My Struggle: Book One (52 page)

He winked at us.

“You've got time for a coffee, I suppose?” Grandma inquired.

“No coffee for us,” Gunnar said. “We'll be off soon. The boys are alone at the cabin.”

“All right,” Grandma said.

Gunnar poked his head into the kitchen.

“You've already done a lot,” he said. “Impressive.”

“We were thinking of having the get-together here, after the funeral,” I said. He looked at me.

“You'll never make it,” he said.

“We will,” I said. “We've got five days. It'll be fine.”

He looked away. Perhaps because of the tears in my eyes.

“Well, it's your decision,” he said. “So if you two think it's fine, then that's how we'll play it. But we'll have to get a move on!”

He turned and went into the living room. I followed him.

“We'd better toss out everything that's broken. There's no point in saving anything here. The sofas, what state are they in?”

“One of them's OK,” I said. “We can wash that one. The other, I think, . . .”

“Then we'll take it,” he said.

He stood in front of the large, black, leather three-seater. I went to the other end, bent down, and grabbed hold.

“We can carry it through the veranda door and out that way,” Gunnar said. “Can you open it for us, Tove?”

As we carried it through the living room Grandma was standing in the kitchen doorway.

“What are you doing with the sofa?” she cried.

“We're getting rid of it,” Gunnar said.

“Are you crazy!” she said. “Why are you getting rid of it? You can't just get rid of my sofa.”

“It's ruined,” Gunnar said.

“That's none of your business!” she said. “It's my sofa!”

I stopped. Gunnar looked at me.

“We have to, can't you see that?!” he said to her. “Come on, Karl Ove, and we'll get it out.”

Grandma advanced toward us.

“You can't do that!” she said. “This is my house.”

“Oh, yes, we can,” Gunnar countered.

We had reached the steps down to the living room. I edged sideways without giving Grandma a look. She was standing beside the piano. I could feel her iron will. Gunnar didn't notice. Or did he? Was he struggling with it too? She was his mother.

He went backward down the two steps and slowly moved through the room.

“This is not right!” Grandma shouted. Over the last few minutes she had completely changed. Her eyes were shooting sparks. Her body, which earlier had been so passive and closed in on itself, was now opening outward. She stood with her hands on her hips, snarling.

“Oohh!”

Then she turned.

“No, I don't want to see this,” she said, and returned to the kitchen.

Gunnar sent me a smile. I walked down the two steps, onto the floor and stepped sideways to reach the doorway. There was a draft coming from it, I could feel the wind against the bare skin on my legs, arms, and face. The curtains were flapping.

“Are you alright?” Gunnar asked.

“I think so,” I said.

On the veranda we put down the sofa and rested for a few seconds before lugging it the last stretch, down the stairs and through the garden towards the trailer outside the garage door. Once it was loaded and in position, with one end sticking out perhaps a meter, Gunnar fetched a blue rope from the trunk and started lashing it tight. I didn't know quite what to do and stood there watching, in case he needed help.

“Don't take any notice of her,” he said, while tying. “She doesn't know what's good for her right now.”

“Right,” I answered.

“You've probably got a better overview of things here than me. What else has to be thrown out?”

“Quite a bit from his room. And hers. And the living room. But nothing big. Not like the sofa.”

“Her mattress maybe?” he wondered.

“Yes,” I said. “And his. But if we get rid of hers we'll have to find her a new one.”

“We can take one from their old bedroom,” he said.

“We can do that,” I agreed.

“If she complains when you boys are alone with her, don't take any notice. Just do what you have to do. It's for her own good.”

“Okay,” I said.

He coiled the remaining rope and tied it firmly to the trailer.

“That should hold,” he said, straightening his back. He looked at me.

“Have you checked the garage, by the way?”

“No,” I replied.

“He's got all his stuff in there. A whole truckload. You'll have to take it with you. But go through it now. Probably a lot of it can be thrown away.”

“Okay,” I said.

“There's not much room for anything else on the trailer, but we'll take what we can and drive to the dump. So bring out some more stuff in the meantime, and we can do another trip. And then I think that's it. If there's anything else, I can come during the week maybe.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“It's not easy for you kids,” he said. “I understand that.”

When our eyes met he held mine for a few seconds before looking away. In his tanned face his eyes seemed almost as clear and blue as Dad's.

There was so much he didn't want to engage with. All the emotions I was overflowing with, for example.

He laid his hand on my shoulder.

Something snapped in me. I sobbed.

“You're good kids,” he said.

I had to turn away. I bent forward and covered my face with my hands. My body shook. Then it was over, I stood up, took a deep breath.

“Do you know anywhere that rents machinery? You know, floor polishers, industrial lawn mowers, that sort of thing?”

“Are you going to polish the
floor
?”

“No, no, that was just an example. But I was thinking of tackling this grass. And you can't do that with a standard lawn mower.”

“Isn't that a bit ambitious? Isn't it best to concentrate on inside the house?”

“Yes, maybe it is. But if there's any time left over.”

He bowed his head and scratched his scalp with a finger.

“There's a rental firm in Grim. They should have something suitable. But look in the Yellow Pages.”

The white plinth of the house beside us began to shimmer. I looked up. There was a break in the clouds and the sun was shining through. Gunnar
went up the steps and into the house. I followed. On the hall floor outside Dad's room were two garbage bags, full of clothes and junk. Beside them was the soiled chair. From inside the room Yngve stood looking at us. He was wearing yellow gloves.

“Perhaps we should throw out the mattress,” he said. “Is there room?”

