The course lasted five days. I circled round her the whole time. In the evenings I got drunk, as drunk as I could, I hardly slept. One night I followed Arve into a crypt-like cellar, down there he danced round and round, it was impossible to communicate with him, and when we left and I realised he was beyond reach I cried. He saw. You’re crying, he said. Yes, I said. But you’ll have forgotten by tomorrow. One night I didn’t sleep a wink. When the last ones left for bed at five, I went out for a long walk in the forest, the sun was up, I saw deer leaping between the old deciduous trees and was happy in a mysterious way I didn’t recognise. The writing I did during the course was unusually good, it was as if I was in touch with a spring, something all of my own and yet foreign to me gushed up, clear and fresh. Or perhaps it was just the euphoria that caused me to misinterpret. We had classes together, I sat beside Linda, she asked me if I remembered the scene in Blade Runner where the light through the window fades. I said I did, and that the moment when the owl turns is the most beautiful in the whole film. She looked at me. A questioning look, not acknowledgement. The course directors went through the texts we had written. They came to mine. Lemhagen started to talk about it, and it was as though what he said elevated itself higher and higher, I had never heard anyone talk about a text in that way, elevate what was actually the bare essence, and he didn’t deal with characters or themes or what lay on the surface, he dealt with the metaphors and the unseen function they performed, bringing everything together, uniting them in an almost organic fashion. I had never known that was what I did, but now he said it I knew, and for me it was trees and leaves, grass and clouds and a glowing sun, that was all, I understood everything in the light of this, also Lemhagen’s interpretation.
He looked at me.
‘What this reminds me of, above all else, is Tor Ulven’s prose. Are you familiar with his work, Karl Ove?’
I nodded and looked down.
No one was allowed to see the blood foaming in my veins, trumpets blaring and knights galloping in my insides. Tor Ulven, that was the summit.
Oh, but I knew he was mistaken, he was exaggerating, he was Swedish and probably didn’t understand the finer points of the Norwegian language very well. But the mere mention of Ulven’s name… Wasn’t I a pulp fiction writer? Was there anything in my writing that had resonances of Tor Ulven?
My blood roared, my elation rushed screaming along my nerve channels.
I looked down, wishing intensely that he would stop and go on to the next person, and when he did I slumped back with relief.
That night all the drinking continued in my room, Linda said we could smoke if we took down the fire alarm, I did, we drank, I played Wilco’s Summerteeth, she didn’t seem to be interested in it, from what I could see, I showed her a Roman cookery book I had bought on an excursion to Uppsala the day before, so wonderful to cook the way the Romans did, I thought, but she didn’t agree, quite the contrary, she turned abruptly away from me and her eyes sought something else. People began to drift off to their rooms, I hoped Linda would not follow suit, but then she was gone too, and I went into the forest again, roamed around until seven, and when I returned an angry man came running after me. ‘Knausgaard, are you Knausgaard?’ he shouted. ‘Yes, I am,’ I said. He stopped in front of me and began to tear me off a strip. Fire alarm, dangerous, irresponsible, he yelled. I said yes, I’m sorry, wasn’t thinking, apologies. He stood glowering at me with fury in his eyes, I swayed to and fro, I couldn’t care less, went to my room, slept for two hours. When I appeared for breakfast Lemhagen came over to me, he apologised profusely for what had happened, the caretaker had gone too far, it wouldn’t happen again.
I understood nothing. Was he apologising to me?
What had happened fitted all too well, in my view, with the person I had become in the course of these days: a sixteen-year-old. My feelings were the feelings of a sixteen-year-old, my actions the actions of a sixteen-year-old. All of a sudden I was as unsure of myself as I had ever been. Everyone assembled in one room, we were going to read our texts, one after the other, the idea being that all of us together would form a choir with individual voices chiming in. Lemhagen pointed to someone; he started reading. Then he pointed to me. I looked at him, disconcerted.
‘Shall I read now? While he’s reading?’ I asked.
Everyone laughed. I blushed scarlet. But as we got going I could hear how good my text was, so much better than the others, rooted in something quite different and more vital.
When we were outside on the gravel talking, I said that to Arve.
He just smiled, said nothing.
Every evening two or three people read to the others. I looked forward to my turn, Linda would be there, I would show her who I was. I read well, I usually got applause. But not this time, from the very first sentence I began to doubt the text, it was ridiculous and I felt myself becoming smaller and smaller, until, flushed with shame, I sat down. Then it was Arve’s turn.
Something happened when he read. He had us all spellbound. He was a magician.
‘That was incredible!’ Linda said to me after he had finished.
I nodded and smiled.
‘Yes, he really is good.’
Furious and desperate, I left, got a beer and sat down on the staircase outside the room. I thought, Linda, now leave the room and come here. Do you hear me! Leave and come here. Follow me. If you do that, if you come here now, we belong together. And that’s it.
I stared at the door.
It opened.
It was Linda!
My heart pounded.
It was Linda! It was Linda!
She walked across the square, and I trembled with happiness.
Then she turned off and walked towards the other building, raising her hand in greeting to me.
The next day everyone went for a walk in the forest, and I was beside Linda, first in the line, and those behind us fell away and I was alone with her in the forest. She twisted a blade of grass and occasionally glanced at me with a smile. I was unable to say anything. Nothing. I looked down, I looked through the forest, I looked at her.
Her eyes sparkled. There was nothing of the dark deep-set, alluring eyes now, she was all lightness and coquettishness, twisting and twirling the grass, smiling, looking at me, looking down.
What was this?
What did it mean?
I asked if we should exchange books, she said, yes, of course. She came over while I lay on the grass peering up at the clouds, passed me her book. Biskops-Arnö, 01.07.99, To Karl Ove, it said on the title page. I ran in and fetched a copy of mine, already dedicated, and passed it to her. After she had gone I went to my room and settled down to read. I ached with desire for her as I was reading, every word came from her, was her.
In the midst of all this, my unbridled yearning for her and my descent into teenager-hood, I saw everything differently. All the greenery that grew, I saw how wild and chaotic it was, yet how plain and clear the shapes were, and it evoked a sense of ecstasy in me, the old oak trees, the wind blowing through the foliage, the sun, the endless blue sky.
I didn’t sleep, barely ate, and I drank every night, nonetheless I was not tired or hungry and had no difficulty participating in the course. The conversation with Arve continued unabated, that is I continued to talk about myself to him, and as time progressed, more and more about Linda. He saw me, and he saw the others on the course, and then we talked about literature. My way of talking changed, I became freer and freer in my thoughts the more I was with him, and I considered it a gift. Between the lessons we lay on the lawn outside the buildings and chatted, then the others were there, and I became jealous of him, I saw the impact his words had on others, and I longed to have the same impact myself.