Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

We spent more and more time discussing the wedding and planning it. It would be at her home in Molde, she wanted it on the island of Hjertøya, and so it would be, I wanted it as small as possible, only the family, she agreed to that as long as we had a party afterwards with everyone we knew.

I rang dad and told him I was getting married. Still he had a hold over me, still not a day passed without my thinking about him, and I had long dreaded this conversation. He had separated from his wife and moved to Østland, but I managed to track him down at grandma’s.

‘I’ve got some good news, Dad,’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ he said.

‘I’m getting married.’

‘Uhuh. Bit young, aren’t you?’

‘No, I want this. You were only twenty when you got married.’

‘Different times. I had to, you know.’

‘We’re getting married in Molde this summer. I’d like you to come of course.’

‘I can do that. Grandma and I will drive up, I imagine. What’s the name of the girl you’re marrying?’

‘Tonje.’

‘Ah, so it’s Tonje, is it. OK, that’s good. But now I have to be off.’

‘All right. Bye.’

‘Bye, Karl Ove.’

The thought of him coming was a concern for me, not only because of his drinking but also the fact that I would see him with mum for the first time since I was sixteen. On the other hand, I wanted him to be present. I was getting married, he was my father, it was important. It was of less concern that Tonje’s family would see the state he was in and he might cause a rumpus.

It was also important that Tonje should meet him. I had told her a lot, but meeting him was quite another matter. What I had told her would have a different meaning then.

A few days later Tore said he was moving to Oslo, he wanted to be there when the book came out, that was where it was all happening. Inger would go with him of course, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone. Tore couldn’t be alone.

‘But what about the band?’ I said. ‘It’s finally beginning to click. You don’t need to move just because you’re making your debut, surely!’

‘We’ve lived in Bergen for so long now,’ he said. ‘It feels as if the town has nothing left to offer.’

‘You don’t say!’ I said. ‘I’ve lived here for seven bloody years!’

‘Anyone would think you’d been forced to live here the way you’re talking. Take Tonje and move to Oslo as well.’

‘I’ll never do that. You can say what you like about Bergen, and perhaps not a lot happens here, but at least it’s not the centre.’

‘No, because the centre’s where it all happens!’

‘Yes, and I don’t want to be there.’

‘Oh, so you’d rather sit on the margins as the unrecognised genius?’

‘Genius? Do me a favour. You go. The cemetery’s full of irreplaceable people, as Einar Førde once said.’

‘What’s up with you today?’

‘I mean what I said. We’ve got something good going with Lemen.’

Tore threw up his arms.

‘C’est la vie,’ he said. ‘I can’t sit on my hands here just because you want me to.’

‘No, basically you’re right about that.’

He handed in his Proust dissertation, gave me his manuscript, which was theoretically ready to be published, I read it, made a few comments which he accepted with gratitude, albeit without acquiescing to them, and one day I saw them off, Tore and Inger, on their way to their new flat in Oslo. I often crossed the mountains to visit Espen, now I could visit Tore as well. My life was here, with Tonje, in Bergen.

Three weeks before the wedding, dad rang. He said he couldn’t come after all. Grandma was poorly, he said, it was a long trip, he couldn’t risk her health.

‘So I can’t make it, Karl Ove,’ he said.

‘But I’m getting married !’

‘I can’t make it, you have to understand that. Grandma’s fragile and … Well, we can’t drive all the way up to Molde now.’

‘You’re my father!’ I said. ‘I’m your son! I’m getting married. You can’t say no.’

I started crying.

‘Yes, I can,’ he said. ‘I’m not coming, and that’s it.’

‘Then you’re just like your own parents,’ I said. ‘They didn’t go to your wedding either. Not to your first, nor to your second. Are you going to do the same to me?’

‘Well, I can’t be bothered to listen to this,’ he said and put down the phone.

I cried as I had never cried before, completely overcome by my feelings, I stood in the middle of the floor, bent double, as wave after wave of sobs racked my body. I couldn’t understand it, I hadn’t realised how important it was for me that he come to the wedding, I’d had no idea, but it certainly had been, I concluded, put on my sunglasses and went to town to walk it off. I cried all the way to the bus station, it was sunny and the streets were crowded with people, I felt excluded from them, I was deep inside myself, and when I had calmed down and was sitting in the café at Hotel Terminus, I understood nothing. Thinking coldly and calmly, I was glad he wouldn’t be there. I had been worried about it actually, in my heart of hearts I hadn’t wanted him there, neither at my wedding nor in my life. Then he said he wasn’t coming to the wedding and I broke down.

Understand that if you can, I thought, worn down by all the crying, in the middle of that beautiful, spacious, almost empty, 1920s café, with a little pot of coffee on the table in front of me, from whose spout at that very moment a droplet fell onto the white cloth, which greedily absorbed it.

We went to Molde a few days later. Even if the wedding wasn’t to be a big affair there was still a lot to be done. Boats to and from the island had to be arranged, the food had to be organised and all the practical details connected with it, I had to write a speech and teach myself to waltz, the two events I dreaded most. I wrapped my arms around a cushion and tried to practise the steps on the sitting-room floor after the others had gone to bed, to the music of Evert Taube, and I was reminded of grandad: it takes all sorts to make a world. Mum had bought my suit, one day we went out in Bergen and found one in olive green. Tonje’s dress, which she loved, was a plain creamy yellow.

The day came, we went down to the function room where the ceremony would take place, I was nervous and thought I had everything under control, but when I met Mård and Ingunn outside and they congratulated me I realised this was not the case, I had nothing under control, because I suddenly started crying. I didn’t understand why, but I summoned all the willpower at my disposal to suppress it.

When we said ‘I do’ to each other we both had tears in our eyes. Afterwards the whole company walked down to the harbour, where the boat was waiting. People snapped photos, the food was served, I made a speech, Yngve, who was my best man, made a speech, Tonje’s father made a speech and mum made a speech. The sun shone, we danced on a terrace outside the reception room, I was both pleased and sad because Tonje was happy and I wasn’t worthy of her.

We went for our honeymoon to England, I insisted on this, she had suggested a hotel by a beach in a hot country, where everything was easy. I wouldn’t have that, so there we were on a bus from London to Cornwall, where I had been as a six-year-old, although I recognised nothing at all. For a week we hopped from village to village along the coast, living in small dirty hotel rooms, apart from one, which was magnificent and as romantic as Tonje had hoped, with a terrace and a view across the sea, champagne waiting for us when we arrived, walks along the wild cliffs, dinner in the restaurant, me in a suit, her in a dress, we were, after all, newly-weds, which the waiters knew, they were very attentive, and I sat blushing and squirming, uncomfortable with all the attention, uncomfortable in the suit, I looked like an idiot, unable to escape the little picture and rise to the bigger one. Tonje, cool and beautiful, didn’t understand this side of me, but she would.