Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book One

I opened my eyes and turned to look through the window at the table on the edge of the forest. Only four people were there now. Dad, Unni, the person she had called Bodil, and one more. At the back of the lilac bush, out of sight from them, but not from me, a man was peeing while staring across to the river.

Dad raised his head and directed his gaze up at the window. My heart beat faster, but I did not move, for if in fact he had seen me, which was not at all certain, it would be like admitting that I was spying. Instead I waited for a few moments, until I was sure that he had noticed that I had seen him watching, if he had seen that is, then withdrew and sat at my desk.

It was no good spying on Dad, he always noticed, he saw everything, had always seen everything.

I swigged some beer. A cigarette would have been good now. He had never seen me smoking, and perhaps it would become an issue if he did. On the other hand, had he not just told me to help myself to beer?

The desk, my property for as long as I could remember, orange like the bed and the cupboard doors, had been in my old room, was, apart from a rack of cassettes, completely clear. I had cleaned everything up at the end of the school year and had hardly been here, except to sleep. I put down the bottle and whirled the rack around a few times while reading the titles written in my own childish capitals on the spines. BOWIE — HUNKY DORY. LED ZEPPELIN — 1. TALKING HEADS — 77. THE CHAMELEONS — SCRIPT OF THE BRIDGE. THE THE — SOUL MINING. THE STRANGLERS — RATTUS NORVEGICUS. THE POLICE — OUTLANDOS D’AMOUR. TALKING HEADS — REMAIN IN LIGHT. BOWIE — SCARY MONSTERS (And super creeps). ENO BYRNE — MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS. U2 — OCTOBER. THE BEATLES — RUBBER SOUL. SIMPLE MINDS — NEW GOLD DREAM.

I got to my feet, grabbed the guitar leaning against the small Roland Cube amplifier and strummed some chords, put it back, looked out over the garden again. They were still there, under the darkness of the treetops, which the two kerosene lamps did not dispel, but did soften, in that their faces took on the color of the light. Giving them dark, coppery complexions.

Bodil, she must be the daughter of Dad’s father’s second brother, whom I had never met. For some reason he had been banished from the family, long ago. I heard about him by chance for the first time a couple of years ago, there was a wedding in the family, and Mom mentioned that he was also there, and that he made a passionate speech. He was a lay preacher in the Pentecostal Church in town. A mechanic. Everything about him was different from his two brothers, even the name. When they, after consultation with their imposing mother, and upon entering the academic world and university, had decided to change their name from the standard Pedersen to the rather less standard Knausgaard, he had refused. Perhaps that is what caused the break?

I went out of the room and downstairs. As I came into the hall, Dad was in the room with the wardrobes, the light was off and he was staring at me.

“Is that where you are?” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to join us?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course. I’ve just been having a look around.”

“It’s a great party,” he said.

He twisted his neck and patted some hair into place. He had always had that mannerism, but there was something about his shirt and those trousers, which were so profoundly alien to him, that suddenly made it seem effeminate. As though this quirk had detected the conservative, reserved manner in which he had always dressed, and neutralized it.

“Everything alright with you, Karl Ove?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Fine. I’ll come out and join you.”

A gust of wind stirred the air as I emerged. The leaves on the forest edge trembled, almost reluctantly, as if waking from a deep sleep.

Or was it just that he was drunk, I thought. Because I wasn’t used to that either. My father had never been a drinker. The first time I saw him in an inebriated state was one evening only two months before when I visited him and Unni in the flat in Elvegaten, and was served fondue, another thing which he would never have considered remotely possible in his own home on a Friday night. They had been drinking before I arrived, and although he was kindness itself, it was threatening nonetheless; not directly, of course, because, sitting there, I didn’t fear him, but indirectly because I could no longer read him. It was as if all the knowledge I had acquired about him through my childhood, and which enabled me to prepare for any eventuality, was, in one fell swoop, invalid. So what was valid?

As I turned and walked toward the table I caught Unni’s eye, she smiled and I returned the smile. Another gust of wind, stronger this time. The leaves on the tall bushes by the barn steps rustled. The lightest branches of the trees above the table swayed up and down.

“How are you doing?” Unni asked as I went over to them.

“Fine,” I said. “But I’m a bit tired. Think I’ll crash soon.”

“Will you be able to sleep in this racket?”

“Oh, that won’t bother me!”

“Your father spoke so warmly about you this evening,” Bodil said, leaning across the table. I didn’t know what to say, so I just gave a cautious smile.

“Isn’t that right, Unni?”

Unni nodded. She had long, completely gray hair although she was only in her early thirties. Dad had been the supervisor during her teacher training. She was wearing flared green slacks and a similar smocklike affair to the one Dad had on. A necklace of wooden beads hung around her neck.

“We read one of your essays this spring,” she said. “You didn’t know perhaps? I hope you don’t mind that I was allowed to see it. He was so proud of you.”

Impossible. What the hell was she doing reading one of my essays?

But I was also flattered, that went without saying.

“You’re like your grandfather, Karl Ove,” Bodil said.

“My grandfather?”

“Yes. Same shape of head. Same mouth.”

“And you’re Dad’s cousin, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “You’ll have to come and see us one day. We live in Kristiansand too, you know!”

I didn’t know. Before tonight I didn’t even know she existed. I should have said that. But I didn’t. Instead I said that was nice, and asked what she did, and after a while if she had any children. That was what she was talking about when Dad returned. He sat down and looked at her, straining to tune into the topic of conversation, but then he leaned back, one foot resting on his knee, and lit a cigarette.

I got up.

“Are you going to leave now that I’ve come?” he asked.

“No. Just going to get something,” I said. Opened my bag by the doorstep, took out the cigarettes, put one in my mouth on the way back, paused for a second to light up, so that I could already be smoking when I sat down. Dad said nothing. I could see that he had considered saying something, for a twinge of disapproval appeared around his mouth, but after a brief glare it was gone, as though he had told himself he was no longer like that.

That at least was what I thought.

“ Skål ,” Dad said, raising his glass of red wine to us. Then he looked at Bodil, and added: “ Skål to Helene.”

“ Skål to Helene,” Bodil said.

They drank, looking into each other’s eyes.

Who the hell was Helene?

“Haven’t you got anything to toast with, Karl Ove?” Dad asked.

I shook my head.

“Take that glass,” he said. “It’s clean. Isn’t it, Unni?”

She nodded. He passed me the bottle of white wine and poured. We said skål again.

“Who’s Helene?” I asked, looking at them.

“Helene was my sister,” Bodil said. “She’s dead now.”