Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book One

No. There was nothing here.

Slowly I began to walk toward the newsstand.

Dad had talked about suicide several times, but always as a generality, as a conversation topic. He thought suicide statistics lied, and that many, perhaps nearly all, car accidents with a single occupant were camouflaged suicides. He mentioned it more than once, that it was common for people to drive a car into the side of a mountain or an oncoming truck to avoid the disgrace of a blatant suicide. It was at this time he and Unni had moved to Sørland after having lived in northern Norway for such a long time, and they were still together. Dad’s skin was close to black from all the sun he had absorbed, and he was as fat as a barrel. He lay on a sunbed in the garden behind the house and drank, he sat on the veranda in front of the house and drank, and in the evenings he would be drunk and drifting, he stood in the kitchen in no more than his shorts, frying chops, that was all I ever saw him eat, no potatoes, no vegetables, just blackened chops. During one such evening he said that Jens Bjørneboe, the Kristiansand author, had hung himself by the feet, that was how he had committed suicide, hanging upside down from the rafters. The impossibility of this procedure — for how could he have managed that on his own in the house in Veierland? — never struck either him or me. The most considerate method would be, he said, to go to a hotel, write a letter to the hospital saying where you could be found, and then drink spirits and take pills, lie down on the bed, and go to sleep. It was incredible that I had never interpreted this topic of conversation as anything except conversation, I thought now, as I approached the newsstand behind the bus stop, but that was how it had been. He had imprinted his image of himself in me so firmly that I never saw anything else, even when the person he became diverged so widely from the person he had been, both in terms of physiognomy and character, that any similarities were barely visible any longer, it was always the person he had been with whom I engaged.

I climbed the wooden steps and opened the door to the newsstand, which was empty except for the assistant, took a newspaper from the stand by the till, slid open the glass door of the freezer compartment, took out a Coke, and placed both on the counter.

“ Dagbladet and a Coke,” the assistant said, lifting them for the bar code scanner. “Was there anything else?”

He didn’t make eye contact when he said that, he must have seen me crying as I came in.

“No,” I said. “That’s all.”

I pulled a creased note from my pocket and examined it. Fifty kroner. I smoothed it before passing it to him.

“Thank you,” he said. He had thick, blond hair on his arms, wore a white Adidas T-shirt, blue jogging pants, probably Adidas as well, and did not look like someone who worked in a newsstand, more like a friend who had taken over for a few minutes. I grabbed my things and turned to leave as two ten-year-old boys came in with their money poised in their hands. Their bikes were thrown carelessly against the steps outside. A stretch of cars in both lanes began to move. I had to call Mom this evening. And Tonje. I walked along the sidewalk, crossed at the narrow pedestrian crossing down from the newsstand and was back in Kuholmsveien. Of course the funeral should be held there. In. . six days. By then everything ought to be ready. By that time we should have put an advertisement in the newspaper, planned the funeral, invited guests, restored the house, come to terms with the worst aspects of the garden and organized the catering. If we got up early and went to bed late, and did nothing else, it should be feasible. It was just a question of getting Yngve on board. And Gunnar, of course. He might not have much of a say in the funeral, but he did as far as the house was concerned. But, hell, it should be fine. He would understand the reasons.

When I went into the kitchen Yngve was cleaning the stove with steel wool. Grandma was sitting in the chair. There was a splash of what would have to be pee on the floor below it.

“Here’s your Coke,” I said. “I’ll put it on the table.”

“Fine,” he said.

“What have you got in that bag?” Grandma said, eyeing the paper bag from the pharmacy.

“It’s for you,” I said. “My father-in-law’s a doctor and when I described what had happened here he prescribed you some sedatives. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. After all you’ve been through.”

I took the square cardboard box from the bag, opened it, and removed the plastic container.

“What does it say?” Grandma said.

“One tablet to be taken once morning and night,” I said. “Do you want one now?”

“Yes, if the doctor said so,” Grandma said. I passed her the container, and she opened it and shook out a tablet. She looked around the table.

“I’ll get you some water,” I said.

“No need,” she said, placing the tablet on her tongue, raising the cup of cold coffee to her mouth, jerking back and swallowing.

“Ugh,” she said.

I put the newspaper on the table and glanced at Yngve, who had resumed scouring.

“It’s good you’re here, boys,” Grandma said. “But don’t you want to take a break, Yngve? You don’t have to kill yourself working.”

“That might not be such a bad idea,” Yngve said, and removed the gloves, hung them over the oven handle, wiped his fingers over his T-shirt a few times, and sat down.

“I wonder if I should start on the downstairs bathroom,” I said.

“It might be better to stick to the same floor,” Yngve said. “Then we’ll have some company along the way.”

I inferred he didn’t want to be alone with Grandma, and nodded.

“I’ll take the living room then,” I said.

“What hard workers you are,” Grandma said. “It’s not necessary, you know.”

Why did she say that? Was she ashamed of the way the house looked and the fact that she had not managed to keep it in order? Or was it that she didn’t want us to leave her alone?

“A bit of cleaning doesn’t do any harm,” I said.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” she said. Then she glanced at Yngve.

“Have you contacted the undertaker’s yet?”

A chill went down my spine.

Had she been so clear-headed the whole time?

Yngve nodded.

“We dropped by this morning. Everything’s in hand.”

“That’s good.” She sat quite still, immersed in herself, for a moment, then continued.

“I didn’t know if he was dead or not when I saw him. I was on my way to bed, I said good night, and he didn’t answer. He was sitting in the chair in there, as he always did. And then he was dead. His face was white.”

I met Yngve’s eyes.

“You were going to bed ?” he said.

“Yes, we’d been watching TV all evening,” she said. “And he didn’t move when I got up to go downstairs.”

“Was it dark outside? Do you remember?” Yngve asked.

“Yes, I think so,” she said.

I was close to retching.

“But when you called Gunnar,” Yngve said, “that was in the morning, wasn’t it? Can you remember?”

“It might have been in the morning,” she said. “Now that you say so. Yes, it was. I went upstairs and there he was, in the chair. In there.”

She got to her feet and left the kitchen. We followed. She stopped halfway into the living room and pointed to the chair in front of the television.

“That’s where he was sitting,” she said. “That’s where he died.”

She covered her face with her hands for an instant. Then she walked quickly back to the kitchen.

Nothing could bridge this. It was impossible to deal with. I could fill the bucket with water and start washing, and I could clean the whole damned house, but it would not help an iota, of course it wouldn’t, nor would the idea that we should reclaim the house and hold the funeral here, there was nothing I could do that would help, there was nowhere I could escape to, nothing that could protect me from this.