Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

‘I’ll stay here for a bit,’ I said. ‘Have to clear my head.’

They went in side by side, next to him she was extremely slight. But she was tough, I thought, and looked out over the village again, it was so quiet and peaceful compared to the hubbub of vying personalities and wills in the clubhouse behind me.

Some time after the band stopped playing, the music was also switched off, and as people began to drift away the lights came on, harsh and quivering, and the magic veil in which the darkness had wrapped everything was torn aside. The dance floor, which moments before had been the scene for the sweetest and hottest dreams, was now bare and empty and covered with dirt and gravel from all the boots that had stomped around on it during the course of the evening. The space beneath the ceiling, which as if underwater had pulsated in hues of red, green and blue except when it had sparkled like a starry sky, was empty apart from a light rig with some light cannons and an idiotic cheap shiny disco ball hanging from the middle. The tables, where people had been sitting and enjoying themselves in what resembled a wall of human warmth, were strewn around, beneath them a sea of empty bottles and scrunched-up cigarette packets, here and there shards of broken glass and the odd trail of toilet paper someone had unwittingly brought with them. The tabletops were stained with all sorts of sticky mess and covered with small burn marks from forgotten cigarettes, on top of the tables there were overflowing ashtrays, piles of cups and glasses, empty bottles of all descriptions, cheap Thermos flasks with long rivulets of coffee under the spouts. The faces of those who had not yet gone home were tired and lifeless, bone structures covered with skin, white and creased, eyes two lumps of jelly, bodies either rippling with fat and folds of skin or so bony and lean that your thoughts were led to the skeletons beneath, which would soon be lying picked nice and clean under the ground in some windblown graveyard with saline soil somewhere by the sea.

No, under the lights this room was nothing special. But then in came six girls wearing football kit to tidy up, they scurried around with their trays and cloths and it was as though life had come to chase away death. I would have loved to stand watching them, but now it was important to give the right impression, not to be a pest and stare and harass, so I went for a walk outside, chatted to people and tried to plan the next phase of the evening, that is, to discover where people were going to drink in case she didn’t want to join me.

A quarter of an hour later the crowd outside the community centre had thinned and I ventured in. With another girl she was carrying a table across the floor to the corner below the stage. After they had put it down she ran one hand across her forehead, rested the other on her hip and looked across at me.

‘After all this hard graft you deserve a break,’ I said. ‘I know a house with a great location by the water. You can relax and recover there.’

‘And no one will come and bother me?’ she said.

‘No,’ I said with a smile.

She held her index finger against her cheek, supported her chin on her thumb and regarded me with raised eyebrows. God, she was so attractive.

Five seconds passed. Ten.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll come with you. We’ve finished here anyway. I just need to change first.’

‘I’ll wait outside,’ I said and turned so that she couldn’t see I was smiling so much my mouth was in danger of splitting open.

A few minutes later she came down the steps zipping up her dark blue Puffa jacket and straightening her white woollen hat in a way that was making my heart thump as I waited in the darkness.

She stopped in front of me and put on her gloves, also white, and shifted the bag she was carrying from one hand to the other.

‘Shall we go then?’ she said, as though we had known each other for years.

I nodded.

All the light-headedness vanished as we set off down the hill. Now it was just her and me. And oh, how aware I was of her movements and facial expressions as we walked down the snow-covered road.

She was tall, slim, her nose was small like a child’s, her hips were beautifully rounded, her feet small, yet there was nothing of that dainty grace about her, she wasn’t someone you wanted to protect, someone you wanted to take care of, and her strength, which was also a coldness, was what perhaps I found most irresistible about her.

When her eyes didn’t flash with life they were dark and calm.

This had been my initiative, she had waited for me, I had set this in motion.

We had already reached my old flat.

‘Where do you stay when you come here?’ I asked.

‘At mum’s,’ she said, pointing down to the right. ‘She lives down there.’

‘Did you go to school here?’

‘No, I grew up in Finnsnes.’

‘And now you’re at the tech?’

‘Have you been talking to Hege?’ she said, looking at me.

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘It was a wild guess.’

Then there was silence. I was uneasy and tried to think of something else so that she wouldn’t notice my nerves. If dogs can smell fear, girls can smell nervousness, that was my experience.

From a distance I could see lights in the sitting room. When we went in Nils Erik, Tor Einar and Henning were there. They were playing Nick Cave and drinking what looked like red wine. We sat down on the sofa. It felt as if the party was over, there was no energy in the room, only lifeless eyes and some sipping of wine. Tor Einar tried a couple of times to whip up some atmosphere, but no one was biting, his laughter was met with polite smiles and weary looks.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ I asked Ine. ‘A glass of red wine? Some vodka?’

‘Have you got any beer?’

‘No.’

‘A small vodka then.’

I went into the kitchen, which was freezing cold as usual, and took two glasses from the cupboard, poured a dash of vodka in each and mixed it with 7 Up as I wondered what to do. Perhaps best to wait? They would soon go, and then we would be alone. But if they didn’t, if this dragged on for another half an hour, there would be a good chance she would leave. There was nothing of interest for her here. Could I simply suggest we went up to my bedroom?

No, no, that was the last thing I should do. Then they would be sitting underneath us listening to every movement upstairs, she would know that and refuse, that was no good.

But I had to get her on her own.

Could we go into my study?

With a glass in each hand I went into the sitting room. Put one on the table by Ine, who looked up at me and gave a weak smile.

‘This music is depressing me,’ I said. ‘Can I put something else on?’

‘Be my guest,’ Nils Erik said.

What might she like?

Or should I choose a record I liked, one which might give her a sense of who I was? Hüsker Dü, for example? Or Psychocandy by Jesus and Mary Chain?

‘Any requests?’ I said, crouching by the LPs.

No one answered.

The Smiths maybe?

No, that was too whiny. And something told me she hated whining.

Something hard and masculine. But what?

Did I really not have anything? Was all the music I had fem-inine and whiny?

It would have to be Led Zeppelin.

As the stylus crackled on the first groove I stood up. It was important to keep on the move because if I sat down the inertia in the room would make everything I did from then on conspicuous.

‘ Skål! ’ I said, reaching out my glass and clinking it against the others, Ine’s last.

‘Come with me,’ I said. ‘I’m going to show you something.’

‘Oh, what?’ she said.

‘It’s in there,’ I said, motioning towards the other end of the sitting room. ‘It’s something I talked about before. Come on!’