My Struggle: Book 2: A Man in Love (55 page)

‘Your flat’ was my office, actually a one-room flat with a bathroom and a small kitchenette which I rented from Fredrik.

‘Oh yes?’ he said.

‘I was interviewed by
Dagsrevyen,
the Norwegian TV news programme. At first they wanted to do it here. I said no, of course. Then they’d heard I was looking after our child at the moment and wondered if they could film me with Vanja. I said no again, of course. But they persisted. They didn’t need to film her, the buggy would be enough. What about if I pushed the buggy through town and then handed Vanja over to Linda – before the interview started as it were? What could I say?’

‘What about no?’ Fredrik said.

‘But I had to throw them a bone. They absolutely refused to do it in a café or anything like that. It had to be
about
something. So the interview was in your office, plus I went looking for an angel to buy for Vanja in the Old Town. Oh, it was so stupid it could drive you to tears. But that’s what it’s like. They need to have something.’

‘Turned out well though,’ Linda said.

‘No, it didn’t,’ I said. ‘But I find it hard to understand how it could have been better in fact. Under the circumstances.’

‘So you’re big in Norway then, are you?’ Fredrik said with a knowing look.

‘No, no, no,’ I said. ‘It’s just because I was nominated for a prize.’

‘Aha,’ he said. Then he laughed. ‘I was just winding you up. But in fact I’ve just read an excerpt from your novel in a Swedish journal. It was immensely evocative.’

I smiled at him.

To divert attention from the fact that there had been a touch of smugness about the theme I had just introduced, I got up and said, ‘Ah, I almost forgot. We bought a little bottle of cognac for the meal today. Would you like some? And I was on my way to the kitchen before he could answer. On my return, the conversation had turned to alcohol and breastfeeding, which a doctor had told Linda was not a problem, at least in moderation, but she wasn’t taking any chances as the Swedish health authorities recommended total abstinence. Alcohol and pregnancy were one thing, when the foetus was in direct contact with the mother’s blood, breastfeeding was quite another. From there it was a swift jump to pregnancies in general and then to births. I chimed in with something or other, added a snippet here and there and otherwise listened in silence for the main part. Births are an intimate and sensitive topic of conversation for women, there is a lot of covert prestige, and as a man the only possible option is to keep well away. To refrain from expressing an opinion. Which both Fredrik and I did. Until the subject of Caesareans came up. Then I couldn’t restrain myself any longer.

‘It’s absurd that Caesareans are an alternative form of giving birth,’ I said. ‘If there are no medical grounds for it, if the mother is hale and hearty, why should you cut open the belly and take the baby out that way? I watched an operation on TV once and, hell, it was cruel: one minute the baby’s inside, the next it’s out in the light. That must be a terrible shock for the child. And for the mother. Birth is a transition and it’s slow. It’s meant to be a way of preparing the mother and the baby. I don’t doubt for a second that it happens in this way for a reason, that there’s some meaning in it. However, like this, you forgo the whole process and everything that is set in motion within the child during that time and which takes place completely outside our control, because it’s simpler to cut open the belly and take out the baby. It’s sick, if you ask me.’

Silence. The mood was broken. Linda looked embarrassed. I gathered that I had unwittingly crossed a line. The situation had to be saved, but as I didn’t know what I had done wrong, it wouldn’t be by me. Instead it was Fredrik.

‘A genuine reactionary Norwegian!’ he said with a smile. ‘And an author on top of that. Hail Hamsun!’

I eyed him in amazement. He winked at me and smiled again. For the rest of the evening he called me Hamsun. Hey, Hamsun, is there any coffee left in the pot? he would say, for example. Or: What do you reckon, Hamsun? Should we move into the country or continue living in towns?

The latter was a topic we often discussed, for not only were we thinking about moving from Stockholm, perhaps to one of the islands along the south or west coast of Norway, but Fredrik and Karin were also toying with the idea, especially Fredrik, who cherished romantic notions of a life on a smallholding in a forest somewhere and would occasionally even show us places for sale they had found on the Net. But the Hamsun twist at the end suddenly cast our motivation in a completely new light. And all because I had said that a Caesarean might not be the best way to give birth to a child.

How was it possible?

