Karl Knausgaard - Some Rain Must Fall

‘That was lucky,’ I said.

‘Lucky? The police came.’

‘Yes, but they could have fined us or thrown us into the drunks’ cells. Come on.’

‘I’m beginning to get the idea,’ Geir said. ‘You want to go back to Ingvild, don’t you.’

‘Yes, come on.’

He shook his head but came along. I threw pebbles at the window, this time she didn’t open it, and Geir tugged at me, he wanted to go home, I told him he could go, I didn’t feel like going to bed yet. When he left I went over Høyden and down to Møhlenpris, felt some car door handles, sneaked into some backyards looking for unlocked bikes, sat down on a step and smoked, it would soon be morning, the sun was already shining at the edge of the sky. I went to the telephone box behind the football pitch and rang Ingvild’s collective. One of the men answered the phone, I said I wanted to speak to Ingvild, he said, do you know what time it is, she’s asleep, everyone’s asleep, you can’t call in the middle of the night, now I’m ringing off. I smacked the receiver a few times against the top of the coin box, but it didn’t break and I opened the door and kicked the glass panel.

Then another bloody police car came!

It stopped in front of me, a policeman rolled down the window and asked me what I was doing. I said I was fed up, my girlfriend had finished with me that evening, and so I had kicked the telephone box, I’m sorry, I said, I won’t do it again.

‘OK, you’d better go home to bed.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘Yes, and now. Let’s see you on your way!’

And so I walked up towards Hulen while they sat in the car watching me. As I rounded the bend they followed me and only left when I turned up towards the park.

The fear and shame when I woke were so great that I felt I was going to split open. I could have stood up and screamed, I hadn’t learned anything, I had been there again, where there was no control and there were no limits, where anything could happen. Something shrieked inside me, but it would pass. Either simply by gritting my teeth or talking to others. That had a mitigating and deadening effect. I went downstairs to Morten, he leaned back against the sofa and listened, his appearance had changed completely, he no longer wore deck shoes and red leather jackets, and he no longer studied law, he had done a volte-face and was now an arts student, with all that that implied in terms of black trousers, black T-shirts, black shoes, a ring in one ear and Raga Rockers on the stereo. He was already well versed and often finished his arguments with we’re machines in Nirvana, Karl Ove, we’re machines in Nirvana.

The next day a letter arrived from Cappelen. At first I didn’t do anything, thinking it was like Schrödinger’s cat: until the moment the envelope was open and I had read what was in the letter it could equally well have been an acceptance as a rejection. It lay on the table all morning, I gazed at it every now and then, when I was shopping I thought of nothing else, and in the end, at around four, I could stand it no longer and opened it.

Yes, indeed. It was a rejection.

It was as expected, but I was still disappointed, so deeply in fact that I couldn’t bear to be alone. I went downstairs to see Morten, he wasn’t at home. I thought of Jon Olav, but didn’t want to flag up my defeat to him. Nor Yngve. Remembered Geir, he lived only a few minutes away, and I went up to see him. He had already packed, some removal chests were still on the floor, but he magicked up two cups of instant coffee, we sat down on the floor and I recited my rejection to him.

‘ “We have read your novel with interest, but I am sorry to say we cannot undertake to publish it. It is at times both entertaining and engagingly written, but as a whole we consider you have too little to say and it lacks pace. Accordingly, we would like to thank you for allowing us to read the manuscript, which you will find enclosed,” ’ I said.

Geir laughed.

‘First of all, I’m impressed that you can already reel it off by heart,’ he said. ‘Secondly, that you’ve written a novel at all. I don’t know anyone who would even entertain the idea.’

‘That’s small comfort,’ I said.

He snorted.

‘Write another one!’

‘Easy for you to say,’ I said.

‘I suppose so. I’m basically dyslexic. I’d hardly read a novel before I came here. What would you recommend, by the way, if I were to get the idea in my head?’

‘ Dead Heat by Erling Gjelsvik perhaps?’

‘Is that the best novel you’ve ever read?’

‘No, no. I thought it would be a good start for you.’

‘Now don’t you underestimate me. Come on. What’s the best novel you’ve read?’

‘ Lasso Round Mrs Luna by Mykle maybe? Or Pan by Hamsun. Or Novel with Cocaine by Ageyev.’

‘Then I’ll read Mykle as he was the first one you said. You’ve already told me the whole plot of Pan. ’

‘Yes, except for the fact that he takes his own life at the end. I didn’t say that.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘He does!’

‘Are you going to spoil all my reading pleasure?’ he said.

‘Everyone knows he does,’ I said.

‘I didn’t.’

‘You do now.’

‘Is there anything else you think I should know, Mr Literature?’

‘In fact, there is,’ I said. ‘I discovered it a couple of weeks ago. I was lying in bed and glanced at the bookshelf. And I read some of the writers’ names backwards.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes. Do you know what T.Eliot becomes?’

‘No.’

‘Toilet. Such a shame about the S though. If it had been before the T it would have been Toilets.’

‘And you’re about to start a lit. course, did you say?’

‘Yes?’

There was a pause.

‘What a pity you’re going to move,’ I said.

‘I’ve done Bergen. I know what it’s like here. Now I have to try something else.’

‘I was thinking of going to Istanbul this autumn,’ I said. ‘Just renting a room and writing for a year.’

‘Why don’t you?’

I shrugged.

‘It feels as if I’ve got stuff to sort out here. And I have nothing to write about. Or everything to do with writing is just depressing. I have to learn. And I might just as well do that here.’

‘Come to Uppsala then!’

‘No. What the hell would I do there?’

‘What the hell am I going to do? That’s the whole point of it. Go somewhere you know nothing about and see what happens.’

‘But I don’t want anything to happen,’ I said. ‘Seriously. I don’t.’

I put my coffee cup down on one of the chests and got to my feet. There was a view of the park and the road down to the house where I lived from his window, and the fjord and the islands beyond. The sun was out now, dark orange against the deep blue sky, and the trees in the park cast long narrow shadows.

‘I wish you all the best then. You write first and I’ll answer, OK?’

‘OK.’

We shook hands and I walked back downhill to my bedsit. Of course I didn’t know as I was unlocking my door that fourteen years would pass before I saw him again, the memory of him was only a few minutes old, and I assumed he would return to Bergen after a year in Uppsala; the thought that it was possible to leave everything for good was one I toyed with now and then, I didn’t consider it a real possibility. For my part, I had decided to commit to another year in Bergen and then do something else, move elsewhere.

I reread the rejection letter. Then I sat down in front of the fire, scrunched up a few sheets, lit them and started to place sheet after sheet in the flames. I had three copies of the novel and burned two. I would give the third to Ingvild. That would be my last act with her. No more visits, no more telephone conversations, no more nonsense, nothing. The novel would be a final farewell.