“Hi, Daddy!” said Heidi, appearing wide awake in the doorway.
“Heidi-Hi,” I said. “Muesli or cornflakes?”
“Cornflakes. But I want to pour the milk.”
“OK,” I said.
She went off and I heard her come dragging her little chair from the bedroom through the hall, she used it to stand on when she was rummaging for clothes among the big piles in the IKEA cabinet on wheels that we’d put by the cupboards. A few minutes later she came in dressed in a rose-colored top with strawberries on it and a blue Hello Kitty denim skirt. The top was her absolute favorite; if it was up to her, she’d be wearing it round the clock.
“You look nice,” I said.
She smiled, but said nothing.
“I look nice too,” said John.
“But you’re not even changed yet,” I said. “Heidi is. That’s why I said she looked nice. You’ve still got your clothes from yesterday on!”
I filled a bowl with cornflakes and put it in front of Heidi along with a carton of milk, went out onto the balcony to get the vacuum jug, filled it with coffee, took a cup from the cupboard, poured myself the few mouthfuls that wouldn’t fit in the jug, and went out onto the balcony again. The only handle the door had was on the inside, it was a nuisance, all of a sudden the kids could push the door shut, and if they did I’d be locked out. They were too small to open it themselves. Vanja could, but she was asleep. So I turned the handle into the locked position and left the door ajar before sitting down and lighting a cigarette.
There was a chill in the air, but the sky was clear and the red sun was on its way up over the horizon. My stomach muscles ached, it felt like I’d been working out the day before. Most probably it was from all the tension.
A movement at the window caught my eye and instinctively I jumped for the door to make sure it didn’t get locked, then realized there was no danger and sat down again.
Heidi pushed the door open.
“I spilled, Daddy,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“Can you come?”
“Let me drink my coffee first, then I’ll come. Go back in.”
Instead of doing as she was told, she opened the door wider and stepped out onto the balcony.
“Heidi,” I said. “Go inside! You’re not supposed to be out here.”
“I only wanted to see,” she said with a sulk.
“Go inside, I’ll be there in a minute. OK?”
“OK.”
Why couldn’t she have waited, so I could have this little moment to myself with my coffee and my first cigarette of the day? Five minutes in peace, that was all I asked for.
I took a last drag and drew the smoke down into my lungs, swallowed what was left of my coffee, and went inside. It wasn’t just a little she’d spilled, it had run over the edge of the table and onto the floor. I tore off some paper towels and began to wipe it up.
“Was it on purpose?” I said as I cleaned up the mess, looking up at her as she sat on her chair watching what I was doing.
She shook her head.
“All right,” I said. “But eat what you’ve got in your bowl, at least!”
“But it’s too full,” she said.
I said nothing, but took it over to the sink, poured off some of the milk and the cornflakes, wiped the bottom and the edge of the bowl, and set it down in front of her again.
“There you go,” I said. “Now you can have your breakfast.”
“You’re angry,” she said. Coming from her, it was an accusation.
“I’m not angry, Heidi, not at all. I just don’t want to spend the morning cleaning up after you, that’s all. But it wasn’t your fault. It’s all right.”
“Is it morning?” said John.
“It is now,” I said. “When the sun comes up, it’s morning. When it goes down, it’s evening.”
“Not in the winter,” said Heidi.
“No, that’s right. But in the summer it’s true. And whose birthday is it in the summer?”
“Me!” said John.
“Next week, already!” I said.
“What am I getting?” said Heidi.
“You? It’s not your birthday, is it?”
“But Daddy,” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re getting,” I said. “How about a bag of gulrøtter?”
“What?”
“Morötter in Swedish. A bag of carrots, how does that sound?” I said.
“What?”
“Just pulling your leg, Heidi.”
“What?”
“Jag skojade,” I said.
“Du får inte skoja,” she said. Don’t make fun.
“Not even a little bit?”
She shook her head.