After they had gone, effusive with their ‘Thanks for a nice evening’ and ‘We must do this again,’ and after I had tidied the room, cleared the table and switched on the dishwasher I sat up for a bit while Linda and Vanja slept in the bedroom. I wasn’t used to drinking any more, so I could feel the cognac, a warm flame burning behind my thoughts and casting a glow of abandon over them. I wasn’t drunk though. After sitting still on the sofa for half an hour, without thinking about anything special, I went into the kitchen, drank a few glasses of water, took an apple and sat down in front of the computer. When it started I went into Google Earth. Slowly rotated the globe, found the tip of South America and moved gently upwards, first from a great distance, until I saw a fjord cutting into the land mass and zoomed in. A river came down a valley, rugged mountains soared sharply on one bank, on the other the river branched into what appeared to be a wetlands area. Further out, by the edge of the fjord, lay a town, Rio Gallegos. The streets dividing it into blocks were as straight as a ruler. From the size of the cars I concluded the buildings were low. Most of them had flat roofs. Broad streets, low buildings, flat roofs: the province. The habitations became more and more sparse closer to the sea. The beaches seemed abandoned with the exception of some harbour areas. I zoomed out again and saw the green gleam of scattered patches of shallow water off the shoreline and the dark blue where it was deeper. The clouds hanging over the surface of the sea. Then I continued up the coast of this desolate countryside, which must have been Patagonia, and stopped by another town, Puerto Deseado. It was small and had something desert-like and golden about it. There was a mountain in the centre, with very few buildings, and there were two lakes, which looked dead. By the sea was a refinery plant with quays alongside huge tankers. The countryside around the town consisted of tall unoccupied vegetation-less mountains, the odd narrow road winding inwards, a lake or two, a valley or two with rivers, trees and houses. I moved away again and zoomed in on Buenos Aires on the Rio Plata opposite Montevideo, chose a place by the coastline and focused on the airport. The planes stood close to the terminal like a flock of white birds, a stone’s throw from the water, which was bordered by a tree-lined road. I followed it and arrived at what seemed like three enormous swimming pools in the middle of a park. What could it be? I zoomed in closer. Aha! An aqua park! Beyond, I knew, on the other side of the road in the great open space it traversed was the River Plate Stadium. The width of it was striking, there was not only a running track around the pitch, outside it on two sides were also two semicircles of turf before the towering stands. The World Cup final between Holland and Argentina, which was played here in 1978, was one of the first I could remember seeing on TV. All the white confetti, the huge crowd, Argentina’s blue and white striped shirts and Holland’s orange against the green of the grass. Holland, who lost a second final in a row. Then I came out again, found the river a bit further up and followed it downwards. Heavy industry on both sides, docks with cranes and big ships, crossed by road and rail bridges. Several football pitches here too. Where the river flowed into the centre of town the boats appeared to be more for pleasure. Behind it was the district with all the colourful timber buildings, I knew that. La Boca. Beneath it an eight-lane motorway crossed the river, and I followed that instead. It bordered the harbour for a while. Great barges on both sides. Perhaps ten blocks further was the city centre with its parks, monuments and magnificent buildings. I zoomed in on where the Teatro Cervantes ought to be, but the image resolution was too poor, everything blurred into contourless green and grey, so I switched off, had a final glass of water in the kitchen, went to the bedroom and lay down beside Linda.

The next morning we went to Central Station early to catch the suburban train to Gnesta, where Linda’s mother lived. A roughly five-centimetre layer of snow covered the streets and roofs. The sky above us was leaden grey with glimmers of light in places. There were not many people up and about, naturally enough, it was a Sunday morning. The odd partygoer wending his way home, the odd pensioner walking a dog and as we approached the station the odd prospective passenger trundling a bag. A young man sat on the platform and slept with his chin resting on his chest. Behind him a crow was pecking in a rubbish bin. Further away, a train drew alongside the platform without stopping. The electronic display board above us showed no signs of life. Linda walked up and down the edge of the platform wearing the white calf-length coat I had bought in London for her thirtieth birthday, a white woollen hat and a white scarf with some rose-like embroidery, which I had given her for Christmas and I gathered she didn’t really like, even though it suited her very well. Both the colour – she always looked good in white – and the pattern were as romantic as she was. The cold made her cheeks red, her eyes moist and shiny. She clapped her hands a couple of times and jogged on the spot. From the escalator came a fat woman in her fifties with a roller bag on either side of her. Behind her was a girl of around sixteen dressed in dark clothes with black mascara round her eyes, black finger mittens, black hat and long blonde hair. They stood next to each other by the edge of the platform. Mother and daughter they must have been, even though it was hard to discern any similarity.

