Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book One

“Shall we eat first?” Yngve said. “Or go straight to the undertaker’s?”

“May as well jump right in,” I said. “Do you know where it is?”

“Elvegata. Don’t remember the number.”

“Then we’ll have to find the road from the top. Do you know where it starts?”

“No. But just drive. It’ll turn up.”

We stopped at the traffic lights, Yngve bent over the wheel looking in all directions. The lights changed to green, he put the car into gear and slowly followed a small truck with a filthy, gray tarpaulin over the back, still peering to the sides, the truck picked up speed, and when he noticed the gap opening he straightened and accelerated.

“It was down there,” he said, nodding to the right. “We’ll have to go through the tunnel now.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “We just come in from the other side.”

But it did matter. When we emerged from the tunnel and were on the bridge, the studio where I lived was on my right, I saw it from the road, and only a few meters beyond, on the other side of the river, hidden from us, was Grandma’s house where Dad had died the day before.

He was still here in this town, in some cellar somewhere, being handled by strangers, as we sat there in a car on our way to the undertaker’s. He had grown up in the streets we saw around us, and had been walking them until a few days ago. At the same time my memories of the streets were aroused, for over there was the gymnas, there was the neighborhood I walked through every morning and afternoon, so in love it hurt, there was the house where I had been so often alone.

I cried, but it was nothing serious, just a few tears down my cheeks. Yngve didn’t notice until he looked at me. I dismissed them with a wave and was pleased my voice carried as I said: “Take a left there.”

We drove down to Torridalsveien, past the two shale soccer fields where I had trained so hard with the seniors the winter I turned sixteen, past Kjøita and up to the intersection by Østerveien, which we followed over the bridge, then again we bore right, onto Elvegata.

“What number was it?” I said.

Yngve scanned the house numbers as we drove slowly past.

“There it is,” he said. “Now we’ll have to find somewhere to park.”

A black sign with gold lettering hung from the wooden façade on the left. Gunnar had given Yngve the undertaker’s name. It was the company they had used when Grandad died, and for all I knew, it was the one the family had always used. I had been in Africa at the time, on a two-month visit to Tonje’s mother, and hadn’t been told about Grandad until after his funeral. Dad had assumed responsibility for informing me. He never did. But at the funeral he said he had spoken to me and that I had told him I couldn’t come. I would have liked to attend that funeral, and even though it would have been difficult from a practical point of view it would not necessarily have been impossible, and even if it had turned out to be impossible, I would have liked to have been informed of his death when it happened and not three weeks later, when he was already in the ground. I was furious. But what could I do?

Yngve drove down a little side street and pulled up to the curb. We un-buckled our seat belts at precisely the same moment and opened the door at precisely the same moment, and looked at each other with a smile. The air outside was mild but more sultry than in Stavanger, the sky a touch darker. Yngve went to the parking meter, and I lit a cigarette. I hadn’t been to my maternal grandmother’s funeral either. I had been in Florence with Yngve at the time. We had caught the train down and stayed at some random pensione , and since this was before mobile phones were the norm it had been impossible to locate us. It was Asbjørn who told us what had happened, on the evening we arrived home, he sat with us drinking the alcohol we had brought back. So, the only funeral I had attended was my maternal grandfather’s. I had helped to carry the coffin, it was a fine funeral, the cemetery was on a hill overlooking the fjord, the sun was shining, I cried when my mother spoke in the church and, after it was all over and he was in the ground, and when she tarried by the open grave. She stood there alone, head bowed, the grass was green, the fjord far below blue and glassy smooth, the mountain opposite massive, towering and dark, and the earth in the grave shiny black and glistening.

Afterward we had meat broth. Fifty people, guzzling and slurping, there is nothing better for sentimentality than salted meat, or hot soup, for emotional outbursts. Magne, Jon Olav’s father, spoke, but cried so much it was hard to understand what he was saying. Jon Olav made an attempt at a speech in church, but had to give up, he had been so close to his grandfather, and was unable to say a single word.

I took a few steps with stiff legs, looked up the street, which was almost deserted, apart from at the end, where it met the town’s shopping street and from this distance seemed almost black with people. The smoke stung my lungs, as it always did when I hadn’t smoked for a while. A car stopped about fifty meters farther up, and a man alighted. He bent forward and waved to those who had dropped him off. He had dark, curly hair and a bald patch, was probably around the fifty mark, wore light-brown velvet pants and a smart black jacket, narrow, square glasses. I turned away so he couldn’t see my face as he approached, because I had recognized him, it was my Norwegian teacher from the first class at upper secondary, what was his name again? Fjell? Berg? Who cares, I thought, and turned around after he had passed. He had been enthusiastic and warm, but there had also been a sharpness about him, it didn’t surface often, but when it did I had considered it evil. He raised the bag he was holding to check his wristwatch, sped up, and shot round the corner.

“I’ve got to have one, too,” Yngve said, joining me.

“The man who just went past, that was my old teacher,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” Yngve said, lighting a cigarette. “Didn’t he recognize you, or what?”

“I don’t know. I hid my face.”

I flicked the butt away and ransacked my pocket for some chewing gum. Seemed to remember there was some lying loose there. And there was.

“Only got the one,” I said. “Would have given you some otherwise.”

“Sure you would’ve,” he said.

Tears were close, I could feel, and I took a few deep breaths while opening my eyes wide as if to clear them. On a doorstep opposite sat an alcoholic I hadn’t noticed. His head was resting against the wall and he appeared to be asleep. The skin on his face was dark and leathery and covered with cuts. His hair so greasy it had taken on a rasta style. Thick winter jacket, even though the temperature was at least twenty degrees, and a bag of junk next to him. Three gulls stood on the ridge of the roof above him. As I focused on them, one lifted its head back and screamed.

“Well,” Yngve said. “Shall we take the plunge then?”

I nodded.

He flicked his cigarette end away, and we set off.

“Have we got an appointment by the way?” I said.

“No, that’s what we haven’t got,” he said. “But there can’t be such a rush, can there?”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I said.

Between some trees I saw a fleeting glimpse of the river, and as we rounded the corner, all the signs, shop windows and cars in Dronningens gate. Gray tarmac, gray buildings, gray sky.

Yngve opened the door to the undertaker’s and went in. I followed, closed the door behind me, and was met with a kind of waiting room, a sofa, a few chairs and a table along one wall, a counter along the other. The counter was unmanned, and Yngve went over to peer into the room behind, knocked softly on the glass with a knuckle while I remained in the middle of the room. A door in the side wall was ajar, I saw a figure in a black suit passing in the room behind. He looked young, younger than me.