“So I’m not allowed to be angry, or make fun?”
“No.”
She bent forward and started slurping her cornflakes and milk. John had finished, there was yogurt all around his mouth and the table in front of him was spattered with soggy muesli.
“Do you want some more, John?” I said.
He shook his head. I went around the table and lifted him up, snatched off a sheet of paper towel and wiped his mouth, took off his diaper and dropped it in the bin underneath the sink along with the used paper towel.
“John’s a bare-bottomed boy,” said Heidi.
“I am NOT!” said John, immediately incensed, and stomped off.
Heidi laughed, a bubbly little giggle. I gave her a smile, grabbed a clean diaper from the bathroom, and went after him. He ran as soon as he saw me.
“Stop!” I said, and ran after him. I lifted him up, he kicked his legs, but not in any protest, and lay still when I put him down on the sofa and put the diaper on him.
“There you go,” I said, and went into the bedroom to switch the computer on and check my e-mails. Vanja had pulled the duvet up over her head, a wisp of hair on the pillow was all there was to indicate someone was underneath. I left her alone and logged on to my e-mail, nothing, apart from the news update from the Agderposten and a message from Amazon. I skimmed the headlines of the online newspapers, first Klassekampen, then Aftenposten, Dagbladet, Dagsavisen, VG, The New York Times, The Guardian, Expressen, and finally Aftonbladet.
* * *
With Vanja on the left side of the stroller, John inside and Heidi on the right, I stepped outside some half an hour later, walked to the crossing, went over and carried on up Södra Förstadsgatan all the way to the 7-Eleven, where we first made a left, then a right, and ten minutes later we were outside the nursery entrance, where Vanja keyed in the code and Heidi swung open the gate. The others who had arrived were all out in the yard, so I just lifted John out of the stroller and parked it by the wall, made eye contact with Nadje so she knew the children were there, and headed home again. On the way, I stopped off at the 7-Eleven to buy cigarettes and a box of matches. I stood outside and lit up with a big green garbage truck making a racket in the street behind me. The noise echoed off all the walls, its own little cacophony.
They probably weren’t called garbage trucks anymore. I wondered what they might be called instead. Environmental service vehicles, perhaps?
I walked along the street smoking my cigarette. There was a steady stream of buses now that the morning was underway, they made the ground shake as they rumbled past. The air was crisp and cool in the shade, warm and gentle in the sun; it looked like it was going to be a fine day. Not that it mattered. I was going back to bed, and hopefully I’d get some work done later.
The building we lived in came into view. I flicked my cigarette into the road as I walked the last stretch, past the huddle of pale, empty faces at the bus stop as a bus pulled up with that sound they made of something being ripped apart, a sound it had taken me more than a year to realize came from the contact between the iron grids of the gutter and the big wheels of the buses, crossed the road and walked up to the entrance door, where I tapped the panel with my key card. I took the stairs, put the cigarettes do
wn on the hat rack, unplugged the phone, pulled the blinds in the bedroom and lay down to sleep.
I woke up an hour and a half later having dreamed. My T-shirt was damp and the pillow I’d been lying on soaking wet. A craving for sugar drove me into the kitchen, where I pulled some grapes from the bunch and crammed them into my mouth to restore my blood sugar. After that I went back into the bedroom and checked my e-mails.
There was a new message from Gunnar in the in-box.
I got to my feet again and opened the door of the balcony, walked along the dark planks of the decking to where the sun was, and looked across at the Hilton, the three elevators that slid up and down in their glass tubes.
I had to stand up and take it.
I had to meet it head-on, I couldn’t hide.
So he was angry with me. So I’d done something terrible. I would have to answer for it. Take everything as it came. It was as straightforward as that.
But first I needed a cigarette.
I went in and took the packet from the hat rack, then went out onto the balcony on the other side, which was already boiling hot in the sun. I didn’t feel like sitting down, just lit up and gripped the metal railing, staring six floors down at the felted roof below, then sat down anyway, took three drags of the cigarette, stubbed it out, went back into the bedroom, opened the e-mail, and read it as quickly as I could.
