My Struggle, Book 6

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

  “He’s an aberration. Talking about trees as you walk past them isn’t.”

  “Sure it is. He stayed within the human domain. A game, a relationship between two entities. You talk about trees per se. To me all life is social. I’m not in the slightest bit interested in what lies outside. It’s pointless.”

  We’d had this discussion at regular intervals over the four years that had passed since then. The material world with its stones, grains of sand, and stars or the biological world with its lynxes, beetles, and bacteria didn’t interest him in the slightest unless it could tell him something about humanity. I, on the other hand, was always drawn to those realms where consciousness and identity were no longer operative, both inside the body – where the self appeared to go in two directions, toward the particular, in other words, all the processes that sustained themselves, as though humans consisted of many different animals, coordinated by one of the oldest and most primitive parts of the brain, and toward the general and shared, as all these organs and processes were the same for all – and outside the body, that is the world the body became part of the moment it ceased to exist. Geir did not accept any of this, and if his voice or facial expression didn’t become weary with impatience whenever I talked about it, this was purely a result of his interest being focused on me, the social creature preoccupied with such matters.

  The man at the neighboring table got to his feet, folded up his newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and glanced over at me.

  “Have a good holiday,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He walked briskly down to the pedestrian street, stood slightly stooped waiting for a green light at the crossing, and the next time I looked he had been swallowed up by the town.

  * * *

  On the way back to the museum I kept an eye open for a restaurant where we could have lunch, found a nice old one full of elderly islanders, but its rustic charm was outshone by the neighboring restaurant which had a little terraza where customers were served, beside a busy main road admittedly, however that was compensated for by the shade from the trees and the crooked walls of the building, against which a waiter leaned with a cigarette between his fingers while his colleagues ran in and out with trays full of food and drink.

  When I entered the atrium of the museum Linda and Vanja were sitting on the bench by the wall squinting into the sun.

  “Well, we’ve been having fun and games,” Linda said as I pressed down on the stroller’s brake.

  “Oh yes?” I said, sitting beside her.

  “Would you like to tell him, Vanja?”

  “I dropped my shark down the cannon,” Vanja said.

  “No, you threw it down on purpose,” Linda said. “We couldn’t get it out,” she said, turning to me. “And you know how attached she is to it.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said.

  “Then we went in to see if we could get someone to help us.”

  “In those cannons there?” I said, nodding toward the two big verdigrised cannons by the opposite wall.

  “Yes, exactly. Columbus’s cannons.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes. The cannons that were on the ships that discovered America. That’s where our daughter dropped her shark hairbrush.”

  “What happened then?”

  “There was a huge fuss and palaver. All the staff came out to help. They lifted the cannon down and it banged against the wall and the cannon cracked. But in the end the shark came out. You should’ve seen their faces when they saw that what we’d lost was a hairbrush!”

  “Good thing I wasn’t here. I would’ve died of shame.”

  She laughed.

  “But they didn’t seem to mind. They were just happy to help. You know what it’s like with children here. They love children so much they’d do anything for them.”

  “Are you sure? They’re not inside now, fuming? I mean, cracking Columbus’s cannon?”

  “I got my shark back!” Vanja said, narrowing her eyes and smiling.

  “But now I’m starving. Shall we go and get something to eat?” Linda said.

  I nodded, got up, and wheeled over the stroller. Vanja jumped up and then our little cavalcade trundled out of the museum.

  * * *

  Throughout our meal the wind tugged and tore at the tablecloth. The paper napkins flew into the air several times, but one of the waiters always managed to pick them up before I could get to my feet. We talked about the future awaiting us in Buenos Aires, and it was nice, perhaps the nicest time since we had moved to Malmö the summer before, and everything, including our lives, was bathed in the light of newness. After we had eaten and were waiting for our coffee, I told her about the restaurant next door, how beautiful it was with its thick brick walls and wooden benches and, with Heidi in her arms, she went in while I sat with Vanja, who was busy blowing down her straw, making her soda bubble and froth, but she didn’t seem to be doing it for fun, her expression was rather one of preoccupation and stubborn perseverance.

  I racked my brains for something to say to her.

  Cars whooshed past on the road. A nun appeared at the entrance to a street and was gone again. The tall, slim conifers swayed in the wind. I took an apple from my backpack and placed it on the table between us.

  “Did you know that some apples can talk?” I said.

  She looked up at me without moving her head. Her eyes were skeptical, though not totally dismissive.

  “When I was walking with Heidi I heard a voice in my backpack, you know. I’m not sure, but I think it was the apple. If so, we’re so incredibly lucky because there are hardly any apples that can talk. But I think this one can. Do you know how small the chances are of that?”

  She shook her head, her eyes fixed on me.

  “They can’t speak human language. That’s obvious. You didn’t think they could, did you?”

  She shook her head again.

  “They speak applish. Look, if I shake it a bit, it might say something. Shall I try?”

  She pushed her glass away.

  “It can’t speak,” she said. “You’re teasing me.”

