My Struggle, Book 6

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  “Bolibompa’s on in a minute,” I said. “Do you want me to switch it on for you?”

  She nodded. Behind me, John shouted that he wanted to watch it too. I lifted him down, switched the TV on with the remote, went in to tell Vanja that Bolibompa was starting, then went back to loading the dishwasher; Vanja came in and picked up a fish cake with her fingers, she knew I didn’t like them doing that, but I didn’t say anything, put some detergent in the little compartment, slammed the door shut, and pressed on. I washed the frying pan and the pots quickly in the sink, dried them and put them away. I left the food on the table, hoping they might be hungry later on and eat what was left, then went to the bedroom to check my e-mail. Making sure to avoid seeing the two e-mails from Gunnar, I went through my new messages, none of which was particularly important. Once I’d done that I phoned Linda and asked if she wanted to speak to the children, not so much for her sake or theirs, more for something to happen. John said hi and sat nodding to what she said at the other end, then handed the phone back to me. Heidi talked about what was on the TV without saying it was something she was watching, so it sounded like she was in Flowerland herself, whereas Vanja did the same as the day before, went off on her own with the phone in her hand.

  “Me again now,” I said when Vanja came back five minutes later and handed it back to me. “Are you having a nice time up there?”

  “Yes. It just feels a bit funny being here without all of you, that’s all.”

  “I’m sure it does,” I said. “But that was partly the idea, wasn’t it?”

  “We’ve been at the beach today. All we’ve done is lie about all day. We’re having a barbecue again tonight.”

  “It must be reassuring having a fireman around the place, then,” I said, opening the door onto the balcony and stepping out. The wooden decking was warm, and the metal railing I leaned my arms against was positively hot.

  “He’s an incident commander,” she said.

  “Even better.”

  “You’ll have to meet him. He’s from way up north, from Norrland. Completely down to earth and unflappable, it doesn’t matter what happens. Just like my family up there, you know. Like all Norrlanders.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Lying down, reading. All that sun’s made me tired, I think.”

  “I’ve hardly been out of the apartment,” I said.

  “What have you been doing? Working?”

  “No, nothing like that. Just been on the phone.”

  Behind me, John squirmed around the door. He looked up at me, his eyes asking if it was all right, and when I didn’t say anything he set off toward the far end, twenty meters from where I was sitting.

  “About those e-mails?” she asked.

  “About those e-mails, yes.”

  “I feel sorry for you having to spend so much energy on all that.”

  “I don’t have much choice really.”

  “I know. But I still feel sorry for you.”

  “It can’t be helped. Listen, do you think we could talk later instead? I’ll have to be getting them off to bed soon. The place could use a bit of cleaning up as well.”

  “Yes, all right. Will you call me?”

  “I will. Speak to you later.”

  “Hej då.”

  At the other end of the balcony John was climbing onto a chair. I hurried over. Standing on the chair, he’d be high enough to fall over the railing. It had been our worst fear ever since moving in.

  I put my arm around his midriff and lifted him down just as he was leaning forward to get a look at all the people down below.

  “You can run back instead,” I said. “I’ll chase you.”

  “OK,” he said, and pattered off. I lumbered along after him, he turned and shrieked when he saw how close behind I was, I let him run on a bit, then snatched him up into the air.

  “Again!” he said.

  “No, we’re going in now. It’s bedtime soon.”

  “No!” he said.

  “Yes!” I said, leading him into a trap, our old yes-no routine, where I suddenly said the opposite, confusing him into doing the same, before he realized and switched back, and by then he’d forgotten all about wanting to be out on the balcony.

  I went and got their pajamas from their room, and they got changed in front of the TV, complaining when I switched it off, they wanted to see what was on next, and then, when they couldn’t get their way, they were hungry all of a sudden. The fish cakes wouldn’t do.

  “No,” I said, sensing my patience about to run out. If I gave them a slice of bread each, they would sit still and eat it while I read them a story. If I didn’t, they would twist and moan, and most likely steer the situation off into a dead end where the only way out would be to impose my will on them, meaning there’d be tears and sulks all evening, or else give in, which was the same as losing face.

  Knowing what was most advantageous didn’t mean I was going to end up doing it. With my patience ebbing, the urge to put my foot down became all the stronger.

  “Fish cakes or nothing,” I said.

  “But we’re hungry,” said Vanja.

  “Eat your fish cakes, then,” I said.

  “We don’t want fish cakes.”

  I gave a shrug.

  “You’ll have to go to bed hungry, then, won’t you?”

  “But, Daddy,” said Vanja.

  “End of discussion,” I said. “Off to bed with you and I’ll read you a story.”

  I found Out for a Walk for John, and The Three Little Pigs for Vanja and Heidi.

  Vanja sat up against the wall under the window with her arms folded in front of her chest.

  “I’m not listening,” she said.

  “Me neither,” said Heidi.