He began with a couple of formal comments about having made his objections to the book clear to the publisher over the phone, but given the importance of attaching a date to his objections in the event of any proceedings, he felt obliged to write to me again by e-mail. He made the following absolute demands. He and his wife were to be removed completely from the book. The description of his mother and her life before and after Dad’s death was to be removed from the book. The description of the final phase of his brother’s life, which was painful to his next of kin, was to be completely removed from the book. The description of his father’s brothers, and the fictitious and untruthful stories about their relationships to each other, were to be completely removed from the book. There had never been the slightest conflict between them, they’d been the best of friends all their lives. All mention of the Knausgaard name was to be removed from the book. All remaining names were to be made anonymous. All mention or description of identifiable residences having belonged to his family were to be removed from the book. All errors of documentary fact had to go. He had noted more than fifty of them, he wrote, which were either downright lies or the result of ignorance. Nothing pertaining to these lies would he require to be rectified now, this would follow in the event of proceedings being taken. He found it telling that the dominant role played by the author’s mother regarding his brother’s tragedy received no mention in the book, though he would not insist on it being included. There was much more still to be said on the matter, the issues mentioned simply being a few of many, and he sincerely hoped he would not be compelled to make them public at some later date. That such a respectable publishing house as Oktober would even consider publishing a novel of this nature without contacting those involved was something he found scandalous. That he had indeed been contacted, and that his letter was in reply to that contact, didn’t seem to have occurred to him. He was too angry. He characterized my manuscript as a documentary portrait, which presumably was why he thought the family ought to have been contacted by the publisher, so that they could have been alerted to all the lies, all the distortions, all the glaring omissions. How could such a respectable publishing house fail to check the sources and their credibility? This was all the more serious in view of the manuscript having been written with one thing only in mind, which was to make money. That was the only reason I was exposing members of my family to the public eye, so I could get rich. Publishing such a book was utterly unacceptable, for not only was it untruthful, it was also an invasion of privacy. In the event of his failing to receive an immediate reply to his letter, the book, together with the e-mails in his possession, would be passed on to a lawyer, as well as to the newspapers, at the earliest opportunity. He named VG and Dagbladet. If this book, which distorted the truth and lied about the facts, was to be published, then the rest of the story, mark his words, would have to be told too, and in the language of the tabloid press. All the money I, the author, together with the publisher envisaged earning would be lost in damages.
* * *
So he was going to take it to the papers. And the courts.
I lay down on the bed and curled up in a ball, clutching a pillow. A moment later I got up again and went into the hall, picked up the phone, and dialed Geir Angell’s number.
“Another e-mail,” I said as soon as he answered.
“What’s he saying, anything new?”
“He’s going to the papers with it if I don’t do as he says. And he’s going to claim for damages as well.”
“Relax. Can you send me a copy?”
“Yeah. I’ll do it right away.”
“I’ll call you back once I’ve read it. OK?”
“OK.”
I hung up, went back into the bedroom and forwarded the e-mail on to Geir, then went into the bathroom with the phone still in my hand. I stared at the three blue IKEA bags, went into the kitchen, filled a glass with water from the tap and drank it. I put the glass down on the counter, went into the living room and opened the door of the balcony, only to close it again the same instant, went into the bedroom, lay down on the bed, sat up and stared at the display on the phone. I called Geir Angell again.
“Are you that fazed?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Let me finish reading it through. Hang on a minute.”
I got to my feet and went over to the balcony door, pulled on the cord that lifted the blinds, fastened it tight and went out into the hall.
“He’s not saying anything new here, Karl Ove. He’s making threats. He’s saying he’ll sue for damages if the novel comes out in its present form and that he’ll go to the tabloids and give them his side of the story. But the book hasn’t been published yet. The only story at the moment is there’s an uncle who wants to stop a novel about his family. No one can pass judgment before it’s out. And if he goes ahead like he says, it’ll be fantastic publicity. Everyone wants to read that kind of thing. Relax. He’s angry, that’s all. He can’t do anything.”