  “No, I’m not. It’s very unusual. That’s probably why you’ve never heard of it.”

  I gave a start.

  “There! Did you hear it?”

  She stared at the apple, shaking her head. I lifted the apple to my ear and made big eyes.

  “It said something,” I said.

  “No, it didn’t,” she laughed. “It did not.”

  “Yes, it did. Here, you listen.”

  I held up the apple and she leaned over and put her ear to it.

  “Can you hear anything?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “Daddy,” she said. “Apples can’t talk.”

  “It just did,” I said.

  “What did it say then?”

  “I’m not sure. It was applish. But I think it said, ‘I’m so lonely.’”

  “You can’t speak applish.”

  “Yes, I can. Not very well. But I understand a little.”

  “How did you learn it?”

  “I picked bits up here and there. There were lots and lots of apple trees where I grew up.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “Listen. Did you hear that?”

  She gave a tentative smile and shook her head.

  “It said, ‘What a lovely girl. What’s her name?’”

  “My name’s Vanja.”

  “Vanja,” I squeaked.

  “That was you,” Vanja said. “It can’t talk.”

  I began to feel sorry for her.

  “You’re right, it was,” I said. “Did you think apples could talk?”

  “No,” she laughed.

  “Are you sure?” I said, lifting the apple to my mouth and taking a bite.

  “Don’t eat it!” she said.

  “But I was just teasing you,” I said. “It’s only an apple.”

  “OK,” she said.

  The waiter
came with two cups of coffee and two bowls of ice cream. Vanja started hers as soon as he put the bowl in front of her. I said thank you and looked up, but he didn’t meet my gaze, walked over with bowed head to the table beside us, set the plates on his right arm, stacked the glasses, which he carried in his left hand, and disappeared into the darkness of the restaurant.

  “I want to blow,” Vanja said.

  I pushed the cup over to her, she blew, I took a sip. Linda appeared from around the corner, still carrying Heidi on her hip. She looked flustered.

  “I fell over inside,” she said. “Right onto my side. With Heidi in my arm as well.”

  “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “A little,” she said, putting Heidi in the high chair. I pushed her ice cream over to her. “It’s a tiled floor. I think Heidi got a bang too. Or perhaps it was mostly a fright. Anyway, there was quite a commotion in there. Everyone rushed over to help me. Not so strange, I suppose. A pregnant woman with a child in her arm falling on the floor. I toppled over. Like a boat heeling to one side. Then all these kind people came running over to help me to my feet and they brushed me down and asked me how I was.”

  “Sounds very dramatic,” I said.

  “It was. And I felt so helpless. Suddenly not being able to walk. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t see any children here. God knows where they are. Not here anyway. Then I come along with a child in my belly and one in my arm and right in front of everyone, bang. I felt so Scandinavian.”

  * * *

  In the bus going home Vanja slept with her head in Linda’s lap while Heidi sat limply on mine dozing. Her little body registered all the bus’s jerks and jolts as at first we drove from traffic light to traffic light through the town, then onto the motorway along the coast where the blazing sun hung above the dark blue sea.

  Happiness isn’t in my nature, but happy was how I felt.

  Everything was light and airy, my emotions were lofty and uncomplicated, the mere sight of a bulging wire fence or a stack of worn tires outside a garage opened my soul, and a rare warmth spread through my insides.

  What effect does happiness have?

  Happiness erases. Happiness erodes. Happiness overflows. All that is difficult, all that usually hinders or limits us, disappears inside happiness. In the long term it’s unbearable because there is no resistance in happiness, if you lean against it, you will fall.

  Where do you fall?

  Into open space, my friend.

  I looked at Linda, she had leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. Vanja’s face was covered with her hair; she lay like a tuft of grass on Linda’s lap.

  I bent forward a little and peeked at Heidi, who stared back without interest.

  I loved them. This was my gang.

  My family.

  In terms of pure biomass, we were nothing special. Heidi weighed perhaps ten kilos, Vanja maybe twelve, plus Linda’s and my weight we constituted something like one hundred and ninety kilos. That was considerably less than a horse, I imagined, and about the same as a mature male gorilla. If we lay close together our physical bulk was nothing to shout about either, a sea lion was bulkier. In terms of intangible factors, however – which was the essence of a family – in other words everything connected with thoughts, dreams, and feelings, the family’s inner life, the aggregate was explosive, and spread over time, which was the relevant dimension to see the family in, it would cover an almost endless surface area. Once I met my great-grandmother, which meant that Vanja and Heidi and the new baby belonged to the fifth generation, and if fate was kind, they could in their turn witness three further generations, so this little pile of flesh numbered eight generations, or two hundred years, with all the concomitant changing cultural and social conditions, not to mention how many people it included. A whole little world was what was moving along the highway at great speed this late-spring afternoon, my own little family, which might eventually develop its own special characteristics, something typical only of us, as I had encountered many times in other families and always envied: their security and goodness and contentment.