  “Then I’ll read for John,” I said, and lifted him onto my lap. I’d been reading Out for a Walk ever since Vanja was ten months old, both she and I knew it by heart. Now I raced through it as fast as I could without any thought for John wanting to show me he knew what all the things were called. When I’d finished, I carried him over to his crib and pulled the blind down.

  “Night night,” I said, and left the room, went into the living room, and out onto the balcony, where I sat down and lit a cigarette. A few seconds passed before Vanja appeared in the door.

  “I’m hungry,” she said. “And you haven’t read to us.”

  “Go to bed,” I said, and stared out at the rooftops and walls, which were blushed by the sun.

  “Waaaaarh!” she wailed.

  “What’s the matter with you tonight? It’s late, time for bed.”

  “You’re stupid!” she yelled.

  “That may be so,” I said. “But I’m still your daddy. And if your daddy’s stupid, then it’s a shame for you.”

  She turned and went back in, her shoulders shaking a bit too exaggeratedly, I thought. I poured myself half a cup of coffee, it was tepid now and I gulped it down in a couple of mouthfuls. I went inside again, the place sounded like a zoo. Both Vanja and Heidi were yelling and carrying on.

  “What’s the problem here?” I said firmly, standing in the doorway of their room.

  “You’re stupid!” Vanja shouted.

  “I’m hungry,” Heidi wailed.

  The tears were streaming down their cheeks.

  “I want Mommy,” said John in his crib.

  “Mommy’s not here,” I said. “And if you’re hungry you can eat the fishcakes from dinner. If you don’t want them you can lie down and go to sleep.”

  I closed the door and stood there quietly in the hall. A moment went by before it opened again. It was Vanja.

  “Back to bed, do you hear me?” I said. “I’ve just about had enough of this.”

  I took her by the arms and pressed her back into her bed. Then I gripped Heidi by the waist and lifted her up onto her bunk, closed the door again, went into the living room and turned the TV on, it was the news, images of vast fires in what I took to be Greece. There was a banging on the
wall, I went and opened the door of their room. Vanja was lying kicking her feet against the wall. Heidi lay crying in the bunk above.

  “Listen,” I said. “I don’t want any more nonsense. You can have an apple each. Will that do?”

  “Yes,” said Vanja, and stopped kicking.

  I went out to the kitchen and got three apples, filled two drinking bottles and a sippy cup with water, and took it all with me into their room.

  “Do you want me to read?” I asked.

  They nodded. I lifted John up, Heidi climbed down by herself, and soon all three were gathered around me, each wanting to be one of the pigs in the story, as if nothing had happened. I sang the same song for each of them while stroking their backs, and they were quiet and agreeable and ready for sleep after all their crying.

  “Will you leave the door open?” said Vanja.

  “Of course,” I said, and went to the kitchen to get some more coffee going. When it was ready I poured a cup, went out onto the balcony and phoned Mom.

  “Hello? Sissel speaking.”

  She sounded tired.

  “Hi, it’s Karl Ove,” I said. “You weren’t asleep, were you? You sound a bit tired.”

  “Do I? No, I wasn’t asleep. I lay awake last night, though, so perhaps I am a bit, now that you mention it.”

  “Was it Gunnar’s letter keeping you awake?”

  “Yes. And thinking about what to say in reply.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to?”

  “I’m not. I was just thinking about it, that’s all. I was livid, you understand.”

  “Did you read the one I sent you today?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think the consequences for you are going to be quite far-reaching. If he goes to the papers or takes you to court. It’ll be a huge strain. You’re going to get a lot of negative publicity. The pressure will be enormous. People can crack in that situation.”

  “Are you worried about me?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be. I’ve always taken care of myself.”

  “But you’ve got a family to think about as well.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t publish the novel?”

  “That’s for you to decide. All I’m saying is you should think very hard about it. Whether it’s worth it.”

  “That’s just what Gunnar wants.”

  She sighed.

  “Yes,” she said. “It is. I mentioned it to some people at work today. Some of them thought it was your book that was outrageous, not your uncle’s reaction. That’s what the public is going to think. Gunnar’s going to come across as the ordinary man in the street, decent and law-abiding, whereas you risk being made out to be some kind of criminal. That’s one thing. The other is they can easily set you up as representing some kind of elite, with Gunnar as the everyman. You can imagine the field day VG will have.”

  “So what? I can’t let what people might think, determine my every move, surely.”

  “I’m just thinking about the consequences, that’s all. You mustn’t let this destroy you, Karl Ove.”

  “I’m not going to have a breakdown just because someone writes something negative about me in the papers, Mom.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. You’re strong, I know that. But think of Mykle, how it broke him. The comparison’s a relevant one in my opinion. The pressure it put him under. It destroyed him.”

  “You’re not really asking me to backpedal on this, are you?”

  “No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m asking you to think very carefully about it, that’s all.”

  “I’m already thinking about it. In fact, I’m doing nothing else. But withdrawing the novel isn’t an option. I’m not going to do it, not in any circumstances. I can’t just give up at the first little sign of resistance.”

  “It’s hardly a little sign, is it? You mustn’t underestimate it.”

