Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

They appeared nervous in the sense that they both radiated a feeling that they would rather not be right here, right now. But in diametrically opposed ways.

‘Welcome to the Writing Academy,’ the tall one said. ‘Ragnar Hovland.’

I shook his hand, said my name.

‘Jon Fosse,’ said the other one, and he said it quickly, in fact, he almost spat it out.

‘Take a seat while we’re waiting,’ Ragnar Hovland said. ‘There’s coffee in the pot, and water in there, if you want it.’

As he said this he alternated his gaze between Nina and me, but once he had finished he looked away. His voice trembled slightly as though he really had to make an effort to say what he did. At the same time he gave an impression of wiliness, as though he knew something no one else knew and then looked away to laugh at us inside.

‘I haven’t read any of your books yet,’ I said, looking at him. ‘But I’ve just been working as a teacher and at the school we used one of your textbooks.’

‘Well, that’s strange,’ he said. ‘I’ve never published any textbooks.’

‘But I saw your name on it,’ I said. ‘I’m absolutely certain. Ragnar Hovland, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is. But, as I said, I haven’t written any textbooks.’

‘But I saw it,’ I said.

He smiled.

‘You can’t have done. Unless of course I have a doppelgänger somewhere.’

‘I’m absolutely positive,’ I said, but realised I wouldn’t get any further with this and put my bag down on a chair, went to the coffee machine, pulled a plastic cup off the low stack and filled it with coffee. I had seen his name, I was pretty sure. Why wouldn’t he admit it? Surely there was no shame in publishing a textbook for schoolchildren? Or was that precisely what it was?

I took a seat, lit a cigarette and pulled over an ashtray. Across the table a dark-haired middle-aged woman sat looking at me. She smiled when I met her eyes.

‘Else Karin,’ she said.

‘Karl Ove,’ I said.

Beside her a girl was reading. She was probably about twenty-five, had long fair hair in a ponytail, it seemed to tauten her face and along with her small straight lips gave her a stern appearance, which the fleeting glance she sent me — in which I sensed a good deal of scepticism — reinforced.

On her other side there was a man of the same age, tall and thin, he had a small head and a big Adam’s apple, and a conspicuously drooping mouth, there was something distinctly formal about him, and conventional.

‘I’m Knut,’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you.’

At the door two more appeared, one had a beard and glasses, a red lumberjack shirt, a light blue windcheater and a pair of brown corduroy trousers. He reminded me of the kind of temp who worked in shops selling second-hand comics or something like that. The other was a girl, quite short, wearing a large black leather jacket, black trousers and a pair of robust black shoes. Her hair was also black, and she tossed her head and stroked back her fringe twice in the short time I was watching them. But her mouth was sensitive, and her eyes were as black as two lumps of coal.

‘Petra,’ she said and pulled a chair back.

‘And my name’s Kjetil,’ he said, and smiled slyly down at the desk.

She blinked twice in quick succession, and her lips drew back over her teeth as though she were snarling.

I didn’t want to gape, so I stared through the large roof windows onto the fjord, there was a dock on the other side containing a great rusting hull of a boat.

The door opened again, a woman of thirty to thirty-five came in, thin with a grey dull appearance, apart from her eyes, which were happy and alive.

I took a sip of coffee and glanced at the dark-haired girl again.

Her face was so attractive, but her aura was hard, almost brutal.

She looked at me, I smiled, she didn’t smile back, and I blushed, stubbed my cigarette out firmly in the ashtray, took my pad and placed it on the desk in front of me.

‘I imagine that’s everyone,’ Ragnar Hovland said, walking to the other end of the room with Jon Fosse, where there was a board on the wall. They sat down.

‘Shall we wait for Sagen?’ Fosse said.

‘We’ll give him a few more minutes,’ Hovland said.

I was definitely the youngest person there, by a fair margin. The average debut age for writers in Norway was a little over thirty, I had read somewhere. I would be a little over twenty. But several of the others were also younger than the average. Petra, the stern girl, Knut, Kjetil. They were all around twenty-five. The dark-haired one might be forty. She dressed like a forty-year-old anyway, wide sleeves and big earrings. But tight trousers. Meticulously drawn eyebrows. And thick lipstick on her narrow lips. What the hell could she write?

And then there was the other one: Nina. There was something nebulous about her face, pale, a lot of skin, dark shadows under her eyes, cascading fair hair. She was probably better at writing; however, how good could she be?

In through the door came a short man who must have been Sagen. He was wearing a blue fur trapper hat, a brown leather jacket, blue shirt and dark brown corduroy trousers. Dark curly hair, a slight paunch.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, opened the door to the right, rummaged around in the room there, re-emerged minus his jacket and hat. Sat down. A little bald patch.

‘Shall we start then?’ he said, looking at the other two. Hovland holding the edge of the chair, Fosse sitting with his arms crossed and looking down with his head turned to the side. Both nodded, and Sagen welcomed us to the course. He told us a little about how the school had come about, it had been his idea, how it had been established, this was the second year, and how it was a privilege to be here, we had been selected from more than seventy applicants, and the lecturers were among the best writers in the country. He handed over to Fosse and Hovland, who told us a bit about the teaching programme. This week we would go through the texts that we had sent in with our applications. Then there would be a section devoted to poetry, followed by one on prose, drama and essays. In between there would be writing periods and guest lecturers. One of them would be here for several of the periods, his name was Øystein Lønn and he would be a kind of main teacher, as well as Hovland and Fosse, that is. In spring there would be a longish period for writing, after which we would submit an extended piece before the end and we would be assessed on that. As regards teaching, the two lecturers would deal with the theory first, and this would be followed by written activities and textual analysis. There would be no history of literature, Jon Fosse said, this was the first time he had spoken, the texts they would go through and discuss would be predominantly recent ones, therefore modernist and postmodernist.

Øystein Lønn, another unknown writer.

I put up my hand.

‘Yes?’ Hovland said.

‘Do you know anything about who the other guest lecturers are?’

‘Yes. Not all the names have been confirmed yet. But Jan Kjærstad and Kjartan Fløgstad are two definites.’

‘Great!’ I said.

‘No women?’ Else Karin said.

‘Yes, of course,’ Hovland said.

‘Perhaps we should do a round of introductions?’ Sagen said. ‘If you say who you are, how old you are and what you write, that sort of thing.’

Else Karin, who started, took her time and looked at everyone around her individually as she spoke. She was thirty-eight, she said, and had published two novels, but she had never had any form of training, this year she hoped to take a step forward. Bjørg, as the dull woman with the lively eyes was called, had also published a novel. None of the others had made their debut yet.