Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

By the time the lights flashed and we drank up, then went downstairs to hang around outside until we were all gathered in a group as always, I was so drunk that I felt as if I were in a tunnel, the sides were all dark, the light was only ahead, wherever I was looking or thinking. I was free.

‘There’s our Kjærstad!’ I said.

‘Pack it in,’ he said. ‘It’s not funny, even if you think it is.’

‘It is quite funny,’ I said. ‘Shall we go now? What are we waiting for?’

Yngve came over to me.

‘Easy now,’ he said.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But let’s go, shall we?’

‘We’re waiting for someone.’

‘Aren’t you pleased it went well?’

‘Of course.’

He turned to the others. I rummaged through my pockets for cigarettes, couldn’t make my lighter work and threw it to the ground.

‘Got a light?’

I asked the guy who resembled Kjærstad, and he nodded, took out a lighter and lit my cigarette, cupping his hand to shield the flame.

I spat and took a drag, looking around me. The girls with us were four, five years older than me, but I was good-looking, surely this wasn’t the first time a twenty-year-old had fucked a twenty-five-year-old?

But I had nothing to say to them, even when I was as drunk as I was now, so there was no hope there. You had to say something first, that much I had learned.

Suddenly they started walking. I followed them, always staying in the middle of the crowd, I saw Yngve’s head bobbing up and down a few metres ahead of me, and the luminous May night with all the smells, the animated voices, all the other people on the streets, my brain was whirring with thoughts of how good this was. I was a student in Bergen, surrounded by other students, we were off to a party, walking through the streets of Høyden towards Nygård Park, which lay still, breathing quietly, in the darkness between all the roads and buildings, it was 1989, I was twenty years old, full of life and energy. And, watching the others walking with me, I thought they weren’t like that, only I was, I rose higher and higher, further and further, while they stayed where they were. Bloody media students. Bloody media twats. Bloody media theorists. What did they know about life? What did they know about what was really important?

Listen to my heart beating.

Listen to my heart beating, you dozy fucking little imbeciles. Listen to it beating!

Look at me. Look at the strength I’ve got!

I could crush every bloody one of them. And it wouldn’t be a problem either. I could just go on and on and on. They could belittle me, they could humiliate me, they always had, but I would never give up, it wasn’t in my make-up, while all the other idiots, who thought they were so bloody clever, they had nothing inside them, they were completely hollow.

The park.

Oh Jesus, the entrance to the park! Oh shit, how beautiful. The dense green foliage, nearly black in the gathering dusk, and the pond. The gravel and the benches.

I took it all in. It became me. I carried it within me.

They stopped, one of them pulled out a bunch of keys from a trouser pocket and opened a door to a detached house on the opposite side of the street from the park.

We went up an old battered staircase, entered an old battered flat. There was a high ceiling, a fireplace in one corner, rag rugs on the wooden floor, 50s furniture bought at the flea market or at Fretex, the Salvation Army shop, a poster of Madonna, a poster of Elvis with a gun that Warhol had done and a poster of the first Godfather film.

We sat down. Spirits and glasses appeared on the table. Yngve sat at the head of the table, I sat at the opposite end, I didn’t like having anyone close to me, as you had if you sat on the sofa.

I drank. More darkness. They discussed, I threw in comments, Yngve sent me occasional glances and I could see he didn’t like what I said or the way I said it. He thought I was showing him up. Let him think that, it wasn’t my problem.

I got up and went to the toilet. I pissed in the sink and laughed at the idea of them putting in the plug, filling the sink with water and washing their faces the following morning.

I went back, poured more whisky, almost everything was dark now.

‘Look at the park!’ I said.

‘What about it?’ someone said.

‘Easy now, Psycho,’ Yngve said.

I dragged myself to my feet, grabbed my glass and hurled it at him as hard as I could. It hit him in the face. He fell forward. Everyone got up screaming, rushed to his side. I stood still for a moment and watched the scene unfolding. Then I went into the hall, put on my shoes and jacket and staggered down the stairs, onto the street and into the park. The feeling of finally having acted was strong. I looked up at the sky, which was light and bright and wonderful, and stared into the green darkness of the park, and then I was gone, it was as though I had been switched off.

I woke up on a corridor floor.

It was light, the sun was streaming in through the windows.

I sat up. There were several doors along the corridor. An old lady stood eyeing me, behind her a younger woman, perhaps forty, she was eyeing me too. They didn’t say anything but they looked scared.

I struggled to my feet. I was still drunk, my body leaden. I understood nothing, it was like being in a dream, but I knew that I was conscious and staggered off down the corridor, a hand against the wall every now and then.

There was something about a fire engine. A fire and a fire engine. Wasn’t there?

At the end of the corridor there was a staircase, at the bottom a door with frosted glass in the top part. I went down the stairs, pushed open the door, stopped outside and squinted into the sun.

In front of me was the end wall of the Science Building. To the left was Lille Lungegård Lake.

I turned and looked at the building where I had slept. It was white and made of brick.

A big police car came down the road and turned into the gravel area in front of me as two women came out of the door behind me.

Two officers walked towards me and stopped.

‘I think there’s a fire,’ I said. ‘A fire engine went that way,’ I said, pointing across. ‘It’s not here. It’s further away. It must be.’

‘That’s him,’ said the woman behind me.

‘What are you doing here?’ one policeman said.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I woke up here. But I think you should hurry.’

‘What’s your name?’

I looked at him. I teetered to the side, he put his hand on my shoulder to steady me.

‘What difference does it make what my name is?’ I said. ‘What’s a name?’

‘You’d better come with us,’ he said.

‘In the car?’

‘Yes, come now.’

He put his hand on my arm and led me to the car, pushed open the door, and I got in the back, a large space which I had all to myself.

Now I had experienced this as well. Being driven through the streets of Bergen in a police car.

Had they arrested me?

But it was the end-of-year meal today!

There were no sirens wailing or anything, they drove sedately and stopped at all the traffic lights. They arrived at the police station, grabbed my arm again and led me into the building.

‘I need to make a telephone call,’ I said. ‘It’s important. I should be at a meeting. They have to know I won’t be coming. I have the right to make a call, I know that.’

I was laughing inside, this was just like a film, me, flanked by two policemen, asking to make a telephone call!

And I got my way. They stopped by a phone at the end of the corridor.

I didn’t know the number of the Writing Academy. There was a telephone directory underneath, I tried to look it up and failed.