Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

Five o’clock in the afternoon or the morning?

Surely it had to be the afternoon?

I leaned forward and peered through the window. Two kids in waterproofs were kicking a ball to each other in the park on the other side of the street. Afternoon then. I went down to the basement and had a shower, and then, absolutely ravenous, I fried all the eggs I had and put them on six slices of bread, which I bolted down. Followed by a litre of milk with Nesquik.

It felt as though I had seen hell’s gates open.

I wrote all night with the rain beating against the window and drunken night-owls sporadically walking past in the otherwise empty street. In the morning the house filled with the noise of people starting the day, I went back to bed, and when I woke, at around one, it was from a dream in which I had died. I was doing this more and more often, and I was more frightened in these dreams than I had ever been awake. Usually I fell from a great height, but sometimes I drowned. It was as if I was absolutely clear-headed and conscious, as if what happened was real. Now I am going to die, I thought.

I got dressed, ate a few slices of bread and butter and went to Yngve’s.

I rang the bell. One of the girls opened the door.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Yngve’s out. Would you like to come in and wait?

‘Could do,’ I said. ‘Is Per Roger in?’

‘No. He’s been away for several days. Think he’s on a binge.’

I said nothing about having been drinking with him that night, I didn’t want any conversation.

‘You’ll be all right, won’t you?’ she said, and when I nodded she disappeared into her room. I slumped on the sofa, took one of the magazines on the table and flicked through.

After a while I went over to the window and looked out at the grey ocean that was the sky and the red rooftops and white walls that ran down cheek by jowl towards the town centre. For all I knew he might be out until the following day.

The girl came back, she slipped into the kitchen, poked her head out and asked if I wanted a cup of tea.

‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘Incidentally, you don’t know where Yngve is, do you?’

‘No idea. I think he was going to see Ingvild.’

‘Oh yes. Well, that might be a while then,’ I said. The natural consequence of what she said was that I should go. But I didn’t want to. I’ll give him another half an hour, I thought, and went into his room. It was a part of the collective and not as private as it would have been had it been his bedroom in a normal flat, but I still felt a little uneasy at being there. It smelled the same as the flat in Solheimsviken, and the possessions were the same, right down to the white Ikea bedspread. I flicked through his record collection, wondering if I should play some music while I was waiting, but decided that would be taking a liberty, sitting in his room and playing his records when he came home, that wouldn’t look good.

Perhaps it would be best to go home.

I got up and went into the hall. As I bent down to tie my shoelaces the door opened and Yngve stood in front of me with a dripping umbrella in one hand and a Mekka bag in the other.

‘Are you off?’ he said.

‘No, not now,’ I said. ‘Didn’t think you’d be here for a bit.’

He took his purchases into the kitchen, I sat down in the sitting room.

‘I’m going to make an omelette,’ he shouted from inside. ‘Want one?’

‘OK,’ I shouted back.

We ate without speaking, he sat with the remote control in front of him zapping through the sports pages on teletext. Afterwards he made some coffee, the girl came down, Yngve cracked a joke, she laughed, I lit a cigarette and thought I’d better go now, however it was still better sitting here than at home.

‘I’ve finished the music for your lyrics by the way,’ he said. ‘Would you like to hear it?’

I followed him into his room. He hung the guitar strap over his shoulder, switched on the amplifier, adjusted the echo box and strummed a few chords.

‘Ready?’ he said.

I nodded and he began to play, slightly embarrassed. He didn’t sing very well, but that wasn’t the point, I only had to hear how the tune went, nevertheless I still couldn’t watch him as he stood there with his head lowered and the guitar hanging over his hips, singing. But it was catchy, a nice simple pop song.

I told him. He lifted the guitar over his head and put it on the stand.

‘I need some more songs,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you just dash off a few?’

‘I’ll try.’

We went back into the sitting room. He said he was going to a party tomorrow, someone in his department was giving it, a little out of town.

‘Do you feel like coming?’

‘Could do,’ I said. ‘Will Ingvild be going?’

‘Think so, yes.’

I had met them together two or three times. It had been strange, but it had gone well, all three of us pretended nothing had happened, and now that I no longer believed there was a chance of going out with her, I didn’t have any problem talking to her either. Once we had been alone at the same table in Café Opera, the conversation had flowed easily and naturally, she talked about her father and her relationship with him, I listened, she talked about her time at gymnas, and I told her a little about mine, she laughed in the fantastic way she did, when her eyes seemed to burst into laughter. All my feelings for her were intact, she was still the one I wanted, still the one I yearned for, but now that it was impossible, now that there was a definitive obstacle in the way, I was no longer afraid of talking to her. And while at the beginning of their relationship I had avoided them like the plague, I hadn’t wanted to see them at all, yet had started meeting Yngve, though still not her, everything had been turned on its head: now I wanted her to be there or come along when I was with Yngve. I just wanted to see her, just be in the same room as her, be filled with her presence.

I sat up all night penning lyrics for Yngve. It was fun, it was quite different from writing texts to read out at the Academy, this was about thinking up some phrases that sounded good and then finding something that would rhyme. This wasn’t about anything in particular, didn’t have a theme, didn’t go anywhere and it was liberating. It was like doing a crossword.

By three in the morning I had one song ready.

Over My Head

I die in dreams

Nights in blue

Cannot forget

Know we’re through

Howl at the moon

There we lie

Know no bounds

Off we fly

Know it’s all right

Take it as read

Know you can do it

Tho’ it’s over my head

You’re moving on

Why, oh why

You know no bounds

Off you fly

I die in dreams

Nights in blue

No way, it seems

Gone like the dew

Know it’s all right

Take it as read

Know you can do it

Tho’ it’s over my head

When I went to see Yngve the next evening Ingvild was there and I left the lyrics in my jacket pocket, sat down with a beer in my hand instead and casually asked how she was doing. She was wearing the white jumper with the blue stripes and blue jeans. She was both at home and not at home with her surroundings, and I wondered whether she was always like that, split somehow, always with one eye on herself, or was it just here at Yngve’s? They sat beside each other on the sofa but apart. They hadn’t touched each other since I arrived either. Was that because of me? Were they being considerate to me? Or was that how they behaved with each other?

She said everything was going well and she loved being in the collective in Nygårdsgaten. The history of the collective went back to the 1960s, she said, actually Kjartan Fløgstad had lived there once. Now some of Yngve’s friends lived there: Frank from Arendal, an odd character, according to her, and Atle from Kristiansand, as well as two other girls.