Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

She was asleep, I had been in the kitchen drinking, now I woke her up and said what was on my mind, everything.

‘You’re drunk, Karl Ove,’ she said. ‘You don’t mean what you’re saying. Please say you don’t mean this.’

‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘And now I’m going.’

I opened the window and jumped out. Walked down to the road, under the light May sky, and on to the town, up and down the streets, all dead and still, until I was so tired I started looking for a place to sleep. After a few blocks I found a flat-roofed garage beside a private house, clambered up, lay down and fell asleep.

I was insanely cold when I woke up, it had rained, I was soaked through. Vaguely I remembered what had happened. But not what I had said.

Was it all over now? Was everything ruined?

I sat on the roof, dazed, climbed down a second later so that I wouldn’t be found there and staggered homewards.

They were having breakfast when I arrived. Bendik smiled, Yngve was serious, Gunvor wouldn’t meet my eye and Åse acted as if nothing had happened.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, standing before them. ‘I got too drunk last night.’

‘You can say that again,’ Bendik said.

‘Where have you been?’ Gunvor said.

‘I slept on a roof somewhere in town,’ I said.

‘You’re going to have to stop drinking, Karl Ove,’ Yngve said. ‘We were actually frightened for you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sorry. But now I have to go to bed. I’m on the point of collapse.’

Gunvor and I went out for a chat when I woke up. I said I hadn’t meant any of what I had said, I didn’t know why I had said it, I was two different people, one when I drank and one when I didn’t drink, she knew that, but I love you, I do love you, I said, and although what I had said, which I didn’t even know, never completely vanished but lay between us, we continued to stay together, what we had was precious, especially for me. I decided to cut down on my drinking, that was where the problem lay, but the very next day I was out again, it was the last night, the following day I would be flying back to Norway with Yngve, Bendik and Åse while Gunvor would stay on for a few more weeks, we had arranged that a long time ago, and it felt good, I had outgrown my life here, what had been wonderful before, the vast sky, the windy streets I walked alone, the swimming pools and cafés, the writing at night, our trips out of Rekyavik at the weekend, everything had become infected, in a way, become entangled with the darkness of my inner life, the inadequacy of my soul, and so Bergen, with the job at Sandviken Hospital and its implicit renunciation of responsibility for my own life, appeared attractive.

Gunvor and Åse went home early, and Yngve and Bendik wanted to go too, Yngve almost dragged me, but the bars were still open, it was ridiculous to leave now, you lot head on back, I’ll follow you soon. What are you going to do out alone? Yngve said. I might meet someone I know, I said. Who knows what might happen?

And in fact I did. When I entered Filmbarin there was Einar at the bar. He waved and smiled when he saw me, I went over to him, we drank and chatted until the bar closed an hour later. He knew someone who was having a party, soon we were up in an attic flat somewhere with five or six others, each holding a glass of whisky in our hands.

I lit a cigarette, he leaned forward with a little smile on his lips.

‘Nice short stories,’ he said.

I stared at him.

‘What are you talking about?’ I said.

‘The short stories you wrote. They’re good. You’ve got talent.’

‘How the hell would you know?’ I said, getting up. ‘Have you read them? How …?’

‘I copied them when I was fixing your computer,’ he said. ‘You’ve never wanted to say what you were doing here. I was curious. So when I saw your file I copied it.’

‘Bloody hell!’ I said. ‘You little shit!’

I turned and walked off, down the stairs, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, outside into a backyard, where I was going to hurl the glass against the wall but changed my mind, I wasn’t that drunk, instead I put it down on a small transformer, or whatever it was, a little box that hung on the wall, went into the street, down towards the tiny parliament building and uphill to our flat, where everyone was fast asleep.

After six months on the desolate treeless black island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean the sight of trees below the plane seemed unreal, and when, a few hours later, we were walking through the warm crowded streets of Copenhagen, with lush green parks and avenues, there was a touch of paradise about everything, as though it was too good to be true for the world to be like this.

I had told Yngve the strange story about Einar, he just shook his head and said the little he had seen of him hadn’t been very confidence-inspiring. The fact that he had read my short stories was, strictly speaking, of little importance, and I had rather regretted my reaction by the time I was leaving, perhaps I should have asked him a few questions and got a more comprehensive evaluation of the stories. But that wasn’t the main issue, the main issue was the way he had acquired them and why he had done it.

Who copies other people’s files? And why did he tell me about it?

What did he want with us?

Some problems are geographical, this was one of them. When we walked through the swing doors at Flesland Airport later that evening and emerged in the square where the bus waited, neither Einar nor Iceland was in my thoughts. Late May in Bergen, that was green mountainsides, light evenings, energised people aquiver with life. We couldn’t go home and sleep, we had to go out, the air was warm and bright, all the cafés and restaurants were full, and the first stars were twinkling in the gently darkening sky.

The next afternoon I knocked on Espen’s door. I hadn’t seen him for six months, it felt like a long time, before then we had generally spoken every single day.

I told him a bit about Iceland, he told me a bit about what had happened here: he had taken philosophy this year and done some writing.

‘How’s it going with the manuscript then?’ I said.

‘It’s finished,’ he said.

‘Terrific!’ I said. ‘Have you sent it?’

He nodded.

‘It’s been accepted as well.’

‘Accepted? Are you going to make your debut?’

Green with envy, I stared at him as I squeezed out a smile.

He nodded again.

‘How fantastic!’ I said.

He smiled, fidgeted with the lighter on the wooden board he used as a table.

‘Which publisher?’

‘Oktober. I’ve got a really good editor there. Torleiv Grue.’

‘What’s the title going to be?’

‘ Slow Dance from a Burning House, I think.’

‘Good. That’s a great title. When will it come out? In the autumn?’

‘Yes, probably. There’s still a bit of work to do.’

‘Yes, I’m not at all surprised,’ I said.

In the kitchen the espresso maker stopped hissing. Espen got up and went out, returning with two cups of steaming coffee.

‘What about you?’ he said. ‘Did you get anything written in Iceland?’

‘Bit. Some short stories. They’re not that good, but … at least I was working.’

‘ Vinduet is going to have a debutant issue this autumn,’ he said. ‘I thought of you when I heard. Perhaps you could send one in? I’ve already sent one.’

‘It can’t hurt anyway,’ I said. ‘A rejection in the hand is worth ten publications in the bush.’

‘Ha ha.’

My jealousy burned for an hour, in which time I felt little goodwill, but then it passed, he had always been in a different place from me, had written brilliant things from the first moment I met him, and if there was anyone I knew who deserved this it was him.