My Struggle: Book One (40 page)

“Our father died yesterday,” Yngve said. “We were wondering, well, if you might take care of the practical details. The funeral and so on.”

“Yes,” the funeral director said. “Then I'll start by filling in a form.”

He pulled out a drawer from the desk and took out a document.

“We used you when our grandfather died. And have had only good experiences,” Yngve said.

“I remember that,” the director said. “He was an accountant, wasn't he? I knew him well.”

He reached for a pen lying beside the telephone, raised his head and looked at us.

“But now I need some information from you,” he said. “What's your father's name?”

I said his name. It felt strange. Not because he was dead, but because I hadn't said it for so many years.

Yngve glanced at me.

“Well . . .,” he said cautiously. “He did change his name a few years ago.”

“Ah, I'd forgotten that,” I said. “Of course.”

The idiotic name he had chosen.

What an idiot he had been.

I looked down and blinked a few times.

“Have you got his National Insurance number?” the director said.

“No, not all of it,” Yngve said. “Sorry. But he was born on April 17, 1944. We can find out the other numbers later if we have to.”

“That's fine. Address?”

Yngve gave Grandma's address. Then glanced at me.

“Mm, I'm not sure that's his official address. He died at his mother's house. That's where he was living.”

“We'll sort that out. And then I need your names as well. And a telephone number where I can reach you.”

“Karl Ove Knausgaard,” I said.

“And Yngve Knausgaard,” Yngve said, and gave him his mobile number. After noting that, he put down the pen and looked at us again.

“Have you had an opportunity to think about the funeral? When it would be appropriate to hold it and what form you would like it to take?”

“No,” Yngve said. “We haven't. But I suppose it's normal to hold the funeral a week after the death?”

“That is the norm, yes. So would next Friday be a suitable date?”

“Ye-es,” Yngve said. “What do you think?”

“Friday's fine,” I said.

“Well, let's say that for the time being. As far as the practical details are concerned, we can meet again, can't we? And in that case, if the funeral is to be on Friday, we would have to meet early next week. Perhaps no later than Monday. Does that work for you?”

“Yes,” Yngve said. “Could it be early?”

“Certainly. Shall we say nine o'clock?”

“Nine's good.”

The funeral director jotted this in his book. Once he had finished he stood up.

“We'll make the arrangements now. If you have any worries, do by all means give me a call. Any time at all. I go to my cabin in the afternoons and stay there all weekend, but I take my mobile phone with me, so all you need to do is call. Don't be shy. We'll meet again on Monday.”

He proffered his hand and we both shook it before leaving the room, and he closed the door behind us with a brief nod and a smile.

Back out on the street, as we walked toward our car, something had changed. What I saw, what we were surrounded by, was no longer in focus, it had been pushed into the background, as though a zone had been installed around me from which all meaning had been drained. The world had vanished, that was the feeling I had, but I didn't care because Dad was dead. While in my mind the undertaker's office in all its detail was very vivid and clear, the town around it was fuzzy and gray, I walked through it because I had no choice. I wasn't thinking differently, inside my mind I was unchanged, the only difference was that now I demanded more room and hence I was excluding external reality. I couldn't explain it in any other way.

Yngve unlocked the car door. I noticed a white band wrapped around the roof rack, it was glossy and resembled the sort of ribbon you tie around presents, but surely it couldn't be?

He opened the door for me, and I got inside.

“That went well, didn't it,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Shall we drive to Grandma's then?”

“Let's,” I said.

He indicated and moved into the traffic, took the first left, then another left, onto Dronningens gate, and soon we saw our grandparents' house from the bridge, yellow and imposing above the small marina and harbor basin. Up Kuholmsveien and into the alley that was so narrow you had to drive downhill a little way, then reverse into the footpath before you could drive up to and park by the front steps. I had seen my father perform the operation perhaps a hundred times in my childhood, and the fact that Yngve was doing exactly the same now moved my tears to the very edge of my consciousness, only a mental wrench prevented them from falling again.

Two large seagulls took off from the steps as we drove up the gentle slope. The space in front of the garage door was covered with sacks and garbage bags, that was what had been entertaining the gulls. They had pulled out all sorts of discarded plastic and strewn it around in their search for food.

Yngve switched off the engine but did not move. I too remained where I was. The garden was completely overgrown. The grass was knee-high, like a meadow, grayish-yellow in color, flattened in some places by the rain. It had spread everywhere, covering all the beds, I wouldn't have been able to see the flowers had I not known where they were, now only scattered glimpses of color allowed you to guess. A rusty wheelbarrow lay on its side by the hedge, looking as if it had grown into the wilderness. The ground under the trees was brown with rotten pears and plums. Dandelions abounded and in some places stripling trees had sprung up. It was as if we had parked by a clearing in the forest and not in front of a detached house in the middle of Kristiansand.

I leaned forward and looked up at the house. The bargeboards were rotten and the paint was peeling in various places, but the decay was not as obvious there.

Some drops of rain struck the windshield. A few more drummed lightly on the roof and hood.

“Gunnar isn't here anyway,” Yngve said, undoing his seat belt. “But I suppose he'll be down eventually.”

“He must be at work,” I said.

“Figures for rainfall might go up in the holiday month, but that doesn't attract accountants back to work,” Yngve commented drily. He withdrew the car key, put the bunch in his jacket pocket, opened the door, and got out.

