My Struggle: Book 2: A Man in Love (28 page)

Was that her?

Some days later we went to the theatre. Linda, Geir and I. The first act was terrible, truly wretched, and in the interval, sitting at a terrace table with a view of the harbour, Geir and Linda chatted away about quite how terrible it had been, and why. I was more sympathetic, for despite the small, cramped feel of the act, which coloured the play and the visions it was supposed to be depicting, there was an anticipation of something else, as if it was lying in wait. Perhaps not in the play, perhaps more in the combination of Bergman and Ibsen, which ultimately
had
to produce something? Or else it was the splendour of the auditorium that fooled me into believing there had to be something else. And there was. Everything was raised, higher and higher, the intensity increased, and within the tightly set framework, which in the end comprised only mother and son, a kind of boundlessness arose, something wild and reckless. Into it disappeared plot and space, what was left was emotion, and it was stark, you were looking straight into the essence of human existence, the very nucleus of life, and thus you found yourself in a place where it no longer mattered what was actually happening. Everything known as aesthetics and taste was eliminated. Wasn’t there an enormous red sun shining at the back of the stage? Wasn’t that Osvald rolling naked across the stage? I’m not sure any more what I saw, the details disappeared into the state they evoked, which was one of total presence, burning hot and ice-cold at once. However, if you hadn’t allowed yourself to be transported, everything that happened would have appeared exaggerated, perhaps even banal or kitsch. The master stroke was the first act, everything was done there, and only someone who had spent a whole lifetime creating, with an enormous list – more than fifty years’ worth – of productions behind them, could have had the skill, the coolness, the courage, the intuition and the insight to fashion something like this. Bright ideas alone could not have brought this off, it was impossible. Hardly anything I had seen or read had even been close to approaching the essence in this way. As we followed the audience streaming out into the foyer and onto the street, not one of us said a word, but from their distant expressions I could see they had also been carried away into the terrible but real and therefore beautiful place Bergman had seen in Ibsen and then succeeded in shaping. We decided we would have a beer at KB, and as we made our way there the trance-like state wore off to be replaced by an elated, euphoric mood. The shyness I would normally have felt at being so near such an attractive woman, which was further complicated by the events of three years ago, was suddenly gone. She talked about the time she had accidentally nudged a floodlight stand during one of Bergman’s tests and got to feel the sharp edge of his tongue. We discussed the difference between
Ghosts
and
Peer Gynt
, which were at opposite ends of a spectrum, one mere surface, the other mere depth, both equally true. She parodied the dialogue between Max von Sydow and Death and talked about individual Bergman films with Geir, who had gone on his own to see the Cinemathek performances, all of them, and had consequently seen the classic films that were worth seeing, while I sat and listened, happy about everything. Happy to have seen the play, happy to have moved to Stockholm, happy to be with Linda and Geir.

After we parted company and I was trudging up the hills to my bedsit in Mariaberget I realised two things.

The first was that I wanted to see her again as soon as possible.

The second was that was where I had to go, to what I had seen that evening. Nothing else was good enough, nothing else did it. That was where I had to go, to the essence, to the inner core of human existence. If it took forty years, so be it, it took forty years. But I should never lose sight of it, never forget it, that was where I was going.

There, there, there.

Two days later Linda rang and invited me to a Walpurgis night party she was going to throw with two girlfriends. It was fine if I brought along my friend Geir. Which I did. One Friday in May 2002 we walked across Söder to the flat where the party was to take place, and soon found ourselves ensconced on a sofa, each with a glass of punch in our hands, surrounded by young Stockholmers who all had some connection with cultural life: jazz musicians, theatre people, literary critics, authors, actors. Linda, Mikaela and Öllegård, who were the party organisers, had met when they were working at Stockholm City Theatre. At the time the Royal Dramatic Theatre was performing
Romeo and Juliet
together with Circus Cirkör, so apart from actors the room was full of jugglers, fire-eaters and trapeze artists. I couldn’t get through the evening without speaking, even if I wanted to, so I heaved my body round from one group to another, exchanging civilities and, after I’d had a few gin and tonics, the odd sentence beyond what was strictly necessary. I particularly wanted to talk to the theatre people. I would never have expected to feel that, and it made my enthusiasm for theatre soar on this evening. I stood with two actors and said how fantastic Bergman was. They just snorted and said,
That old sod! He’s so bloody traditional it makes you want to puke.

