Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

Us two? said my smile. Are you joking?

No.

No?

Come here and let’s see what happens.

You look terrific.

You too.

Us two?

Yes.

Yes?

Come on. Then you’ll see.

‘What are you smiling at?’ Yngve said.

‘Nothing special,’ I said. ‘I’m just in a good mood. It all went well with the band and so on.’

‘Yes, it did. It was fun.’

We drank a bit more, Yngve went for a walk around the room, I was alone and she came over.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘I’m glad you’ve come over,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anyone here.’

‘I was surprised to see you here. But that question was soon answered.’

She looked down and pursed her lips for an instant, then looked up and smiled.

‘I was hoping you would be here,’ I said.

‘Were you?’ she said. ‘Did you know I was in media?’

‘Yes, but that’s all I know about you.’

‘Sounds like I have you at a disadvantage,’ she said. ‘I know quite a lot about you, you see.’

Yngve came back.

‘You’re so like Karl Ove,’ Tonje said. ‘I guessed you were his brother as soon as I saw you.’

She stayed with us for a while, Yngve did most of the talking, as on the first occasion, but all the tension was between us two.

‘You’re not going soon, are you?’ she said, looking at me as she went to rejoin her friends again.

‘No,’ I said.

I watched her go. Her back was straight, her neck long and elegant, half-covered by hair, which was collected in a plait. At the radio station she would often hide in big clothes, as many girls do, wear a military jacket, thick jumper and black boots, but this evening she was wearing a plain black dress which clung to her slim waist and gave her quite a different allure.

‘Hm. You’re a dark horse,’ Yngve said.

‘Eh?’ I said.

‘You didn’t say there was anything between you when I asked you who she was.’

‘There wasn’t. We’d just exchanged a few words.’

‘What’s going on now then?’

‘You know as much as I do.’ I smiled.

Every time our eyes met that evening it was as though everything else was blanked out: Yngve, all the students and lecturers who were there, all the chairs and tables, and not only that, everything in my life, everything that I carried with me, which could be such a burden, was gone. All that existed as we gazed across the room was her and me.

It was odd.

Even odder was that I was completely relaxed. There was nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, I didn’t have to perform, do anything, be someone. I didn’t even have to say anything.

But I did.

We sought each other that evening, she moved around, we exchanged a few words off and on, then we were suddenly standing there alone and chatting, utterly immersed in each other, I saw nothing except her, she shone with such a strong radiance that everything else vanished.

All evening men had made passes at her, the way they do at parties like that, when you have seen one another for a whole semester, in reading rooms and lectures, in the canteen and library, and then you meet, dressed up and primed with drink, ready to grab your opportunity. I saw all of those who wanted to talk to her, but what did she do? She looked up and smiled at me.

When at last it was only us two, Sverre Knudsen came over to our table. He had played in The Aller Værste! and was one of my old heroes, but of course he wasn’t interested in that or me, it was Tonje he had his eye on. He talked and talked in a manic frenzy, he wanted to know all about her, he said, she hesitated, he said he knew who had shot William Nygaard, the CEO of Aschehoug and publisher of Salman Rushdie, he was going to Oslo early tomorrow morning and would reveal the truth, she had to read Dagbladet in two days’ time, it would be there. He said he feared for his own life, he had been followed for several days now because he knew what he knew, but he was too smart for them, he was two steps ahead, he knew Bergen like the back of his hand.

Yngve came over, he wanted to leave. I looked around, he wasn’t the only one, the party was drawing to an end.

Sverre Knudsen wanted to stay longer with Tonje, she laughed and looked at me, it was time to go, would I walk her back?

It was snowing when we got outside.

‘Where do you live?’ I said.

‘I’m living with my mum at the moment,’ she said. ‘Next to Støletorget. Do you know where that is?’

‘Yes. I lived not far from there once.’

We walked down towards Hotel Norge, she was wearing a long black coat, I was wearing my old hairy coat. Hands in my pockets, a couple of metres from her, the mountainside high above us gleaming in the darkness.

‘Do you live at home?’ I said. ‘How old are you actually?’

‘I’m moving out after Christmas. I’ve got a room by the bus station. Behind there,’ she said, pointing.

We walked along by the hotel and into Torgalmenningen, which was deserted and covered with a thin layer of white snow.

‘They’re going to Africa after Christmas. So I have to move.’

‘Africa?’

‘Yes, Mozambique. Mum, her husband and my sister. She’s only ten. It’s going to be tough for her. But she’s looking forward to it.’

‘What about your father? Does he live in Bergen as well?’

‘No, he lives in Molde. I’m going there for Christmas.’

‘Have you got any more brothers and sisters?’

‘Three brothers.’

‘Three brothers?’

‘Yes, anything wrong with that?’

‘Wrong? No-o. It’s just a lot of brothers. And when you say it like that, three brothers, well, I got the feeling they were the kind that look after their sister. That they’re skulking around here somewhere, waiting for us this minute.’

‘Perhaps they are,’ she said. ‘But if so, I’ll tell them you have only good intentions.’

She looked at me and smiled.

‘I do !’ I said.

‘I know,’ she said.

We continued without speaking. Snow was falling. The streets around us were perfectly still. We looked at each other and smiled. Crossed Fisketorget, with the sea beside us, all black. I was happier than I had ever been. Nothing had happened, we had only chatted and now we were walking here, I was two metres from her, with my hands in my coat pockets, that was all. Nonetheless, this was bliss. The snow, the darkness, the light from the Fløybane sign. Tonje walking beside me.

What had happened?

Nothing had happened.

I was the same person. Bergen was the same town.

Yet everything was different.

Something had opened.

What had opened?

I walked beside her in the darkness, up the hill to the funicular railway, along the walls of the old school, up Steinkjellersmauet, and everything I saw, everything I thought, everything I did, even if it was only putting one foot in front of the other, was tinged with hope.

She stopped by the door of a narrow old white timber house.

‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘As you’ve walked such a long way, you could come in, if you like?’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘But we have to be quiet. They’re still asleep.’

She opened the door and we were in a hall. I carefully took off my shoes, followed her up the cramped stairs. By the bend there was a kitchen, but she continued up another floor where there were two rooms, both with sloping ceilings. The rooms looked like they do in home design magazines.

‘It’s lovely here,’ I said.

‘That’s mum’s doing,’ she said. ‘She’s got flair. Can you see that picture over there?’

She pointed to a picture made of fabrics, portraying a choir, with lots of small puppets, all with their own individual expressions.