Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes. Thirty.

Why wasn’t she back?

Something had happened.

Oh no, please don’t say it had. Don’t say it had.

I was close to throwing up.

Then came the sound of footsteps on the stairs, then she came into the kitchen wearing her broadest smile and holding a red pack of Friele coffee in one hand.

‘I met someone I hadn’t seen for yonks,’ she said, unwinding her scarf. ‘Was I away long?’

‘You won’t get permission to be away from me so long again,’ I said.

‘Go with me next time then!’

When midnight approached we walked to my bedsit, Tonje had her things in her rucksack. From my door handle hung a plastic bag. I opened it and looked inside. A pack of coffee and a big bar of chocolate.

‘Who gave you that?’ Tonje said.

‘No idea,’ I said.

Most probably it was one of the girls at the radio station, but I couldn’t say that. And I didn’t know anyway.

‘I can see lots of us are looking after you in Bergen,’ she said.

‘Looks like it,’ I said.

We went in, she showered, came into the room with a towel swathed around her. In her hand she was holding a bottle of L’Oreal children’s shampoo.

‘Is that the shampoo you use?’ I said, pulling her close.

‘Yes, why? It’s the best for my hair.’

‘You’re full of secrets,’ I said.

‘This is a rather small secret, isn’t it?’

Yes, I’d been ill, I said at Student Radio three days later, it had been flu, a bit of a temperature, not so high but enough to stop me working. Tore dropped by in the morning and the mystery of the bag on the door handle was solved, it had been him.

‘Heard you were ill, so I thought I would take you something to cheer you up.’

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hadn’t been ill. But I told him about Tonje, I couldn’t stop myself, I was so full of it.

That evening we went to the cinema and saw True Romance. Afterwards we were going to her place to make waffles, I had the waffle iron in a bag between my feet in the cinema, when we came out it struck me that I was the antithesis of what we had just seen. They had their bags full of weapons, I had a waffle iron. I couldn’t stop laughing.

On Friday we went to Café Opera, it was the first time we had shown our faces to others, we crossed the street hand in hand, stood smooching in the queue as we waited to get in, there were lots of people from the radio station, I saw them talking about us, Tonje and Karl Ove are an item, and I didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to drink, I just wanted to be with her. All the spaces we were in were transformed, they were enhanced with the most fantastic atmospheres, irrespective of their actual appearance, her flat, my bedsit, the small cafés we went to, the streets where we walked.

After two weeks I did something stupid. Yngve was going to a gig at Garage, he rang and wanted me to go with him, I said yes, I’ll ask if Tonje wants to come too, is that OK?

It was OK. We walked there hand in hand, paid, had our hands stamped and went down to the cellar, Yngve was already there. I bought a round of beer for us, we sat at his table, made tentative conversation, they didn’t know each other and for some reason I didn’t have a lot to say.

The band began to play, we moved forward to see them, Yngve and Tonje chatted, he leaned over and spoke in her ear, she nodded and looked up at him, I was happy at first, they were the two most important people in my life, I bought another round, started feeling a bit drunk, squeezed Tonje’s hand, she squeezed back but wasn’t quite present, wasn’t quite where she had been, and something in me turned, I became more and more upset, bought more beer, and when we sat down again I had nothing to say, all the happiness had left me, I drank and stared into the air, smiled at Tonje when she smiled at me, she didn’t notice that anything had changed because Yngve was happy and chatty, and she was happy and chatty, one subject led to the next, they laughed and enjoyed each other’s company.

They enjoyed each other’s company. And why shouldn’t they? Yngve was Yngve, charming, amusing, experienced, in all ways a better man than me.

She laughed at him. He laughed at her.

What was going on?

I felt heavy, I could barely move, I was all black inside. Every glance they exchanged was a stab in my chest.

He was better than me. She knew that now. Why should she have me when she could have him?

Yngve stood up to go to the toilet.

‘What’s the matter, Karl Ove?’ she said.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just thoughtful. So much has happened in the last few days.’

‘It has,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy. You’ve got a nice brother.’

‘Good,’ I said.

But it wouldn’t stop, it just carried on, they chatted as though I didn’t exist, I drank and became more and more desperate. In the end, I thought, fuck all this living hell. To hell with all this fucking shite.

I got up and went upstairs to the toilet. I rested my head against the wall. I saw a smashed beer glass on the floor. I bent down, took a shard, looked at myself in the mirror. I ran the shard down my cheek. A red stripe appeared, some blood trickled off my chin. I wiped away the blood, no more came. I ran the shard down the other cheek, this time as hard as I could. I wiped the blood away with paper, threw it in the toilet, flushed, put the shard behind the waste bin on the floor, went out, sat down at their table.

For some insane reason it was as though what I had done gave me renewed energy. I bought another round of beer, Tonje held my hand and pressed it to her thigh as she kept on chatting, she may have sensed what was on my mind and wanted to comfort me. I drew her hand to me, drank half the bottle in one draught, suddenly I felt an urge to go to the toilet, suddenly all I wanted was to go there and I got up and went again, locked the cubicle door behind me, took the shard of glass and made two long cuts beside the previous ones, and then one across my chin, where the skin was softer and it hurt more. I wiped away the blood, a bit more came, I rinsed my face in cold water, dried it and went back to them.

I smiled at them and said I was so happy that they seemed to like each other. All three of us skål ed.

‘What’s that on your cheek?’ Yngve said. ‘Did you have an accident shaving this morning or what?’

‘Yes, something like that,’ I said.

The room was dark, the place was heaving, and both Tonje and Yngve were drinking and preoccupied with each other, so neither of them saw what I was doing, apart from that once when Yngve made a comment. But he didn’t have enough imagination to suppose that I was cutting myself. I did it for the whole of the rest of the evening, coldly and methodically, every part of my face was covered with cuts and stung more and more, in the end, sitting beside them and drinking, it hurt so much I could have screamed had it not been for the fact that, simultaneously, I enjoyed it. There was a joy in the pain, there was a joy in thinking that I could stand it, that I could stand everything, everything, everything.

‘Let’s go to Café Opera before they close, shall we?’ Yngve said.

‘Good idea,’ Tonje said. I had already stood up, I put on my coat, wrapped the scarf around my neck ensuring that the lower part of my face was covered, pulled my hat over my forehead and went up the stairs ahead of them into Nygårdsgaten. The air was cold and good, it seemed to bite into the cuts as we walked. I was as drunk as I could be, but my gait was steady, my voice — if I could think of anything to say — absolutely as normal.

My mind was empty. Apart from the feeling of triumph at what I had done.