  * * *

  When the children had gone to sleep we moved closer and were near each other in the darkness. Linda’s eyes were wide open, the way I remembered them from the first weeks we were together, somehow bare and defenseless. Afterward we went onto the balcony, me with the beer that had become a habit during the ten days we had been there, Linda with a ginger ale. The darkness seemed to hover in the air, which became grayer and dimmer by the minute as stars appeared in the sky one after the other, hesitantly, a little shyly, as though they didn’t really trust the memory of how they had shone the previous night, proud and firm and minerally unforgiving. But, bit by bit, the memory came back to them and soon the whole of the now black sky was full of sparkling lights.

  “I think I’ll go to bed,” Linda said, getting up. “Thank you for everything today. Would you like me to switch on the light for you?”

  “Please,” I said. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, my prince.”

  The light came on, her footsteps faded into the bedroom, I sat down on the chair and put my feet on the railing. What if Columbus had turned around when they discovered America? I wondered. What if they had said they would leave the continent intact and allow those living there to continue their lives in peace? What if they had said they wouldn’t exploit its riches and its people? Then America would only have existed as a concept in old Europe, in Asia and Africa. There is an enormous continent out there, to the west, every new generation would learn. We have no idea what goes on there. Nor what it looks like, what species of plants and animals exist there, or what people think about life and existence. We know nothing of this and we won’t find out.

  I had never considered a more impossible thought. It would go against everything we were.

  But it would have been so fantastic. A secret, undiscovered continent no one had opened up or exploited but had just left in peace. What an incredible shadow of ignorance that would have cast over our European brains.

  I finished my beer, stubbed out my cigarette, and stood for a moment holding the balcony railing looking into the darkness behind the light from the bungalows, at the sea that stretched into the distance.

  Then I, too, went to bed.

  * * *

  Two nights later the plane left for home, it was packed, and we felt stressed with all our baggage and our two small children, but we got on board and after a few minutes in the air both Vanja and Heidi fell asleep. We sank back in our seats. The plane flew through the black sky, lights flashing. The mood on board was strange, many passengers were feverishly drinking and talking in loud voices and laughing, probably trying to squeeze every last minute out of their vacation, others slept. After half an hour the captain made an announcement over the intercom, asking everyone to sit down and fasten their seat belts, we were entering a spot of turbulence. Vanja woke up and started crying. It wasn’t a low, whiny cry, she screamed from the bottom of her lungs. That woke Heidi, who also started crying. Suddenly there was an inferno around us. Linda and I frenetically tried to calm them down, but nothing was any use, they were caught up in something they couldn’t get out of and just kept screaming. People tolerated it for the first few minutes, but after a quarter of an hour the displeasure and annoyance around us were palpable. Why couldn’t we get our godforsaken kids to shut up? Why were they screaming like that? Were we bad parents? It was unbearable, and when the seat belt sign was switched off I asked Linda to stand up so that I could carry Heidi into the central aisle, she did, I undid Heidi’s belt and lifted her up, she resisted, twisted and squirmed, her whole body as tense as a spring, while Vanja was kicking the seat in front of her. I squeezed through the narrow gap between the seats, bent double, with Heidi held firmly to my chest, wriggling and screaming in my ear, finally emerged in the aisle, made my way through to where there was a measure of space, but Heidi wasn’
t happy, she didn’t want to walk, didn’t want to be carried, didn’t want any candy, didn’t want to see what was behind the curtain, she just wanted to scream and scream, her face bright red, legs kicking in all directions. People were no longer hiding their irritation, they were staring at me with obvious animosity, a man who couldn’t control his child. I forced Heidi back into her seat, the man in front of us turned and told us to stop the kid kicking him, which infuriated Linda, she’s four, she shouted, I placed a hand on her shoulder, a flight attendant leaned over us with some toys, Vanja threw them away, in a rage. I was drenched in sweat. The girls were caught in a fit and couldn’t get out of it, and all I could think was: what must the other passengers be thinking. It was obvious we were bad parents, why would children scream like this otherwise? Their childhood must be terrible, traumatizing. Something had to be wrong. I had never seen other children behaving like this in public. The situation was acute, we had to get them to stop, but none of our methods was helping, it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. This situation was chronic, it was a symptom of something else, which chafed away incessantly behind my sweaty forehead. I felt like “white trash” on a charter trip to Gran Canaria with my neglected children. Everything was out of control, and in a very confined area to make matters worse.

  They kept it up for a good hour. Then they stopped. First Vanja, afterwards Heidi. They sat staring into space, sweaty and exhausted. I couldn’t believe it was true and didn’t dare move a muscle. A few minutes later they fell asleep, and seven hours later we were able to tuck them into their own beds in our apartment. Absolutely drained, we looked at each other and promised we would never, ever, under any circumstances, do anything like this again. But then, slowly and imperceptibly, all the hassle around the journey and the vulgarity of the holiday center was forgotten; what remained of the two weeks was the children’s pleasure in the pool, the evenings on the balcony, the trip to Las Palmas.