My Struggle: Book 2: A Man in Love (24 page)

Despite all this, we were able to talk to each other. I understood him, he understood me, and for the first time in my adult life I could say what I thought to someone without reservations.

I decided to go for the crab and the seagull story, wrote twenty pages, wrote thirty, my short runs became longer and longer, and soon I ran all the way round Söder, while the kilos flowed off me and conversations with Tonje became fewer and fewer.

Then I met Linda and the sun rose.

I can’t find a better way to express it. The sun rose in my life. At first, as dawn breaking on the horizon, almost as if to say, this is where you have to look. Then came the first rays of sunshine, everything became clearer, lighter, more alive, and I became happier and happier, and then it hung in the sky of my life and shone and shone and shone.

The first time I set eyes on Linda was in the summer of 1999 at a seminar for new Nordic writers at Biskops-Arnö Folk High School, outside Stockholm. Standing outside a building with the sun on her face. Wearing sunglasses, a white T-shirt with a stripe across the chest and green military fatigues. She was thin and beautiful. She had an aura which was dark, wild, erotic and destructive. I dropped everything I was holding.

When I saw her for the second time six months had passed. She was sitting at a table in an Oslo café and was wearing a leather jacket, blue jeans, black boots and was so fragile, overwrought and confused that all I wanted to do was hold her in my arms. I didn’t.

When I came to Stockholm she was the only person I knew apart from Geir. I had her number, and the second day I was there I rang her from Geir and Christina’s flat. What had happened at Biskops-Arnö was dead and buried, there were no longer any feelings for her in me, but I needed contacts in town, she was a writer, she was bound to know many more, perhaps also someone with a place to live.

No one answered. I put the phone down and turned to Geir, who was pretending he hadn’t been following.

‘No one at home,’ I said.

‘Try again later then,’ he said.

I did. But no one ever answered.

With Christina’s help I put an advertisement in the Stockholm newspapers. Norwegian author seeks flat/place to write, it said, we had spoken for ages before arriving at this, they thought there were lots of culture vultures that would jump at the word ‘author’, and ‘Norwegian’ was synonymous with easy-going and harmless. They must have had a point because I was inundated with calls. Most of the flats I was offered were in the satellite towns outside Stockholm. I turned them down, there didn’t seem to be much point being stuck in a tower block somewhere in a forest, and while I waited for a better offer I moved into the Norstedts flat, then into the very feminine flat. After a week there an offer turned up: someone wanted to rent a flat in Söder, and I went there, waited outside the door, two women so similar they had to be twins, around fifty years old, stepped out of a car, I greeted them, they said they were from Poland and wanted to rent out the flat for at least a year, sounds very interesting, I said, come on up, they said, we can sign the contract straight away if you like it.

The flat was absolutely fine, one and a half rooms, around thirty square metres, kitchen and bathroom, acceptable standard, perfect location. I signed. But something nagged, something was wrong, I couldn’t work out what, walked slowly downstairs, stopped by the board with the list of the block’s occupants. First of all, I read the address, Brännkyrkgatan 92, there was something familiar about it, I had seen it somewhere, but where? Where? I wondered, scanning the list of names.

Oh, bugger it.

Linda Boström
, it said.

A chill ran down my spine.

That was her address! Of course. I had written to her asking for a contribution for
Vagant
, and I had sent it to bloody Brännkyrkgatan 92.

What were the odds of that happening?

One and a half million people lived in this city. I knew one of them. I put an advertisement in the paper, get an interesting response from two complete strangers, Polish twins, and it turns out the flat is in the
same block
!

I sauntered down to the Metro station, squirmed nervously in my seat all the way home to my girly flat. What would Linda think if I moved into the floor above? That I was stalking her?

It was no good. I couldn’t. Not after the terrible business at Biskops-Arnö.

The first thing I did when I came in the door was to ring the Poles and say I had changed my mind, I didn’t want the flat after all, a better offer had come up, I was really sorry, I really was.

‘That’s fine,’ she said.

Back to square one.