“He can go to the papers, and he can go to the courts. It’s no wonder I’m scared, is it?”
“No, I understand that. But there’s no need to be. He’s huffing and puffing now because he wants the book stopped. He’s trying to frighten you into doing what he wants.”
“He’s doing a good job.”
“But you’ve no idea if he’s actually willing to do what he says.”
“Oh, what a mess!”
“Relax. Everything’s going to be fine!”
“This is hell. It’s just hell.”
“What, someone being angry with you?”
“It’s not some trivial little thing, like you’re making it out to be.”
“I’m not saying it’s trivial. I’m saying it’s not as bad as you think.”
I said nothing, just stared out the window in the living room, the sunlight glittering in the windows of the Hilton.
“How about I come down?” said Geir. “We’re coming on Friday anyway, and I’m on my own here with Njaal, so it makes no difference whether I’m here or there. What do you say?”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. I’m not getting any work done anyway, with Njaal under my feet.”
“Isn’t he in day care?”
“Do you want me to come or not?”
“I’d never have asked under normal circumstances. You know that. Besides, it was your idea.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Sounds like it.”
“Great! We’ll leave first thing in the morning, so we should be there about … well, twenty-four hours from now, or thereabouts.”
We chat
ted for another half hour or so. When we were finished, I called Geir Gulliksen. He answered right away.
“Did you get the e-mail?” I asked.
“I did, yes,” he said. “He’s hopping mad, this uncle of yours, isn’t he?”
“What I’m scared of is him going to the newspapers. They’d jump at the chance of making a story out of this.”
“You don’t think he’s just trying to put pressure on?”
“I think he’s angry enough to do anything at all.”
“He says he’d give them the manuscript. That’d be against the law. The novel hasn’t been published yet, and the rights to the manuscript are yours. But I’ll ask Geir Berdahl to get in touch with him. The important thing is to make sure we handle things properly.”
“What about his list of demands?”
“No more than expected. What he’s after really is for the book not to come out at all.”
“Changing the names of everyone in the family, anonymizing people and places, that’s all fine by me. But removing my father and my grandmother is out of the question. There’d be no novel left if we did. And I can’t take Dad’s name out either. He’s what the novel’s about. He was my father. I can’t.”
“We’ll deal with all that as we go along. But the novel doesn’t stand or fall with the names.”
“Not those on the periphery, no. But I draw the line at my dad’s name. I won’t give that up.”
“The important thing now is to make sure he doesn’t go public. We need to accommodate him as far as we can.”
As soon as we hung up I called Espen. After I’d talked to him, I called Tore. Then Linda. Then Geir Angell again. I was on the phone all day, and when I wasn’t pacing about with the phone to my ear, I was lying stretched out on the bed with the blinds down, wishing it would all go away. As I lay there the phone was in my hand the whole time. I was aware of the risk of trying people’s patience; if I called Espen or Tore again, for instance, I’d be approaching the limits of what I could reasonably expect from them. I was sure they didn’t see it that way themselves, but I did, they had work to do, families to attend to, lives to live. Linda was different, but she was on holiday, I couldn’t heap all this on her now. I had no such qualms with Mom, she would always put herself aside when it came to Yngve’s and my problems, but she was at work in the daytime, and I couldn’t just barge in there with my troubles. I could do that with Yngve, but with him it was more complicated, he was involved, not on the outside like everyone else, but caught between a rock and a hard place. That left Geir Angell, I wasn’t worried about pestering him, I could quite easily ask him to put everything else aside and listen to me going on about the mess I was in, but even with Geir there had to be a limit somewhere, I’d spoken to him three times already today, so a fourth would surely be pushing it.
My Struggle, Book 6 Page 15