Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book One

He walked past me, whistling, onto the forecourt and over to the open garage. I kicked off my shoes and went into the house. It was large and open, built not so many years ago, by Per’s father, as far as I had understood, and you had a view of the river from almost all the rooms. From the hall there was first the kitchen, where Per’s mother was working, she turned her head as I passed, smiled and said hello, then the living room, where Per was sitting with his brother Tom, sister Marit, and best friend Trygve.

“What are you watching?” I asked.

“ Guns of Navarone ,” Per said.

“Been watching it long?”

“No. Half an hour. We can rewind it if you want.”

“Rewind?” said Trygve. “Aw, we don’t want to see the beginning again.”

“But Karl Ove hasn’t seen it,” Per said. “It won’t take long.”

“It won’t take long? It’ll take half an hour,” Trygve said.

Per went to the video player and knelt down.

“You can’t decide that unilaterally,” Tom said.

“Oh?” Per said.

He pressed stop and then REWIND.

Marit got up and headed for the staircase.

“Call me when we’re back to where we were,” she said. Per nodded. The video machine click-clacked a few times while emitting some tiny hydraulic whines until it was ready to start, and the tape began to whir backwards with ever-increasing speed and volume until it came to a stop well before the end, whereafter the last part rotated extremely slowly, in a manner reminiscent of a plane which after flying at breakneck speed through the air approaches the ground at reduced speed and brakes on the runway, and then calmly and carefully taxis toward the terminal building.

“I suppose you were at home with Mommy and Daddy last night?” I said, looking at Trygve.

“Yes?” he said. “And I suppose you went out drinking?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was having a drinky-winky, but I wish we’d stayed at home. We didn’t have a party to go to, so we just trudged around in the storm each lugging a bag of beer bottles. We walked the whole way to Søm. But just wait. Soon it will be your turn to wander around aimlessly with plastic bags at night.”

“Okay,” Per said.

“Oh, this is fun,” Trygve said as the first frames from the film appeared on the screen. Outside, everything was still, as only winter can be. And even though the sky was overcast and gray, the light over the countryside shimmered and was perfectly white. I remember thinking all I wanted to do was sit right there, in a newly built house, in a circle of light in the middle of the forest and be as stupid as I liked.

The next morning Dad drove Mom to the airport. When he returned, the buffer between us was gone, and we resumed the life we had lived all that autumn without further delay. He was back in the flat in the barn, I caught the bus down to Jan Vidar’s house where we plugged into his amplifier and sat around playing for a while until we got sick of that and ambled over to the shop, where nothing happened, ambled back and watched some ski-jumping on TV, played a few records, and talked about girls. At around five I caught the bus back up, Dad met me at the door, asked if he could drive me to town. Great, I said. On the way he suggested dropping in on my grandparents, I was probably hungry, we could eat there.

Grandma stuck her head out of the window as Dad parked the car outside the garage.

“Oh, it’s you!” she said.

A minute later she unlocked the front door.

“Nice to see you again!” she said. “It was lovely at your house.”

She looked at me.

“And you had a good time too, I heard?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Give me a hug then! You’re a big boy now, but you can still give your grandmother a hug, can’t you!”

I leaned forward and felt her dry, wrinkled cheek against mine. She smelled good, of the perfume she had always used.

“Have you eaten?” Dad asked.

“We’ve just had a bite, but I can heat something up for you, that’s no problem. Are you hungry?”

“I think we are, aren’t we?” Dad said, looking at me with a wry smile.

“I am at any rate,” I said.

In my inner ear I heard how that must have sounded to them.

“At any wate.”

We took our jackets off in the hall, I put my boots neatly at the bottom of the open wardrobe, hung my jacket on one of the ancient, chipped golden clothes hangers, Grandma stood by the stairs watching us with that impatience in her body she had always exhibited. One hand passed over her cheek. Her head twisted to one side. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other. Apparently unaffected by these minor adjustments she kept talking to Dad. Asked whether there was as much snow higher up. Whether Mom had left. When she would be back next. Mm, right, she said each time he said anything. Right.

“And what about you, Karl Ove,” she said, focusing on me. “When do you start school again?”

“In two days.”

“That’ll be nice, won’t it.”

“Yes, it will.”

Dad snatched a glance at himself in the mirror. His face was calm, but there was a visible shadow of displeasure in his eyes, they seemed cold and apathetic. He took a step toward Grandma, who turned to climb the stairs, lightly and nimbly. Dad followed, heavy-limbed, and I brought up the rear, eyes fixed on the thick, black hair at the back of his neck.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” Grandad said as we entered the kitchen. He was sitting on a chair by the table, leaning back with legs apart, black suspenders over a white shirt buttoned up to the neck. Over his face hung a lock of hair that he pushed back into place with his hand. From his mouth hung an unlit cigarette.

“How were the roads?” he asked. “Icy?”

“They weren’t so bad,” Dad said. “Worse on New Year’s Eve. And there was no traffic to speak of either.”

“Sit yourselves down,” Grandma said.

“No, then there’s no room for you,” Dad said.

“I’ll stand,” she said. “I have to heat your food up anyway. I sit all day, I do, you know. Come on, sit down!”

Grandad held a lighter to his cigarette and lit up. Puffed a few times, blew smoke into the room.

Grandma switched on the burners, drummed her fingers on the counter and whistled softly, as was her wont.

In a way Dad was too big to sit at the kitchen table, I thought. Not physically, there was plenty of room for him, it was more that he looked out of place. There was something about him, or whatever he radiated, that distanced itself from this table.

He took out a cigarette and lit it.

Would he have fit better in the living room? If we had been eating in there?

Yes, he would. That would have been better.

“So it’s 1985,” I said to break the silence that had already lasted seconds.

“Yes, s’pose it is, my boy,” Grandma said.

“What have you done with your brother?” Grandad said. “Is he back in Bergen?”

“No, he’s still in Arendal,” I said.

“Ah yes,” Grandad said. “He’s become a real Arendal boy, he has.”

“Yes, he doesn’t come by here so often any more,” Grandma said. “We had such fun when he was small.”

She looked at me.

“But you come though.”

“What is it he’s studying now?” Grandad asked.

“Isn’t it political science?” Dad wondered, looking at me.

“No, he’s just started media studies,” I said.

“Don’t you know what your own son’s studying?” Grandad smiled.

“Yes, I do. I know very well,” Dad said. He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray and turned to Grandma. “I think it’ll be ready now, Mother. It doesn’t have to be scalding hot. It must be hot enough by now, don’t you think?”