Karl Ove Knausgård: Moj boj, petič
Ko se Knausgård bliža tridesetim, svoje življenje dojema kot kaotično, brezciljno in neprimerljivo z življenji svojih prijateljev in znancev. To je obdobje nekontroliranega pijančevanja, nemalokrat zaznamovanega s takšnimi in drugačnimi neprijetnimi situacijami, obdobje številnih neuspelih poskusov pisanja, začasnega dela v umobolnicah in na radiu in neštetih selitev. A to je tudi obdobje, ko izide njegova prva uspešnica in ko prvikrat stopi v zakonski stan. In obdobje, ko mu umre oče.
“… I never laughed. As a result, I became especially conscious of laughter as such, as a phenomenon — I noticed how it occurred, how it sounded, what it was. People laughed almost all the time, they said something, laughed, others said something, everyone laughed. It lubricated conversations or gave them a shot of something else which didn’t have so much to do with what was being said as with being together with others. People meeting. In this situation everyone laughed, each in their own way, of course, and sometimes because of something genuinely funny, in which case the laughter lasted longer and could at times completely take over, but also for no apparent reason at all, just as a token of friendliness or openness. It could conceal insecurity, I knew that well, but it could also be strong and generous, a helping hand. When I was small I laughed a lot, but at some point it stopped, perhaps as early as the age of twelve, at any rate I remember there was a film with Rolv Wesenlund that filled me with horror, it was called The Man Who Could Not Laugh, and it was probably when I heard about it that I realised actually I didn’t laugh. From then on, all social situations were something I took part in and watched from the outside as I lacked what they were full of, the interpersonal link: laughter.
…
So as I walked down the steps towards the town centre on this Wednesday at the end of August I had a place in my heart for everything I beheld. A slab of stone worn smooth in a flight of steps: fantastic. A sway-backed roof side by side with an austere perpendicular brick building: so beautiful. A limp hot-dog wrapper on a drain grille, which the wind lifts a couple of metres and then drops again, this time onto the pavement flecked with white trodden-in chewing gum: incredible. A lean old man hobbling along in a shabby suit carrying a bag bulging with bottles in one hand: what a sight.
…
This was my life now. I was twenty-one years old, doing the first year of a literature course, I had a stranger living next door to me, I had a friend I still didn’t really know on the floor beneath and a girlfriend. I knew nothing, but I was getting better and better at pretending I did. […] I had no future either. Not because it existed somewhere else but because I couldn’t imagine it. That I might control my future and try to make it turn out the way I wanted was completely beyond my horizon.
….
Even then I had felt I was being false, someone who carried thoughts no one else had and which no one must ever know. What emerged from this was myself. This was what was me. In other words, that which in me that knew something the others didn’t, that which in me I could never share with anyone else. And the loneliness, which I still felt, was something I had clung to ever since, as it was all I had. As long as I had that no one could harm me, for what they harmed then was something else. No one could take loneliness away from me. The world was a space I moved in, where anything could happen, but in the space I had inside me, which was me, everything was always the same. All my strength lay there. The only person who could find his way in was dad, and he did too, when I was dreaming and he seemed to be in my soul and shouting at me.
For everyone else I was unreachable.…
I went down in the rain, laid sprigs over the gravel, looked up at the house, the windows aglow in the grey morning. I cried. Not because of death and its coldness but for life and its warmth. I cried because of the goodness that existed. I cried because of the light in the mist, I cried because of the living people in the dead man’s house and I thought, I can’t waste my life.
…
I had always known that I could turn my back on everything and just leave, with no regrets. I could also leave Tonje. I didn’t miss her when she wasn’t there. I didn’t miss anyone and never had done. I never missed mum, I never missed Yngve. I never missed Espen, I never missed Tore. I hadn’t missed Gunvor when we had been a couple and I didn’t miss Tonje now. I knew I would wander through the streets of Norwich, sit in lodgings somewhere writing, perhaps go out for a drink with Ole, and I wouldn’t miss her. I would think about her now and then, with warmth but not with longing. This was a flaw in me, a shortcoming I had, a coldness in my heart. If I got close to people I could sense what they wanted and subordinate myself to that.
…
I travelled down again and arrived at grandma’s house in the early morning. Dad was sitting in the kitchen, fat and heavy, his hands trembling and his face shiny with sweat. He was wearing a suit, shirt, tie. In the sitting room behind us were his brother Erling and his family, with grandma.
For the first time in my life I felt stronger than him, for the first time in my life I didn’t feel a trace of fear in me when I was in the same room as him.
He was harmless.
…
Yngve cried, and when I saw that, him sitting there and shaking, his face distorted into grimaces, him raising it to the ceiling and opening his mouth for air, I sobbed aloud with sorrow and joy, sorrow and joy, sorrow and joy. […]
When we sat down and the cellist played Bach in his rusty, creaky way I cried so much I thought I was going to split in half, my jaw hung open, wave upon wave of the very deepest emotions, those which only appear when all else is gone, washed through me.
After it was all finished Yngve hugged me, we stood crying on each other’s shoulders and then, walking across the gravel, watching cars pass in the distance, and old couple walking through the cemetery, a gull sailing through the air above us, it was over. At long last it was over. I took several deep breaths and there were no more sobs.”
Some Rain Must Fall je predzadnja iz Knausgårdove tri tisoč šeststo strani obsegajoče avtobiografije in zadnja doslej prevedena v angleščino. Če prevod šestega dela ne bo izšel v roku pol leta, se grem učit norveščino.
Preberi si tudi:
Karl Ove Knausgård: Moj boj, četrtič
Karl Ove Knausgård: Moj boj, tretjič