Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

Shaken to the core, close to tears, I sat there staring at the five lines. It was a well-observed parody of the way I wrote. A good imitation. I knew who had done it, it was Tor Einar, and I recognised the spirit in which it had been done, the spirit of the good-natured joke, he’d ‘had a good laugh’ while he was doing it, read it aloud to Nils Erik, who had laughed his Østland laugh.

It wasn’t meant nastily, but I couldn’t forgive them for this. I wanted nothing more to do with them, didn’t want to speak to them beyond what was absolutely necessary: work and practical arrangements.

I tore the sheet out of the typewriter, crumpled it up and threw it on the floor. Then I got dressed and went out into the night. No point going to the village, along the illuminated road, I would be seen and perhaps also spoken to. Instead I followed the dead-end road after the bend, it ran along the gentle mountainside, it was dotted with houses. At the end there was a huge pile of snow. Behind it there was nothing, just snow, low trees and a rock face that after approximately fifty metres rose sharply in the darkness. The snow reached to above my knees, it was futile going any further, so I turned and waded through the snow down to the sea, stood gazing at the black water and the waves that rolled into the shore again and again, without much power, they were more like thoughtless little slaps.

Fuck.

It wasn’t just a text he had tampered with, that wouldn’t have offended me in the slightest, it was something else, much more than that, there was a soul in it, my soul. And when he tampered with that, I could feel it. It looked different from the outside than from the inside, and it was perhaps that which lay at the heart of my despair. What I wrote was worthless. So that meant I was worthless too.

I retraced my steps. At the crossroads I stood not knowing what to do. I could walk five hundred metres along one road, ending up at the school, or five hundred metres along the other, also ending up at the school. There were no other options. The shop was closed, the snack bar was closed, and if anyone was drinking somewhere I didn’t know about it. There was no one I knew well enough to drop in on. The sole exceptions were Nils Erik and Tor Einar, whom I no longer wanted anything to do with, and Hege, whom I didn’t feel like visiting now, and nor could I, as her husband, who was always exceptionally open towards me but evidently also had a heart darkened with jealousy, was at home. Sitting at home reading and playing records wasn’t an option either, I saw, a light had come on in the sitting room, which meant that Nils Erik was there.

I couldn’t stay standing under the lamp post much longer either, someone somewhere would be watching me and wondering what I was doing.

Slowly I moved off. On reaching the house I warily opened the door, carefully removed my coat and was about to creep upstairs as quietly as I could when the hall door opened and Nils Erik stood looking at me.

‘Hi!’ he said. ‘We got mølje at Tor Einar’s grandmother’s. Shame you weren’t with us! It’s a bit of a delicacy — cod with liver and roe and onions!’

‘I’m going to bed,’ I said, avoiding his eyes. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Already?’ he said.

I didn’t answer, opened the door to my room, slipped in and lay on the mattress in the dark, fully clothed. Staring at the ceiling. Heard Nils Erik washing up in the kitchen. He had the radio on. Now and then his humming, which I couldn’t hear, but after two months of living in the house with him I knew he was humming, developed slowly into loud hearty singing. A car with its stereo on full blast drove by. The throb of the drums became fainter and fainter as it went up the hill and followed the road to the other end, then the drums grew louder until they were again pounding outside the wall next to which I was lying.

I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes to eight.

What the hell should I do?

All the roads out of here were closed.

I was stuck.

For an hour I lay there in the darkness without moving. Then I swallowed my pride and went downstairs to the sitting room, where Nils Erik was reading.

‘Didn’t you have a bottle of red wine?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, looking up. ‘Why?’

‘Can I have it?’ I said. ‘I’ll buy you a bottle in the week.’

‘Yes, no problem,’ he said. ‘Are you going out or what?’

I shook my head, fetched the bottle, opened it and went back up to my room. And glimpsed happiness as I started to drink. They had betrayed me, I was despondent, yes, there was black depression inside me, but I was alone and drinking, I was a writer.

They couldn’t say that. They were nothing.

I finished off the bottle in ten minutes. My mind befuddled, as though mist had seeped into my skull, I went downstairs, ignored Nils Erik, opened the door to my study, locked it behind me, switched on the typewriter, sat down at the desk and made a start. A few minutes later it was as if my stomach was being torn apart. I launched myself at the door, but of course it was locked, vomit was pressing up my throat, I cast around, a box, a bucket, a corner, anything, found nothing though, my mouth opened and a cascade of purple spew arced and fell into the room.

I collapsed, my stomach churned, another torrent of wine and sausages was expelled, I groaned, my stomach churned again, but now there was nothing left, only the pain as it writhed and twisted and some thick mucus which I coughed up.

Oooh.

I sat on the floor for several minutes enjoying the peace that had descended on my innards. I didn’t care that my books and papers were covered with vomit.

There was a knock at the door. The handle went up and down a few times.

‘What are you doing in there?’ Nils Erik said.

‘Nothing much,’ I said.

‘What did you say? Are you ill? Do you need help?’

‘Not from you anyway, you bloody idiot.’

‘What was that?’

‘NOTHING! THERE’S NOTHING WRONG!’

‘OK, OK.’

I could imagine him holding up his palms to the locked door, then going back to the sofa. The stench of puke had filled the room, and for a moment I speculated on why the smell of your inner juices should be repugnant while that of your excrement was not. Could it have something to do with some kind of Neanderthal custom, shitting in the forest to mark your territory, whereas vomit had no such function to fulfil, it was no more than a reflex action to dispose of tainted food and therefore had to stink?

I staggered to my feet, opened the window and fastened it with the clasp. I couldn’t bring myself to clean up the vomit, that would have to wait until the following day, I thought, unlocked the door and went to the hall without so much as a glance at Nils Erik, up the stairs and into my room, where I undressed, crept under the duvet and slept like a log.

I stayed away from them all the next day, and the day after that too, but then I relented, they were going to the school in the evening for a swim, I joined them, not overjoyed, though not furious either. I didn’t say much as we swam up and down, and I let them go into the sauna first, left them on their own, before I climbed out of the pool and stood by the door to try to catch what they were saying. I knew they were talking about me, and I knew they were laughing at me. That was obvious, they spent a lot of time together, and they ridiculed what I did and invested so much energy in.

But inside it was silent, so at length I opened the door and joined them, sat in the corner at the top, supported my back against the wall, looked down at their two white bodies, which glistened with sweat, Nils Erik bent forward, Tor Einar was resting against the bench behind. Nils Erik’s face was always in motion, either he was talking, smiling, laughing or pulling grimaces, but now it was completely still, and it appeared wooden, as though he really was Pinocchio, a carved stump of wood into which a magician had breathed life.