Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

But Asbjørn seemed to like it. He blew on the black-brown surface and took a sip, put the cup down on the saucer and looked out of the window.

‘Have you read anything by Jon Fosse?’ I said, looking at him.

‘No, is he good?’

‘No idea. He’s one of the teachers too.’

‘He writes novels, I know,’ Asbjørn said. ‘He’s a modernist. A Vestland modernist.’

‘Why don’t you ask me if I’ve read anything by Jon Fosse?’ Yngve said. ‘I read books too, you know.’

‘I haven’t heard you mention him, so I concluded you hadn’t,’ I said. ‘But you have?’

‘No,’ Yngve said. ‘But I might have done.’

Asbjørn laughed.

‘You two are brothers and no mistake!’

Yngve took out his cigarette holder and lit up.

‘You haven’t given up on the David Sylvian poses yet, I see,’ Asbjørn said.

Yngve just shook his head and slowly blew smoke across the table.

‘I was looking for some Sylvian glasses, but my frame of mind changed when I heard the price.’

‘Dear God, Yngve,’ Asbjørn said. ‘That’s the worst joke yet. And that’s saying something.’

‘Yes, I hold up my hands.’ Yngve laughed. ‘But out of ten puns maybe one or two work well. The problem is you have to go through all the bad ones to get to the really good ones.’

Asbjørn turned to me.

‘You should’ve seen Yngve when he joked the tiny rural airstrip in Jølster would have to be called Astrup International Airport. After our famous local artist. He laughed so much he had to leave the room!’

‘Well, it was a good ’un,’ Yngve said, starting to laugh. Asbjørn laughed as well. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, he stopped and for a moment sat completely still. Took out his pack of cigarettes, he smoked Winston, I noticed, lit one and emptied his cup of espresso with his second sip.

‘Is Ola in town, do you know?’ he said.

‘Yes, he’s been here some time,’ Yngve said.

They began to talk shop. I had never heard of most of the names they mentioned, I knew nothing about media studies, so I couldn’t join in, not even when they touched on films and bands I knew. It almost developed into an argument. Yngve thought there was nothing that was genuine per se, everything was in some way a pose, even Bruce Springsteen’s image, which he used as an example. His naturalness was as affected and carefully studied as the eccentricity and posturing of David Sylvian or David Bowie. Of course, Asbjørn said, you’re absolutely right, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there can be no genuine expression, does it? Who then? Give me an example, Yngve said. Hank Williams, Asbjørn suggested. Hank Williams! Yngve snorted. He’s surrounded by myths, that’s all there is to him. What sort of myths? Country music myths, Yngve protested. Oh my God, Yngve, Asbjørn said.

Yngve glanced over at me.

‘It’s the same in literature. There’s no difference between pulp fiction and highbrow fiction, one is as good as the other, the only difference is the aura they have, and that’s determined by the people who read the stuff, not by the book itself. There’s no such thing as “the book itself”.’

I hadn’t thought about any of this before, and I said nothing.

‘What about comic books then?’ Asbjørn said. ‘Is Donald Duck just as good as James Joyce?’

‘In principle, yes.’

Asbjørn laughed and Yngve smiled.

‘But in all honesty,’ Yngve said ‘it’s the reception that defines a work or an artist, and that’s what artists play on of course. Irrespective of whether they enjoy high or low status, everything is a pose.’

‘You work as a receptionist, so you ought to know about reception, ’ Asbjørn said.

‘And the seams on your Doc Martens, by the way, they aren’t real, they just seem to be,’ Yngve said.

They laughed again, and then there was silence. Yngve got up for a newspaper, I did the same, and while we flicked through the pages I was so exhilarated by this scenario, by me sitting with two worldly-wise students in a café in Bergen on a Sunday afternoon and the fact that this wasn’t an exception, wasn’t a visit, I was part of this scenario and belonged here, that I could hardly take in what I was reading.

Half an hour later we left, they were going to see Ola, he lived in one of the streets behind the Grieg Hall, and Yngve asked me if I wanted to string along, but I said no, I had to try and prepare for the following day, while the real reason was that I was so happy it was too much for me and I had to be on my own.

We parted at the end of Torgalmenningen, outside a restaurant called Dickens, they wished me luck, Yngve told me to ring and say how everything had gone, I asked if he could lend me some money, the very last time, he nodded and dug up a fifty-krone note, and then I hurried across the large open square in the middle of the town as the rain gusted down, for even though the sun was still shining on the houses along the mountainside, the sky directly above me was heavy and black.

Back home in my bedsit, I didn’t just take down the poster of John Lennon, I tore it into small pieces and threw them into the waste-paper basket. Then I decided to ring Ingvild and ask if we could meet at the weekend, it was a good opportunity, I was in such a cheerful mood, and it was as though my cheerfulness opened a path to her, because it was her I had been thinking about all the way up the long hills, as though my inner being knew no better way to cope with the excitement after the hour with Yngve and Asbjørn than to counter it with more excitement, of a very different kind it was true, for while the unbearable excitement generated by Yngve and Asbjørn resided in the moment itself, what was happening there and then, the tension and excitement I felt with regard to Ingvild was about what was going to happen at some point in the future, when the tension could actually be released and she would be mine.

Her and me.

The thought that this was indeed a possibility, and not just an illusory dream, exploded inside me.

Outside, the sky was clouding over, the sun could no longer be glimpsed, rain spattered on the road. I ran over to the telephone kiosk, placed the slip of paper with the Fantoft number on top of the coin box, inserted a five-krone piece in the slot, dialled the number and waited. A young man’s voice answered, I asked to speak to Ingvild, he said no one by that name lived there, I said she was moving in soon, maybe she hadn’t done so yet, he said, oh yes, that’s right, one of the rooms is still unoccupied, I apologised for the disturbance, he said it was no problem, and I cradled the receiver.

At around seven the doorbell rang. I went out into the hallway and opened up; it was Jon Olav.

‘Hi!’ I said. ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I rang Yngve. Can I come in?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

I hadn’t seen him since Easter when we had been out in Førde and met Ingvild. He was studying law in Bergen, but I understood from what he said over the next half an hour that he spent most of his time and energy on Young Friends of the Earth. He was the idealistic type, always had been: one summer when we had been staying with grandma and grandad in Sørbøvåg, twelve or thirteen we must have been at the time, I had been leaning over the handlebars of a bike and talking about various girls who lived nearby, one of whom I had described as yukky, quick as a flash he had riposted, think you’re a great catch, do you, eh?

I had cycled back and forth in my embarrassment, and I have always remembered that moment, his consideration for others and willingness to spring to their defence.

We chatted and drank a cup of tea, he asked if I wanted to see his bedsit, it was nearby, of course I did, and off we went, down the hills.