Welcome to America. Linda Boström Knausgård

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СКАЧАТЬ at top speed, as if the speed were vital to us in some way, as if it kept us alive. My mum talked us out of trouble the time we got stopped by the police. It was easy for her.

      But when she cried, the world fell apart and her crying was all there was. The guttural sounds she made, and all that came out of her. It was like setting a match to me, hearing her cry. Sometimes she could be on the phone at the same time. All this responsibility, she could wail, and it was as if my whole being zeroed in on her weeping so that I might understand and make it better. I took her distress in my hands as if it were a tangle of threads, and tried to unravel them, one at a time, to stop her tears by being there to help, but sometimes there was nothing I could do, the tears would be that much stronger.

      I hear my brother on the other side of the wall. He’s built his own sound studio in there. Mixer board, speakers, cables. Sometimes he’ll bring some nice-looking girl home with him after school for her to sing his songs. He empties his bottles of piss in the night when no one can see, and hides them away if anyone comes to visit. Maybe he puts them under the bed. My brother can do what he wants. No one’s ever been bothered. Maybe I could too. The thing is my own will is too weak to surface. If I had to probe into my life and ask myself questions, I wouldn’t be able to answer.

      On weekdays I walk to school. To begin with I wore pleated skirts and a woolen Loden coat, pigtails flapping against my back. No one else dressed like that, but I didn’t realise. Now I wear jeans and a top like everyone else. The school smells of dust and chalk and damp clothing. Always the same smell, though the spring draws in more dust and the dampness can recede. I never write on the board or in my books. Not speaking and not writing are the same. I can’t do one thing and not the other. Our teacher’s name is Britta. She speaks to my mum on the phone once a week. They talk about me, and I’m not sure if I like that or not. The days pass quickly. I walk to school and then I’m walking home again. What happens in between is something I absorb. I feel the way the class seems to proceed through the days like a living organism; suddenly someone will break out and pull others with them, but their agitation diminishes, everything evens out and becomes stable again. I listen carefully to what the teacher has to say, and I put her words away inside me. In the dining hall I keep to myself, sit on my own and eat my lunch. No one speaks to me anymore, and the memory of myself at school, the games we played, the way I took charge, has begun to fade.

      The walk home. Seeing the entranceway of our building always gives me a kind of shock. The marble columns and statues, a man and a woman holding up the balcony of the apartment above ours, the only one facing the street. The paintings on the stairway, the angels on the ceiling, the stone stairs with the fossils in them. We live on the first floor. The key slides into the lock, the door opening into the hall with the piano I sometimes played without being able. Home, home. Before, there was my dad to consider, the mood he might be in and what he could do. You never knew if it was going to be a quiet afternoon or if he’d be wanting company. But I didn’t need to worry about that anymore. Death stood between us now, like a river running by, and I could wade through that river, across to the other shore, and know I was safe.

      My mum’s thick, blond hair, her wide mouth and full lips, her laughter, so vibrant and fluid. So much joy. In one seamless movement, upwards, ever upwards, she could lift me and I would rise with her, rise to the ceiling and out into space, we rose and rose together. We flew. Flew over the city, looking down at the rooftops below, laughing as we picked out our own, onwards, upwards, away into the world. The air grew thin and cold, darkness surrounded us, until we turned and fell through the layers, all the way back to the apartment, and were again standing in our living room with the view of the park. It was night and thundering. Lightning lit up the park, the trees showed themselves fleetingly to us as light, before darkness took over again. Mum laughed at my fear of thunder. I had come running to her, crying, and we stood there together in the middle of the floor, staring into the night as it was ripped apart by electricity, and she laughed. What more did she do? Did she go with me back to my room again? Did she sit with me, on the edge of the bed? I can’t remember.

      Maybe this was where I should have resisted. Resisted the memories. I sat here in the darkness thinking about her, even though I didn’t want to. What did I want?

      I wanted to sit in enduring silence, to feel it grow strong and take everything into its possession. Was that what I wanted? Yes, that too.

      I surveyed the room. The bunk beds with the curtain mum had sewn, the night table with the books I no longer read, left there. The desk and the floral armchair where my clothes were dumped, the ones that weren’t in the wardrobe. The flowery wallpaper. Why were there so many flowers in my room?

      I went to the kitchen, knowing no one was there. I filled a glass with water and scurried back, drank the water and put the glass down on the desk. The notebook lay there with its soft, black cover. I ran my hand across it. Something inside me liked it being there.

      The first time I went to see my dad at the hospital he showed me off to everyone: patients, nurses, doctors. He was jaunty, glowing almost as he told them: This is my daughter. This is my daughter. He couldn’t sit still, he went off into the day room where the TV and the games were. I made sure not to look anyone in the eye. Mostly, I stared at the floor. A doctor sent him back to his room. Sit here and stay with your daughter, he said, and closed the door when he went out. It was as if suddenly dad came down to earth. He said: I’m no good. I’m no good. Several times in a row. He looked down at his hands, I at mine, until the visit was over and I could leave the ward and go back to mum who was waiting in the cafeteria.

      That was the first time. There were some more visits after that. And then mum no longer wanted him to live with us, so he went and lived on his own in a flat. I never felt guilty about wishing he was dead. It was the best thing.

      Sometimes, though, I felt guilty about him being on his own. At home he’d had us, even when all he could do was lie on the sofa, though occasionally, if he was up to it, he might make dinner after we’d played cards.

      We were a family of light. Mum’s light shone out to us all. Her light poured on us. Before, I’d been proud of my mum. The most beautiful of all the mothers at the parents’ evening. Conversing with the teacher and the other parents. She made an impression. No one could resist her. Least of all me. And could I now? Resist her? Was my silence down to her? How could anyone allow someone else to take up so much space in their lives?

      You’re only a child, she used to say, lifting my chin to make me look at her. You’re only a child, and now it’s enough. Do you hear me? Enough.

      I saw my brother in the playground. I saw him, and he saw me.

      The first few days had been a rush of excitement. The fact that I could. That it was so easy. Just stopping. From one moment to the next my life was changed. It was more than a refusal.

      It wasn’t running away. It was the truth. The truth about me.

      Now and then I wondered what my voice would sound like if all of a sudden one day I said something. Whether it was still there inside me, waiting, or if it was gone. What would it sound like? That was one question I asked myself.

      I asked myself others too, like about responsibility. Was I making my mum go mad? Most often she was calm, but when she flipped it felt as if it was my fault. It wasn’t so much what she said, it was more that she became small all of a sudden. I made her small. It was scary. I wondered whether I had to start talking again to stop her from disappearing. If I had to choose between her and myself, wouldn’t I choose her?

      Wouldn’t I choose her strength over mine?

      Yes. I would. That was still the way it was.

      Sleep came like a mist in the night. It settled over me, only a few centimetres of air between me and СКАЧАТЬ