Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

I would never talk to him again. I couldn’t leave until tomorrow morning, so I would see him, and I would see him in Bergen, that was inevitable, sooner or later I would bump into him, the town wasn’t that big, but I wouldn’t say anything then, nor here, I wouldn’t say a word to him ever again.

I walked to the end of the valley, to where the waterfall plunged down the mountainside and the river flowed beneath the road, saw the faint glint of water as it hit the rocks and the pool at the bottom, it seemed almost obscene, water in the water, in the pouring rain, what was more, and then I made my way back. My trousers were wet and I was frozen, and there was nothing good waiting for me in the house.

Had they slept together?

Everything in me seized up. I stopped.

Yngve had slept with her.

When he left here he would go home and sleep with her again.

Stroke her breasts, kiss her on the mouth, pull down her panties, penetrate her.

My heart was pounding wildly, as though I’d been running.

She called his name, whispered his name, kissed him, spread her legs for him.

I started off again.

She would ask how it had gone, what I had said. He would tell her. I was the ‘him’ they talked about. The little brother. The naïve little brother who sat in his room waiting for her, who thought she wanted him while she was out partying with Yngve, fucking at Yngve’s place. Just that, the fact that she spent the night at his place and in the morning showered in the bathroom there, sat down and had breakfast there, with a growing sense that it was normal and her due.

She caressed him, she must have done that, she looked into his eyes, she must have done that, she said she loved him, she must have done that, this wasn’t me being paranoid, this is what happened. It happened every day.

The little house on the hill shone before me, the darkness profound, almost impenetrable on all sides.

I would never be a part of his life again. I would never visit him wherever he lived. I wouldn’t give a damn about him in a way that I had never done with anyone else before. If he thought everything would be as it was between us, that I would ever tolerate this, then he had another think coming.

Now it was all about getting through the evening. He was here, I couldn’t avoid him, but it didn’t matter, I would ignore him, and that was good because then he would believe it was just something I was doing now and eventually everything would go back to normal, only later would he realise that in fact I would never speak to him again.

I opened the front door and went into the hallway, hung up my jacket, darted up to my room and changed my trousers, dried my face on a towel in the bathroom, then went down to the ground floor and into the sitting room, where they were watching TV.

Yngve wasn’t there. I looked at mum.

‘Where’s Yngve?’ I said.

‘He’s gone to see Kjartan,’ mum said.

I sat down.

‘What’s going on?’ mum said.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘Something is going on, I can see,’ mum said.

‘Do you remember me saying I was in love?’ I said.

‘Yes, of course,’ mum said.

‘Yngve’s going out with her,’ I said. ‘He’s just told me.’

Mum took a deep breath and sighed as she looked at me.

‘Well, it’s not my doing,’ I said.

‘You mustn’t fall out,’ she said. ‘It’ll pass, Karl Ove. It’s bad now but it’ll pass.’

‘Yes, it might,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t mean I ever want anything to do with him again.’

She got up.

‘I’ve made some supper,’ she said. ‘Can you set the table?’

‘All right.’

I carried in cups and plates, bread and butter, salmon and scrambled eggs, a selection of meats and cheese, a pot of tea and milk. Once I had finished mum asked me if I could fetch Yngve. I looked at her.

‘OK,’ I said. I slipped on my shoes and walked the few metres down the yard to the other door. Perhaps he would think everything was as it was when I arrived and he was welcome to think that.

I opened the door, entered the hall, went over to the stairs. Music was on loud upstairs. I took a few steps up, enough to see the sitting room. Yngve was sitting in a chair staring into the air. He hadn’t heard me. I could have shouted, but I didn’t because, to my horror, I saw tears running down his cheeks.

Was he crying?

I quietly went back down, out of sight. Stood for a moment in the hall, silent. That was the first time I had seen him crying since he was a little boy.

But why was he crying?

I stuffed my feet into my shoes, closed the door carefully behind me and shuffled across the yard.

‘He’s coming,’ I said as I went into the sitting room. ‘He said we should start away.’

Early the next morning mum drove me to the ferry in Rysjedalsvika. The boat was fairly empty when it arrived, I sat down in the same seat I’d had on the way over. The weather had eased a little during the night, the sky was still overcast, but the cloud cover was lighter and it wasn’t raining any more. The boat sliced through the heavy grey water at a strangely fast pace beneath the tall motionless overarching mountains between which the fjord lay.

I had gone to bed before Yngve returned in the evening and was up before he woke in the morning, so I hadn’t seen him since briefly catching sight of him in the chair at Kjartan’s, but I had heard him, his voice from the floor below as I was trying to sleep and his footsteps up the stairs to his room on his way to bed. Being under the same roof as him was unbearable, I seemed to burn inside, all I could think of was that he would regret what he had done.

Now, surrounded by light in a boat in the middle of the fjord, on my way home, everything seemed different. Now it was her I thought about. She had allowed herself to be taken in by him, to be blinded by his surface charm and had said yes. She didn’t realise I was better than him. She had no idea. But she would find out. And what then? Would I be there for her? Or would I let her go her own way?

Could I go out with her after she had been with Yngve?

Oh yes.

If she wanted to be with me, I would.

There was nothing to say I had to remain in Bergen after this year and nothing to say she had to, if they broke up.

I went to the back, to the snack bar, and ordered a coffee, took it with me up onto the deck and sat down on a bench under the roof from where I could see the forest, which on the way had just been a large deep shadow beneath the mountains, but was now clearly defined beneath the white sky. Dark green, almost black, spruces packed into a dense jagged area with the odd deciduous tree luminous in its autumn-yellow colours.

I caught a taxi home from the ferry quay, after all that had happened I deserved that. However, being back in my bedsit, surrounded by all my possessions, didn’t feel as good as I had imagined because this was where I had waited for her, day in, day out, and now, knowing what I did, that she had never been on the point of coming up to see me but had been with Yngve, I could see with total clarity how foolish I had been. All the fine thoughts I’d had about her, the whole dream I had built up around her appeared immeasurably naïve now that I knew how the land actually lay, what had actually gone on.

Yngve knew how I had felt, he knew that I was waiting at home, hoping, while he was meeting her and going out with her. Was that part of the thrill? I wondered. Having me sitting here like an idiot and looking out of the window?

I couldn’t stay in my room, so I put on my jacket and went out, but where could I go? It was Sunday, all the shops were closed and I didn’t want to sit on my own in the cafés that were open.