‘Are you crazy?’ Geir said when I told him. ‘You’ve turned down a flat in the middle of Söder which, on top of everything else, was cheap, because you think someone you don’t really know
might
feel she was being stalked? Do you realise how many years I’ve spent trying to get my hands on a flat in the centre? Do you know how difficult it is? It’s
impossible
. Then you come along with a four-leaved clover up your arse and get one, then another, and then you say no!’

‘That’s how it is now anyway,’ I said. ‘Is it OK if I drop by occasionally? You feel a bit like my family. And if I come out here for Sunday lunch with you?’

‘Apart from the fact that it’s Monday, I have the same feeling. But I find it hard to make the father–son relationship fit. So it would have to be Caesar and Brutus.’

‘Which of us is Caesar?’

‘Don’t ask such a silly question. Sooner or later you’ll stab me in the back. But just come. We can continue talking out here.’

We ate, I went onto the tiny balcony to smoke and drink coffee, Geir joined me, we discussed the relativist attitude we both had to the world, how the world changed when culture changed, yet everything was always such that you couldn’t see what was outside, and therefore it didn’t exist, whether this view came from the fact that we had gone to university precisely when post-structuralism and postmodernism were at their zenith and everyone was reading Foucault and Derrida, or whether it actually
was
like that, and whether in that case it was the fixed, unchanging and non-relativist point we were denying. Geir told me about an acquaintance of his who wouldn’t talk to him any more after a discussion they’d had about the real and the absolute. I thought it a strange point to invest so much in, but said nothing. For me society is everything, Geir said. Humanity. I’m not interested in anything beyond that. But I am, I said. Oh yes? Geir queried. What then? Trees, I answered. He laughed. Patterns in plants. Patterns in crystals. Patterns in stones. In rock formations. And in galaxies. Are you talking about fractals? Yes, for example. But everything that binds the living and the dead, all the dominant forms that exist. Clouds! Sand dunes! That interests me. Oh God, how boring, Geir said. No, it isn’t, I said. Yes, it is, he said. Shall we go in? I said.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and asked Geir if I could use the phone.

‘Of course,’ he answered. ‘Who are you phoning?’

‘Linda. You know, the . . .’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. The woman whose flat you turned down.’

I keyed in the number, probably for the fifteenth time. To my surprise she picked up.

‘Linda here,’ she said.

‘Oh hi, this is Karl Ove Knausgaard speaking,’ I said.

‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Is it really you?’

‘Yes. I’m in Stockholm.’

‘Are you? On holiday?’

‘We-ell, I’m not quite sure. I was thinking of living here for a bit.’

‘Are you? Cool!’

‘Yes. I’ve already been here a few weeks. I tried to call you, but didn’t get an answer.’

‘No, I’ve been away, in Visby.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I was writing.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘Yes, it was great. I didn’t get a lot done, but . . .’

‘Right,’ I said.

There was a pause.

‘Linda, I was wondering . . . if you fancied a cup of coffee one day?’

‘Very much. I’m here for the foreseeable.’

‘Tomorrow perhaps? Have you got time?’

‘Yes, think so. In the morning anyway.’

‘Perfect.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘By Nytorget.’

‘Oh great! Could we meet there then? Do you know where the pizza place is, on the corner? There’s a café opposite. There?’

‘OK. What time suits you best? Eleven? Twelve?’

‘Twelve’s fine.’

‘Brilliant. See you then.’

‘Yes. Bye.’

‘Bye.’

I rang off and went in to Geir, who was sitting on the sofa with a cup in his hand and looking at me.

‘So?’ he said. ‘Finally got a bite?’

‘Yes. I’m meeting her tomorrow.’

‘Good! I’ll drop by in the evening and you can tell me all about it.’

I went there an hour before I was supposed to meet her, carrying a manuscript I was doing a report on, the new novel by Kristine Næss, and sat working. Tiny quivers of anticipation ran through me whenever I thought about her. Not that I had any intentions, I had written them off once and for all, it was more the unknown, how things would turn out.