“Not on this run,” Gunnar said. “We can take it on the next.”

“By the way, we found this under the bed,” Yngve said, gripping the envelope he had left on the wall shelf and passing it to Gunnar.

Gunnar opened the envelope and peered inside.

“How much is it?” he asked.

“About two hundred thousand,” Yngve said.

“Well, it's yours now,” he said. “But don't forget your sister when you divvy it up.”

“Of course not,” Yngve said.

Had he thought of her?

I hadn't.

“Then you'll have to decide whether you're going to declare the money or not,” Gunnar said.

Tove stayed behind to clean when Gunnar drove off a quarter of an hour later with a full trailer. All the windows and the doors in the house were open, and that, the movement of air inside plus the sunlight falling over the floors and the overpowering smell of detergent on at least the second floor, allowed the house to open up, in a sense, and become a place the world flooded through, which, deep in my emotional gloom, I noticed and liked. I continued with the staircase, Yngve with Dad's room while Tove took care of the upstairs living room, the one where he had been found. The windowsills, the panels, the doors, the shelves. After a while I went upstairs to the kitchen to change the water. Grandma looked up as I emptied the bucket, but her eyes were vacant and uninterested and soon returned to the table. The water whirled slowly around the sink as it dwindled, gray-brown and turbid, until the last white suds were gone and a layer of sand, hair, and miscellaneous particles
was left, matte against the shiny metal. I turned on the tap and let the jet run down the sides of the bucket until all the dirt was gone and I could fill it up with fresh, steaming hot water. As, straight afterward, I went into the living room, Tove turned to me with a smile.

“My God, this is something!” she commented.

I stopped.

“It's progressing, anyway,” I said.

She put the cloth down on the shelf and ran a hand through her hair.

“She's never been one for cleaning,” she said.

“It used to look fairly decent here, didn't it?” I asked.

She chuckled and shook her head.

“Oh, no. People might have had that impression, but no . . . as long as I have known this house it's always been filthy. Well, not everywhere, but in the corners. Under the furniture. Under the carpets. You know, where it can't be seen.”

“Is that right?”

“Oh, yes, she's never been much of a housewife.”

“Perhaps not,” I said.

“But she deserved better than this. We thought she could enjoy some good years after Grandfather died. We got her some home-help, you know, and they took care of the whole house for her.”

I nodded. “I heard about that,” I said.

“That was some help for us too. Before that, it was always us who helped them. With all sorts of things. They've been old for a long time, of course. And with your father being the way he was, and Erling in Trondheim, everything fell on us.”

“I know,” I said, raising my hands and eyebrows in a gesture that was supposed to show that I sympathized with her, but could not have done anything myself.

“Now, though, she'll have to go into a home and be taken care of. It's terrible to see her like this.”

“Yes,” I said.

She smiled again.

“How's Sissel?”

“Fine,” I said. “She lives in Jølster, she seems to love it there. And she's working at the nursing college in Førde.”

“Give her my love when you see her,” Tove said.

“Will do,” I said and smiled back. Tove picked up the cloth again, and I went down to where I had reached on the stairs, about halfway, put down the bucket, wrung the cloth and squirted a line of Jif over the banister.

“Karl Ove?” Yngve called.

“Yes?” I answered.

“Come down here a minute.”

He was standing in front of the hall mirror. A huge stack of papers on the oil-fired heater beside him. His eyes were shiny.

“Look at this,” he said, passing me an envelope. It was addressed to Ylva Knausgaard, Stavanger. Inside was a piece of paper on which
Dear Ylva
was written but otherwise it was blank.

“Did he write to her? From here?” I asked.

“Seems like it,” Yngve said. “It must have been her birthday or something. And then he gave up. Look, he didn't have our address.”

“I didn't think he'd registered that she existed,” I said.

“But he had,” Yngve said. “He must have thought about her as well.”

“She
is
his first grandchild,” I said.

“True,” Yngve said. “But this is Dad we're talking about. It doesn't have to mean a thing.”

“Shit,” I said. “It's all so sad.”

“I found something else,” Yngve said. “Look at this.”

This time he passed me a typed, official-looking letter. It was from the State Educational Loan Fund. It was a statement to say his study loan had been repaid in full.

“Look at the date,” Yngve said.

It was June 29.

“Two weeks before he died,” I said, and met Yngve's eyes. We started laughing.

He laughed.

And I laughed. “So much for freedom.”

We laughed again.

When Gunnar and Tove left an hour later, the atmosphere in the house changed again. With only us and Grandma at home, the rooms seemed to close around what had happened, as though we were too weak to open them. Or perhaps we were too close to what had happened and were a greater part of it than Gunnar and Tove. At any rate, the flow of life and movement abated, and every object inside, whether the television, the chairs, the sofa, the sliding door between the living rooms, the black piano, or the two baroque paintings hanging on the wall above it, appeared for what it was, heavy, immovable, laden with the past. Outside, it had clouded over again. The grayish-white sky muted all the colors of the landscape. Yngve sifted through papers, I washed the staircase, Grandma sat in the kitchen, immersed in her own gloom. At around four o'clock Yngve took the car and went to buy some lunch, and, conscious of the whole house around me, I fervently hoped that Grandma would not set out on one of her rare peregrinations and join me, for it felt as if my soul, or whatever it is other people, with such ease, leave their impressions on, was so fragile and sensitive that I would not be able to bear the strain that her grief and gloom-stricken presence would impose. But this hope was in vain, for after a while I heard the scrape of table legs upstairs, and soon afterward her footsteps, first into the living room, then on the staircase.