‘Tu whoo tu whoo!’ Vanja said, pointing to two pigeons that strutted over. She had just learned to imitate an owl in one of the books we were reading to her, and now it was the sound all birds made.

Her facial features were so small, I thought. Small eyes, small nose, small mouth. Not that she was small, but she would always have small facial features, you could already see. Not least when you saw her beside Linda. They didn’t resemble each other in any direct, obvious way, but the family likeness was still apparent, especially in the proportions of their features. Linda also had small eyes and a small mouth and nose. My features were, apart from eye colour and perhaps the almond-shaped upper part of the eye, nowhere to be seen. But now and then she had expressions I recognised – they were Yngve’s, he’d had that look when he was growing up.

‘Yes, two pigeons,’ I said, crouching in front of her. She looked at me expectantly. I lifted the flap of her leather hat and whispered in her ear. She laughed. At that moment the board above us came to life. Gnesta, track two, three minutes.

‘Doesn’t look like she wants to sleep,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Linda. ‘It’s a bit too early.’

Sitting still and being strapped in were not Vanja’s favourite pastimes, unless she was in the buggy and moving, so on trips to Gnesta, which took an hour, we had to keep her constantly occupied. To and fro down the aisle, up to the windows and the glass in the doors, if we couldn’t hold her attention with the aid of a book, a game or a packet of raisins, which might divert her for up to half an hour. Provided the train was not crowded this was not a problem, as long as you hadn’t planned to read a newspaper, as I had today, the entire pile from yesterday was in my bag, but in the rush hour when these carriages were packed with people it could be unpleasant, a tired child screaming for an hour, nowhere to walk with her, it was a wearing experience. We often did this journey. Not only because Linda’s mother could look after Vanja and we would have a few hours to ourselves, but also because we, or at least I, liked being there so much. Farms, animals grazing, vast forests, small gravel paths, lakes, clear fresh air. Dense black night, starry sky, total silence.

The train drew slowly into the platform, we got on board and sat on the seats by the door, where there was room for the buggy, I lifted Vanja and let her stand on the seat with her hands against the window to watch as the carriages slipped through the tunnel and onto the bridge over Slussen. The ice-bound snow-covered water shone white against the yellow and reddish brown of the houses and the steep black mountainside of Mariaberget, where the snow had not settled. The clouds in the sky to the east had a gentle golden hue, as though lit from the inside by the sun, which was behind them. We entered the tunnel underneath Söder and when we emerged we were high above the water on a bridge leading to the land on the other side, at first a mass of high-rise buildings and one satellite town after another, thereafter residential areas and detached houses until the ratio of buildings to nature was inverted and it was villages which appeared as small units in great expanses of forest and lake.

White, grey, black, isolated patches of dark green, those were the colours of the countryside through which we passed. Last summer I came here every day. We lived with Ingrid and Vidar for the last two weeks of June and I commuted between Gnesta and Stockholm, where I wrote. It was the perfect life. Up at six, a slice of bread for breakfast, a smoke and a cup of coffee on the front doorstep, pre-warmed by the sun, with a view of the meadow up to the edge of the forest, then cycle to the station, the sandwiches Ingrid had made for me in my rucksack, read on the train into Stockholm, walk to the office, write, travel back at around six through the vibrant sun-filled forest, cycle across the fields to the little house, where they were waiting with dinner, perhaps have an evening dip in the lake with Linda, sit outside reading and go to bed early.

One day the forest had been on fire alongside the railway line. That had also looked fantastic. A whole hillside, only a few metres from the train, ablaze. Flames licking up tree trunks, other trees fully alight. Orange tongues drifting across the ground, shrubs and bushes, everything illuminated by the same summer sun, which along with the thin blue sky seemed to make what was happening transparent.