I spotted her as she jumped off her bike outside. She guided the front wheel into the stand and locked her bike, peered through the window, perhaps looking at herself, opened the door and came in. It was pretty full, but she saw me straight away and came over.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘I’ll just go and order,’ she said. ‘Anything you want?’

‘No, thanks,’ I answered.

She was rounder than she had been, that was the first thing I noticed. The boyish leanness was gone.

She placed a hand on the counter, craned her head in the direction of the waiter standing behind the hissing coffee machine. There was a hollow in the pit of my stomach.

I lit a cigarette.

She returned, put a cup of tea on the table and sat down.

‘Hi,’ she repeated.

‘Hi,’ I said.

Her eyes were greyish-green and could widen all of a sudden, I recalled, for no apparent reason.

She removed the tea strainer, lifted the cup to her lips and blew on the surface.

‘It’s been a long time,’ I said. ‘Is everything going well?’

She took a small sip of the tea and set the cup down on the table.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is. I’ve just been to Brazil with a girlfriend. And then I went to Visby straight afterwards. I’m still not really here yet.’

‘But you’re writing?’

She grimaced, looked down.

‘I’m trying. And you?’

‘Same here. I’m trying.’

She smiled.

‘Were you serious when you said you’re going to live in Stockholm?’

I shrugged.

‘For a while at any rate.’

‘Nice,’ she said. ‘We can meet then. I mean do something together.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know anyone else here?’

‘Just one person. His name’s Geir. Norwegian. Otherwise no one.’

‘You know Mirja a little, don’t you? From Biskops-Arnö, I mean.’

‘Oh, very little. How is she, by the way?’

‘Fine, I think.’

We didn’t say anything for a few moments.

There was so much we could not talk about. There were so many subjects we could not touch on. But now we were here we had to talk about
something
.

‘It was very good, the short story you had in
Vagant
,’ I said. ‘It was very good, really.’

She smiled, eyes downcast.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘The language was so unbelievably explosive. Well, just very beautiful. Like a . . . ah, it’s difficult to talk about, but . . . it was hypnotic I think I was trying to say.’

She was still looking down.

‘Do you write short stories now?’

‘Yes, I suppose I do. Prose anyway.’

‘Hm, that’s good.’

‘And you?’

‘Well, nothing. I’ve been trying to write a novel for four years, but just before I left I binned the lot.’

Another silence. I lit another cigarette.

‘It’s nice to see you again,’ I said.

‘And you too,’ she said.

‘I was reading a manuscript before you came,’ I said, nodding towards the pile beside me on the sofa. ‘Kristine Næss. Do you know her?’

‘Yes, in fact, I do. I haven’t read anything by her, but she was at Biskops-Arnö with two male writers when I went there.’

‘Is that right?’ I said. ‘That’s odd. You see she writes about Biskops-Arnö. About a Norwegian girl who goes there.’

What the hell was I doing? What was I blathering about?

Linda smiled.

‘I don’t read much,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know if I’m a real writer.’

‘Of course you are!’

‘But I can remember the writers from Norway. I thought they were so incredibly ambitious, especially the two men. And they knew so much about literature.’

‘What were their names?’

She took a deep breath.

‘One was called Tore, I’m sure of that. They were from
Vagant
.’

‘Oh,
that
’s who they were,’ I said. ‘Tore Renberg and Espen Stueland. I can remember they went there.’

‘Yes, that’s them.’

‘They’re two of my best friends.’

‘Are they?’

‘Yes, but they fight like cat and dog. You can’t have them in the same room any more.’

‘So you know them separately?’

‘Yes, you could put it like that.’

‘I was impressed by you as well,’ she said.

‘By me?’

‘Yes. Ingmar Lemhagen was talking about your book a long time before you came. And that was all he wanted to talk about when we were there.’

Another silence.

She got up and headed for the toilet.

It was hopeless, I thought. What idiotic things was I coming up with? But what else could you say?

What the hell did people talk about, actually?

The coffee machine hissed and sputtered. A long queue of people with impatient body language stood at the bar. It was grey outside. The grass in the park below was yellow and wet.

She returned and sat down.

‘What do you do during the day? Have you started to get to know the town?’

I shook my head.