young, have children, and be a housewife, a rather unusual dream for a girl of her age, so even though she was only a year older than us, she lived in quite a different world. One Saturday evening the two of them invited us to a little gathering with some of their friends. Since we didn’t have any other plans, we accepted and a few days later were sitting on a sofa in a house somewhere drinking homemade wine and watching TV. It was meant to be a cozy evening at home, there were candles on the table and lasagne was served, and it probably would have been cozy had it not been for the wine, of which there was an immense quantity. I drank, and I became as euphoric as the first time, but on this occasion I had a blackout and remembered nothing between the fifth glass and the moment I woke up in a dark cellar wearing jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt I had never seen before and lying on top of a duvet covered with towels, my own clothes next to me bundled up and spattered with vomit. I could make out a washing machine by the wall, a basket of dirty laundry beside it, a chest freezer by the other wall with some waterproof trousers and jackets on the lid. There was also a pile of crab pots, a landing net, a fishing rod, and a shelf full of tools and junk. I took in these surroundings so new to me in one sweep of the eye, then woke up rested and with a clear head. A door a few strides from my head was ajar, I opened it and walked into the kitchen where Stig and Liv were sitting, hands interlaced and glowing with happiness.

“Hi,” I said.

“Well, if it isn’t Garfield,” Stig said. “How are you?”

“Fine,” I said. “What happened actually?”

“Don’t you remember?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing?”

He laughed. At that moment Jan Vidar came in from the living room.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I said.

He smiled.

“Hi, Garfield,” he said.

“What’s with this Garfield?” I asked.

“Don’t you remember?”

“No. I can’t remember a thing. But I see that I must have thrown up.”

“We were watching TV. A Garfield cartoon. Then you got up and beat your chest and shouted ‘I’m Garfield.’ Then you sat down again and chuckled. Then you did it again. ‘I’m Garfield! I’m Garfield!’ Then you threw up. In the living room. On the carpet. And then you were out like a light. Bang. Thud. Sound asleep. In a pool of vomit. And it was absolutely impossible to communicate with you.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Stig said. “The carpet’s washable. Now we have to get you two home.”

It was only then that fear gripped me.

“What’s the time?” I asked.

“Almost one.”

“No later? Oh, well, that’s okay. I said I would be at home by one. I’ll just be a few minutes late.”

Stig didn’t drink, and we followed him down to the car, got in, Jan Vidar in the front, me in the back.

“Do you really not remember anything?” Jan Vidar asked me as we drove off.

“No, I don’t, nothing at all.”

That made me proud. The whole story, what I had said and what I had done, even the vomiting, made me feel proud. It was close to the person I wanted to be. But when Stig stopped the car by the mailboxes and I walked up the dark driveway clad in someone else’s clothes, with my own in a bag hanging from my wrist, I was scared.

Please let them be in bed. Please let them be in bed.

And it looked as if they were. The kitchen lights were off at any rate, and that was always the last thing they did before going to bed. But when I opened the door and tiptoed into the hall, I could hear their voices. They were upstairs on the sofa by the TV chatting. They never did that.

Were they waiting for me? Were they checking up on me? My father was the type to smell my breath. His parents had done that, they laughed about it now, but I bet he hadn’t at the time.

It would have been impossible to sneak past them, the top of the stairs was right next to them. May as well face the music.

“Hello?” I said. “Anyone up there?”

“Hello, Karl Ove,” Mom said.

I trudged up the stairs and stopped when I was in their field of vision.

They were sitting beside each other on the sofa, Dad with his arm resting on the side.

“Did you have a nice time?” Mom asked.

Couldn’t she see ?

I couldn’t believe it.

“It was okay,” I said, advancing a few steps. “We watched TV and had some lasagne.”

“Nice,” Mom said.

“But I’m pretty tired,” I said. “Think I’ll hit the hay.”

“You do that,” she said. “We’ll be on our way soon.”

I stood on the floor four meters from them, wearing someone else’s jogging pants, someone else’s sweatshirt, with my own soiled clothes in a plastic bag. And reeking of booze. But they didn’t notice.

“Good night then,” I said.

“Good night,” they said.

And that was that. I didn’t understand how I had managed it; I just accepted my good fortune. I hid the bag of clothes in a cupboard, and the next time I was alone in the house I rinsed them in the bath, hung them up to dry in the bedroom wardrobe, then put them in the laundry basket as usual.

Not a word from anyone.

Drinking was good for me; it set things in motion. And I was thrust into something, a feeling of. . not infinity exactly, but of, well, something unlimited. Something I could go into, deeper and deeper. The feeling was so sharp and distinct.

No bounds. That was what it was, a feeling of boundlessness.

So I was full of anticipation. And even though it had passed off well enough previously I had taken a few precautionary measures this time. I would take a toothbrush and toothpaste with me, and I had bought eucalyptus pastilles, Freshmint, and chewing gum. And I would take an extra shirt.

In the living room below I could hear Dad’s voice. I sat up, stretched my arms over my head, bent them backward, then stretched them out as far as they would go, first one way, then the other. My joints ached, and had all autumn. I was growing. In the ninth-class photograph, taken in late spring, my height was average. Now I was suddenly approaching six two. My great fear was that I would not stop there but just keep growing. There was a boy in the class above me at school who was close to six eight, and as thin as a rake. That I might follow in his shoes was something I imagined with horror several times a day. Now and then I prayed to God, in whom I did not believe, not to let this happen. I didn’t believe in God, but I had prayed to him as a young boy, and doing it now was as if my childlike hope had returned. Dear God, please let me stop growing, I prayed. Let me stay six two, let me reach six two and a half or six three, but no more! I promise to be as good as gold if you do. Dear God, dear God, can you hear me?