Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

During the whole meal I had tried to suss out what exactly the chemistry was between two such good friends when they got together. How long they looked into each other’s eyes when they said anything before breaking off and looking down. What they talked about, how long for and why they had chosen that particular subject. Reminiscing: do you remember the time …? Other friends: did he say this or that? Music: have you heard this or that song, this or that record? Studies? Politics? Something that had just happened, yesterday, last week? When a new topic was broached was it linked to the previous one, did it peel off, so to speak, or was it just plucked out of the air?

But this didn’t mean that I sat silently observing them, I was actively involved throughout, I smiled and made comments, the only thing I didn’t do was embark on long monologues off my own bat, out of the blue, which both Yngve and Asbjørn did.

So what was going on? What was it all about?

First of all, they asked each other almost no questions, which I usually did. Secondly, to a large extent everything was connected, very little came up that was unrelated to what went before. Thirdly, most of it was aimed at making them laugh. Yngve told a story, they laughed at it, Asbjørn picked up the baton and moved the story into hypothetical mode, and if that worked, Yngve built on it until it became wilder and wilder. Their laughter ebbed away, a few seconds passed, Asbjørn recounted something that was closely related, also with the intention of making them laugh, and then it was more or less the same routine. Now and again they did touch on serious matters, in the same way, then they tossed a subject to and fro, sometimes in the form of a debate, all right, yes, but, you may say that, however, no, I’m not with you there, and there might be a pause, which made me fear there was bad blood between them, until a new story, anecdote or piece of banter emerged.

I was always especially vigilant with regard to Yngve, it was important for me that he didn’t say anything stupid or display any form of ignorance, thus appearing inferior to Asbjørn, but that wasn’t the case, they were on a level footing, and that pleased me.

Both replete and content, I walked uphill from the centre with a bag of records dangling from each hand, and it was only when I was almost home and saw a police car slowly driving past that I remembered the young murderer. If the police were still looking for him, well, he would be in hiding somewhere in the town. Imagine how frightened he must be. Imagine how insanely frightened he must be. And horrified by what he had done. He had killed another human being, stabbed a knife into another person’s body, who fell to the ground dead. For what? a voice must be shouting in his head. For what? For what? A wallet, a few hundred-krone notes, nothing. Oh, how terrible he must feel.

When I had got myself ready to meet Ingvild it was only a few minutes past five, and so to kill the remaining time I went down to Morten’s and knocked on his door.

‘Come in!’ he yelled from inside.

I opened the door. Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, he turned down the stereo.

‘Hello, sir,’ he said.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Why of course, grab a seat.’

The white brick walls were high with two narrow rectangular almost opaque skylights as windows at the top. The room was spartanly furnished, if not bare: a box bed, also white, with a brown mattress upholstered in a kind of corduroy and large brown cushions made of the same material. A table in front and a chair on the other side, both the sort you find at flea markets and in second-hand shops, 1950s style. A stereo, some books, of which the fat red Norwegian Law was the most prominent.

He sat down on the bed with two of the large cushions behind him and appeared more relaxed than I had seen him before.

‘One week at bloody Høyden behind me,’ he said. ‘Out of how many? Three hundred and fifty?’

‘It’s better to count days in that case,’ I said. ‘Then you’ve already done five.’

‘Ha ha ha! That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard! In which case, there are two and a half thousand to go!’

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘If you think in years, you’ve only got seven left. On the other hand, you haven’t done a thousandth yet.’

‘Or a millionth, as someone in my class once said,’ he said. ‘Sit down, monsieur! Are you going out tonight or what?’

‘How do you mean?’ I said, sitting down.

‘You look like you are. So well groomed, sort of.’

‘Yes, but I have to be. I’m meeting Ingvild. In fact, it’s the first time.’

‘First time. Did you find her in a lonely-heart ad, eh? Ha ha ha!’

‘I met her once this spring, in Førde, for half an hour or so. I was completely sold on her. Since then I’ve hardly thought about anything else. But we’ve been writing to each other.’

‘I see,’ he said, and leaned across the table, knocked a cigarette packet back towards him, opened it and tapped out a cigarette.

‘Want one?’

‘Why not? My tobacco’s upstairs. But you can have a roll-up from me some other time.’

‘I moved here to get away from people who smoke rollies,’ he said, throwing me the packet.

‘Where are you from?’ I said.

‘Sigdal. A little dump in Østland. All forest and misery. That’s where they make the kitchens, you know. Sigdal Kitchens. We’re proud of that, we are.’

He lit up and ran his hand quickly through his hair.

‘Is it good or bad to look well groomed?’ I said.

‘It’s good, of course,’ he said. ‘You’re going on a date. You have to doll yourself up a bit.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And you’re from Sørland?’ he said.

‘Yes. I come from a little dump down there. Or rather a shithole.’

‘If you come from Shithole, I come from Shiteham.’

‘Shit and shite are quite alike, if you don’t like shit you won’t like shite,’ I said.

‘Ha ha! What was that again?’

‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘I just made it up.’

‘Oh yes, you’re a writer,’ he said as he leaned back against the cushions on the bed, put one foot on the mattress and blew smoke up to the ceiling.

‘What was your childhood like?’ he said.

‘My childhood?’

‘Yes, when you were a young boy. What was it like?’

I shrugged. ‘Don’t know. I howled a lot, I remember.’

‘Howled a lot?’ he said, and then had a fit of hysterics. It was contagious, I laughed too, although I didn’t really know what he was laughing at.

‘Ha ha ha! Howled?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ I said. ‘I did.’

‘How?’ he said, sitting up. ‘OOOOOOUUUU! Like that, was it?’

‘No, howled as in blubbered. Or cried, if you want it in plain language.’

‘Oh, you cried a lot as a child! I thought you howled and yelled!’

‘Ha ha ha!’

‘Ha ha ha!’

After we had finished laughing there was a pause. I stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray, crossed my legs.

‘I went around on my own a lot when I was a kid,’ he said. ‘And I longed to get away from ungdomskole and gymnas. So it’s fantastic to be here, basically, in my own bedsit, even though it looks terrible.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘But I’m nervous about studying law. I’m not sure it’s really up my street.’

‘You only started on Monday, didn’t you? Isn’t it a bit early to say?’

‘Maybe.’

A door slammed outside.

‘That’s Rune,’ Morten said. ‘He’s always taking showers. An unbelievably hygienic person, you have to say.’

He laughed again.

I got up.

‘I’m meeting her at seven,’ I said. ‘And I’ve got a few things to do first. Are you going out this evening?’