I would have preferred to stay put, but of course that was not possible, so I followed suit, closed the door, and looked up at the kitchen window on the second floor where Grandma's gaze had always met us whenever we came.

No one home today.

“Hope it's open now that we're here,” Yngve said, climbing the six steps that once had been painted dark red but were now just gray. The two gulls had settled on the roof of the neighbor's house and were carefully monitoring our movements.

Yngve pressed down the handle and pushed in the door.

“Oh Christ,” he said.

I clambered up the stairs, and as I followed him through the doorway into
the vestibule I had to turn away. The smell inside was unbearable. It stank of mold and piss.

Yngve stood in the hall surveying the scene. The blue wall-to-wall carpet was covered with dark stains. The open built-in wardrobe was full of loose bottles and bags of them. Clothes had been tossed all over the place. More bottles, clothes hangers, shoes, unopened letters, advertising brochures, and plastic bags were strewn across the floor.

But the worst was the stench.

What the hell could reek like that?

“He's destroyed everything,” Yngve said, slowly shaking his head.

“What is that godawful stench?” I said. “Is something rotting?”

“Come on,” he said, moving towards the stairs. “Grandma's waiting for us.”

Empty bottles were strewn halfway up the staircase, five, six, maybe, but the closer we got to the second floor landing the more there were. Even the landing outside the door was almost totally covered with bottles and bags of bottles and every step of the staircase that continued up to the third floor, where my grandparents' bedroom had been, was full, apart from a few centimeters in the middle to put your feet. Most were plastic 1.5 liter bottles and vodka bottles, but there were a few wine bottles as well.

Yngve opened the door and we went into the living room. There were bottles on top of the piano and bags full of them below. The kitchen door was open. That was always where she sat, as indeed she was doing today, by the table, eyes downcast and a smoking cigarette in her hand.

“Hello,” Yngve said.

She looked up. At first there was no sign of recognition in her eyes, but then they lit up.

“So it
was
you boys! I thought I heard someone coming through the door.”

I swallowed. Her eyes seemed to have sunk into the cavities; her nose protruded and looked like a beak in the lean face. Her skin was white, shrunken, and wrinkled.

“We came as soon as we heard what had happened,” Yngve said.

“Oh, yes, it was terrible,” Grandma said. “But now you're here. That's good at least.”

The dress she was wearing was discolored with stains and hung off her scrawny body. The top part of her bosom the dress was supposed to cover revealed ribs shining through her skin. Her shoulder blades and hips stuck out. Her arms were no more than skin and bone. Blood vessels ran across the backs of her hands like thin, dark blue cables.

She stank of urine.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” Yngve said. “That wouldn't be a bad idea. But we can put it on. Where's the coffeepot?”

“Damned if I know,” Grandma said, casting around.

“It's there,” I said, pointing to the table. There was a note beside it, I craned my head to read what it said.

BOYS COMING AT TWELVE. I'LL BE DOWN AROUND ONE. GUNNAR
.

Yngve took the coffeepot and went to empty the grains in the sink, where there were piles of filthy plates and glasses. The whole length of the counter was covered with plastic trays, mostly from microwave meals, many still containing leftovers. Between them bottles, mostly the same 1.5 liter ones, some with dregs at the bottom, some half-full, some unopened, but bottles of spirits too, the cheapest Vinmonopolet vodka, a couple of half-liter bottles of Upper Ten whisky. Everywhere there were dried coffee dregs, crumbs, shriveled food remains. Yngve pushed one of the piles of packaging away, lifted some of the plates out of the sink, and put them on the counter before cleaning the coffeepot and filling it with fresh water.

Grandma was sitting as she had when we entered, eyes fixed on the table, the cigarette, now extinguished, in her hand.

“Where do you keep the coffee?” Yngve said. “In the cupboard?”

She looked up.

“What?” she said.

“Where do you keep the coffee?” Yngve repeated.

“I don't know where he put it,” she said.

He? Was that Dad?

I turned and went into the living room. For as long as I could remember, it had only been used on church holidays and special occasions. Now Dad's huge TV was in the middle of the floor and two of the large leather chairs had been dragged in front of it. A little table swimming with bottles, glasses, pouches of tobacco, and overflowing ashtrays stood between them. I walked past and examined the rest of the room.

In front of the three-piece suite by the wall lay some articles of clothing. I could see two pairs of trousers and a jacket, some underpants and socks. The smell was awful. There were also overturned bottles, tobacco pouches, dry bread rolls, and other rubbish. I slouched past. There was excrement on the sofa, smeared and in lumps. I bent down over the clothes. They were also covered with excrement. The varnish on the floor had been eaten away, leaving large, irregular stains.

By urine?

I felt an urge to smash something. Lift the table and sling it at the window. Tear down the shelf. But I felt so weak I could barely get there. I rested my forehead against the window and looked down into the garden. The paint had almost peeled completely off the overturned garden furniture, which seemed to be growing out of the soil.

“Karl Ove?” Yngve said from the doorway.

I turned and went back.

“It's fucking disgusting in there,” I said in a low voice so that she couldn't hear.

He nodded.

“Let's sit with her for a bit,” he said.

“Okay.”

I went in, pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the table from her, and sat down. A ticking sound filled the kitchen, coming from a thermostat-style device that was intended to switch off the burners on the stove automatically. Yngve sat at the end and took his cigarettes from his jacket, which for some reason he had not taken off. I had my jacket on as well, I discovered.