  “No, of course not. I appreciate what you’re thinking, and I’m glad you’re telling me.”

  I went inside, dropped the phone in the charger, then put my head around the door of the children’s room. They were all well away, their breathing heavy with sleep. I went into the living room, the floor was littered with clothes, towels, and toys dumped all over; the mat was bunched up, the armchairs shoved up close to the TV, the white woolen throws we used to hide the stains on them tossed on the floor, as was the one from the sofa, whose cushions were even grubbier, if that was possible. I left it all as it was, went to the bathroom and filled the IKEA bags with dirty clothes; I’d have to remember to do the laundry tomorrow or else they’d soon have no clean clothes to put on. I left the bags up against the laundry baskets and went to the bedroom to check my e-mails. Neither Tonje nor Jan Vidar had answered. I logged off and went through the hall, picking the phone up as I went, then, with the phone in one hand, I switched off the dishwasher and opened it, and a cloud of steam tumbled out into the air. I went into the study, there was a note on the desk with what I thought might be Hanne’s phone number on it, I picked it up and took it with me onto the balcony. The number belonged to a person named Hanne, but the surname was a common one, so I was by no means sure the number was actually hers.

  I put the phone on the table, sat down, poured myself some coffee, lit a cigarette and looked out over the rooftops with a feeling of unease.

  All day the light and warmth had been infused with a kind of density, something listless that had latched unnoticeably on to the ethereal quality of June and July, for summer was now drawing to its close, the world receding into the shadows, darkness encroaching. I longed for it. I wanted the darkness. I wanted to disappear, to be visible no more, neither to myself nor anyone else. I wanted my feelings to sink down inside me, like the sap sinks through the tree in autumn, and for my thoughts to flutter to the ground, like leaves from the multitude of branches on which they had unfolded in spring.

  I hadn’t spoken to Hanne in almost twenty years. I’d often thought about her, though more and more infrequently, until I’d started work on the novel and found her occupying my mind increasingly as I sat in the study and wrote. If I opened my door and went into one of the other rooms, where Linda was perhaps, those thoughts would disappear again, bound up as they were with a time in my life that had been lost, whereas the time that surrounded me was alive and existed in all things, and by virtue of its being concrete and nearmade the past into what it was, spectral and vague. Nevertheless, I felt guilty. To ease my conscience, I occasionally told Linda what I was writing about, trying to make light of it, and she seemed to approve, until one morning she told me what one of her girlfriends had said when she’d mentioned what I was writing about. “You mean he’s writing about his old flames?” her friend had said. “And you’re putting up with it?”

  Now there was another step I had to take. I couldn’t possibly publish the novel without Hanne reading it first and approving.

  I called the number.

  No answer.

  Like the other times I’d tried, and I was just about to hang up when a voice came on the other end.

  “Hanne speaking.”

  “Hello, Karl Ove here,” I said. “Is this the Hanne I used to go to school with?”

  There was a silence.

  And then that wonderful, effervescent laughter I hadn’t heard for twenty years.

  “Karl Ove!” she exclaimed. “Is this the Karl Ove who used to send me notes during class?”

  “It is,” I said. “How are you?”

  She laughed again, that same laugh. She’d always been the cheerful kind, never far from gladness, and it was something she clearly hadn’t lost.

  “I’ve always imagined you were going to phone someday,” she said. “Or else we’d bump into each other in an airport or somewhere. Isn’t it strange? I felt sure we’d meet again. How are you? I see you live in Malmö now? I’ve read about you in the papers, of course. A good thing you didn’t follow my advice
and become a teacher!”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “I have a wife and three children here. How about you? I’m assuming you’ve got kids?”

  We exchanged information about our lives for a while. She lived in the Mandal area, with the same man as before, had been in charge of a nursery, and was now working at a school.

  “Anyway, it’s not just for old times’ sake I’m calling,” I said after a bit. “It’s more specific than that.”

  “I thought it might be,” she said.

  “The thing is, I’m writing a novel about my life,” I said. “Parts of it are about when I was sixteen. And seeing as how you were so important to me then, I’ve written about you too. All names and places are authentic. I realize that might cause some difficulties. So I’d like you to read it before it comes out.”

  She was completely silent.

  “If it’s not OK with you, which I would totally understand, because it’s a lot to ask, then of course I’ll change your name and make you less recognizable.”

  “You mean you’ve really written about me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  She fell silent again.

  “But it’s not so much about you as about me,” I said. “I was in love with you, to put it bluntly. I’ve written about that. If you don’t want to be in the novel in that way, with your name, I mean, I’ll just change it. It’s not a problem. Are you surprised?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed.

  “Do you remember much about that time?” she asked.

  “Sort of,” I said. “Not so much exact details, but moods, that kind of thing. The feeling of it all is still very much there for me.”

  “I remember a lot. I think about it sometimes. I’ve always thought we’d meet up again and talk about it. About back then.”

  “We still can,” I said. “As long as I haven’t ruined it all by writing about it.”