Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book One

“We’re going to die here,” I said.

“Hey!” Jan Vidar shouted. “There’s a bus. It’s an Arendal bus.”

“Are you kidding?” I said, staring up the hill. He wasn’t, for there, around the bend at the top, came a wonderful, tall bus.

“Come on, sling the bottle,” Jan Vidar said. “And smile nicely.”

He stuck out his hand. The bus flashed, stopped, and the door opened.

“Two to Søm,” Jan Vidar said, handing the driver a hundred-krone note. I looked down the aisle. It was dark and completely empty.

“You’ll have to wait to drink that,” the driver said, taking the change from his bag. “Okay?”

“Of course,” Jan Vidar said.

We took a seat in the middle. Jan Vidar leaned back and placed his feet against the panel that shielded the door.

“Aahh, that’s better,” I said. “Nice and warm.”

“Mm,” Jan Vidar concurred.

I bent forward and started to unlace my boots.

“Have you got the address of where we’re going?” I asked.

“Elgstien something or other,” he said. “I know more or less where it is.”

I removed my feet from the boots and rubbed them between my hands. When we came to the small unmanned service station, which had been there for as long as I could remember and had always been a sign that we were approaching Kristiansand and on our way to see my grandparents, I put my feet back, tied the laces, and was finished just as the bus pulled into the Varodd Bridge stop.

“Happy New Year,” Jan Vidar shouted to the driver, before leaping into the darkness after me.

Even though I had driven past on numerous occasions I had never set foot here, except in my dreams. Varodd Bridge was one of the places I dreamt of most. Now and then I just stood at the foot and gazed at the towering mast, or I walked onto it. Then the railing usually disappeared and I had to sit down on the road and try to find something to hold onto, or the bridge suddenly disintegrated and I slid inexorably toward the edge. When I was smaller it was Tromøy Bridge that fulfilled this function in my dreams. Now it had become Varodd Bridge.

“My father was at the opening,” I said, nodding toward the bridge as we crossed the road.

“Lucky him,” Jan Vidar said.

We plodded in silence toward the built-up area. Normally there was a fantastic view from here, you could see Kjevik and the fjord that came into the land on one side and stretched far out to the sea on the other. But tonight everything was as black as the inside of a sack.

“Has the wind dropped a bit?” I asked at some point.

“Seems like it,” Jan Vidar said, turning to me. “Have those beers had any effect, by the way?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing. What a waste.”

As we walked, houses began to appear. Some were empty and dark, some were full of people dressed in party clothes. Here and there people were letting off rockets from verandas. In one place I saw a gaggle of children waving sparklers in the air. My feet were frozen again. I had curled up my fingers in the mitten not holding the bag of bottles, to little effect. Now we would soon be there, according to Jan Vidar, who then stopped in the middle of an intersection.

“Elgstien’s up there,” he pointed. “And up there. And down there, and down there too. Take your pick. Which one shall we take?”

“Are there four roads called Elgstien?”

“Apparently so. But which one should we take? Use your feminine intuition.”

Feminine? Why did he say that? Did he think I was a woman?

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Why do you think I have feminine intuition?”

“Come on, Karl Ove,” he said. “Which way?”

I pointed to the right. We started to walk that way. We were looking for number thirteen. The first house was twenty-three, the next twenty-one, so we were on the right track.

Some minutes later we were standing outside the house. It was a seventies build, and looked a bit run-down. The snow on the path to the front door had not been cleared, not for a long time, judging by the line of knee-deep tracks that wound toward the house.

“What was his name, the boy whose party this is?” I asked as we stood by the door.

“Jan Ronny,” Jan Vidar said, and rang the bell.

“Jan Ronny?” I repeated.

“That’s his name.”

The door opened, it must have been the host standing in front of us. He had short, blond hair, pimples on his cheek and around the top of his nose, wore a gold chain around his neck, black jeans, a cotton lumberjack shirt, and white tennis socks. He smiled and pointed at Jan Vidar’s stomach.

“Jan Vidar!” he said.

“Right first time,” Jan Vidar said.

“And you are. .,” he said, brandishing his finger at me. “Kai Olav!”

“Karl Ove,” I said.

“What the fuck. Come on in! We’ve already started!”

We took off our outdoor clothes in the hall and followed him downstairs to a cellar room, where there were five people. Watching TV. The table in front of them was covered with beer bottles, bowls of chips, packs of cigarettes and tobacco pouches. Øyvind, who was sitting on the sofa with his arms around his girlfriend, Lene, only in the seventh class but still great and so forward you never thought about the age difference, smiled at us as we went in.

“Hi there!” Øyvind said. “Great you could make it!”

He introduced the others. Rune, Jens, and Ellen. Rune was in the ninth class, Jens and Ellen were in the eighth while Jan Ronny, who was Øyvind’s cousin, was at technical school, a budding mechanic. None of them had dressed up. Not so much as a white shirt.

“What are you watching?” Jan Vidar asked, sitting on the sofa and taking out a beer. I leaned against the wall under the low cellar window, which was completely covered by snow on the outside.

“A Bruce Lee film,” Øyvind replied. “It’s almost over. But we’ve got Bachelor Party as well, and a Dirty Harry film. And Jan Ronny’s got a few of his own. What would you like to see? We’re easy.”

Jan Vidar shrugged.

“I’m easy. What do you say, Karl Ove?”

I shrugged.

“Is there a bottle opener around?” I asked.

Øyvind bent forward and took a lighter from the table, tossed it over to me. But I couldn’t open bottles with lighters. Nor could I ask Jan Vidar to open the bottle for me, that was too homo.

I took a bottle from the bag and put the top between my teeth, twisted it so the cap was right over a molar and bit. The cap came off with a hiss.

“Don’t do that!” said Lene.

“It’s fine,” I said.

I downed the beer in one gulp. Apart from all the carbon dioxide filling my stomach with air, which meant I had to swallow the tiny belches that came up, I still didn’t feel anything. And I couldn’t manage another beer in one go.

My feet ached as the warmth began to return.

“Anyone got any liquor?” I asked.

They shook their heads.

“Just beer, I’m afraid,” Øyvind said. “But you can have one if you want.”

“Already got some, thanks,” I said.

Øyvind raised his bottle.

“Clink’n’sink!” he said.

“Clink’n’sink!” the others said, touching bottles. They laughed.

I fished out the pack of cigarettes from the bag and lit up. Pall Mall mild, not exactly the coolest cigarette around and, standing there with the all-white cigarette in my hand — the filter was white too, I regretted not having bought Prince. But my mind had been focused on the party we were going to after twelve, the one that Irene from the class was throwing, and Pall Mall mild would not be too conspicuous there. It was, also, the brand that Yngve smoked. At least it had been the one time I had seen him smoking, one evening in the garden when Mom and Dad had been at Alf’s, Dad’s uncle’s.