How stupid could you be! Of course they loathed Bergman. Firstly, he had been the master all their lives and the whole of their parents’ lives as well. Secondly, they were for the new, the great, Shakespeare as circus, the play everyone should see, which, with its torches and trapezes, stilts and clowns, was so refreshing. They had gone as far from Bergman as it was possible to go. Then a podgy clearly depressed Norwegian stands there hailing Bergman as the new man.

Meanwhile I confirmed that Linda and Geir were
still
chatting on the sofa, both with excited smiles, the stab in the heart that gave me, was she going to fall for another of my friends? I mingled, bumped into some jazz fans, who asked me if I knew anything about Norwegian jazz, to which I responded with a half-nod, which of course meant they wanted some names. Norwegian jazz musicians? Was there anyone apart from Jan Garbarek? Fortunately I realised that wasn’t exactly what they meant and remembered Bugge Wesseltoft, whom Espen had talked about once, and had also invited to play at a
Vagant
party where I had given a reading. They nodded, he was good, I breathed out with relief and went off to sit on my own. Then a dark-haired woman with a broad face, large mouth, intense brown eyes, wearing a flowery dress, came over to me and asked if I was the writer from Norway. Yes, I was. What did I think about Jan Kjærstad, John Erik Riley and Ole Robert Sunde?

I gave my opinions.

‘Do you mean that?’ she queried.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Stay where you are,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get my husband. He writes about literature. Very interested in Riley. Wait a moment. I’ll be back.’

I watched her push past people towards the kitchen. What did she say her name was? Hilda? No. Wilda? Shit. No, Gilda. Shouldn’t be impossible to remember.

Then she reappeared through the throng, this time with a man in tow. Oh, as soon as I saw him I knew the type. He had university written all over his face from a long distance.

‘Now you can say what you told me!’ Gilda said.

I did. But her passion was wasted on both him and me, so when the conversation tailed off, and it didn’t take long, I made my apologies and went to the kitchen to get some food, now that the queues were shorter. Geir stood chatting with someone by the window and Linda was with a small group by the bookshelves. I sat down on the sofa and began to gnaw at a chicken thigh when I met the eyes of a dark-haired woman, who took this as an invitation, because the very next moment she was standing in front of me.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

I swallowed and put the chicken down on the paper plate as I looked up at her. Tried to sit up straight on the deep soft sofa, unsuccessfully, I felt as though I was falling to one side. And my cheeks, they must have glistened with chicken fat.

‘Karl Ove,’ I said. ‘I’m from Norway. I’ve just moved here. A few weeks ago. And you?’

‘Melinda.’

‘And what do you do?’

‘I’m an actor.’

‘Oh yes!’ I said with what was left of the Bergman euphoria in my voice. ‘Are you in
Romeo and Juliet
then?’

She nodded.

‘Who do you play?’

‘Juliet.’

‘Ah!’

‘That’s Romeo over there,’ she said.

A good-looking muscular man came over to join her. He kissed her on the cheeks and looked at me.

Damn the bloody sofa. I felt like a dwarf from where I was sitting.

I nodded and smiled. He nodded back.

‘Have you had some food?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said, and then they were gone. I lifted the chicken back to my mouth. There was nothing for it but to drink.

The last thing I did before I left that evening was to look at a photo album belonging to an equine homeopath with a plunging neckline. The alcohol had not made me soar, as it was wont to do, into a mood where everything was great and there were no obstacles; it made me sink into a spiritual well, from which nothing I had inside could raise me. All that happened was that everything became foggier and more unclear. The day after, I was profoundly grateful I’d had the presence of mind to go home, and not sit there until everyone had gone in the hope that something interesting might happen of its own accord. I assumed Linda was a lost cause – we had hardly exchanged a word all evening, which for the most part I had spent slumped in the chair I had begun to consider as ‘mine’ – and the little I said, which could have been written on a postcard, no woman in the world would have found interesting. Nonetheless, I rang her the following evening, politeness demanded I thank her. And then, while I was standing with my mobile to my ear surveying Stockholm spread out beneath me, illuminated by the broad red light from the setting sun, a pregnant moment arose. I had said hi, thanked her, said it had been a nice party, she had thanked me, said she thought it had been nice too, and she added she hoped I’d had a
trevlig
time. I had, I said. And then there was a silence. She didn’t say anything; I didn’t say anything. Should I wrap up the conversation? That was my natural instinct. I had taught myself in such situations to say as little as possible. In that way I wouldn’t say anything foolish. Or should I go on? The seconds ticked. If I had said, yes, well, I just wanted to thank you and had rung off, that would have probably been that. Such a mess I’d made of everything the night before. But what the hell, what did I have to lose?

‘What are you doing?’ I asked after this long silence, by any criteria.

‘Watching ice hockey on TV,’ she said.

‘Ice hockey?’ I said. And then we chatted for a quarter of an hour. And decided we would meet again.

We did, but nothing happened, there was no excitement, or rather the excitement was so great it didn’t allow us to move, it was as if we were caught in it, all the things we wanted to say to each other, but couldn’t.

Polite phrases. Little openings, leading elsewhere, her everyday life, she had a mother in Stockholm, and a brother, and all her friends. Apart from six months in Florence she had lived in Stockholm all her life. Where had I lived?

Arendal, Kristiansand, Bergen. Six months in Iceland, four months in Norwich.

Did I have any brothers or sisters?

A brother, a half-sister.

You were married, weren’t you?

Yes. In a way I still am.

Oh.

Early one evening, in the middle of April, she rang. Did I feel like meeting her? Of course. I was out with Geir and Christina, I said, we were in Guldapan, you could join us if you like.

Half an hour later she was there.

She was beaming.

‘I’ve been accepted by the Dramatiska Institut today,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy, it’s just wonderful. And then I suddenly felt like meeting you,’ she said, looking at me.

I smiled at her.

We were out all evening, got drunk, walked back to my place together, I gave her a hug outside the gate and went up to the flat.

The next day Geir rang.

‘She’s in love with you, man,’ he said. ‘You can see it miles off. That was the first thing Christina said when we left. She’s almost luminous with it. Unbelievably in love with Karl Ove.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘She was happy she’s got into the Dramatiska Institut.’

‘Why would she ring you if that was all it was?’

‘How should I know? Why don’t you ring her and ask?’

‘And what’s the situation with your feelings?’

‘Fine.’

Linda and I went to the cinema. For some idiotic reason we saw the new Star Wars film, it was for children, and having confirmed that, we went to Folkoperan and sat without saying much.

I was depressed as I left, I was so incredibly sick of having everything inside me, being unable to say the simplest thing to anyone.

It passed. I was fine on my own, Stockholm was still new to me, spring had arrived, every second day at twelve I put on my trainers and ran around Söder, it was ten kilometres, on the days between I swam a thousand metres. I had lost ten kilos, and I had started to write again. I got up at five, had a cigarette and a couple of coffees on the roof terrace, from which there was a view of the whole of Stockholm, then I worked until twelve, ran or swam, and afterwards went into town and sat in a café reading, or just drifted around, unless I met Geir. At half past eight, as the sun was setting and colouring the wall blood-red above the bed, I lay down to read. I started
The Karinhall Hunters
by Carl Henning Wijkmark, Geir had recommended it, I read in the glow of the sinking sun, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I was imbued with a wild, dizzy feeling of happiness. I was free, completely free, and life was fantastic. I could on occasion be seized by this feeling, perhaps once every six months, it was strong, it lasted for a few minutes, and then it passed. The oddity this time was that it didn’t pass. I woke up and was happy, buggered if I could remember that happening since I was a little boy. I sat on the terrace and sang in the pale sunlight, and when I wrote I didn’t care if it was bad, there were other, better things in the world than writing novels, and when I ran my body was as light as a feather, while my brain, which was usually focused on surviving and not much else on my runs, looked around and enjoyed the dense leafy greenery, the blue water of the many canals, the crowds of people everywhere, the beautiful and less beautiful buildings. After returning home and taking a shower I had some soup and crispbread, and then I went to the park to read some more of Wijkmark’s debut novel, about the Norwegian marathon runner who slips into Goering’s hunting castle during the Berlin Olympics in 1936, rang Espen or Tore or Eirik or mum or Yngve or Tonje, whom I was still with, nothing else had been said, went to bed early, got up in the middle of the night and ate plums or apples without knowing until I woke and found the remains on the floor beside the bed. At the beginning of May I went to Biskops-Arnö, six months ago I had agreed to give a talk there, phoned Lemhagen when I came to Stockholm and said I would have to cancel, I had nothing to talk about, he had said I could go anyway, listen to the other talks, perhaps participate in the discussions and do a reading or two in the evening, if I had anything new.