Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

I had thought of Andrea and Vivian as two of a kind — I had barely been able to tell them apart on the two occasions I had seen them — but from their answers I could see there was quite a difference, or was it just that one of them was more used to expressing herself in written form?

I wrote a similar comment in Andrea’s book, read the three last ones, which all fell somewhere between the first two, made a comment in each, slipped the pile in my bag, put on ‘My Bag’ by Lloyd Cole and gazed across the village as the music made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Slowly I began to move to the beat, a shoulder here, a foot there at first, then, after switching off the light so that no one below could see me, I danced away with my eyes closed and sang from the bottom of my heart.

That night I came in my sleep. A wave of pleasure washed through me, carried me up towards the surface, where I did not want to go at any price, and nor did I, for just before I reached consciousness and the vague notion of who I was, how happy I was, became a reality, I sank back down into dark, heavy slumber, where I stayed until the alarm clock rang and I opened my eyes to a room full of light and to underpants that were sticky with semen.

At first I had feelings of guilt. God knows what I had been dreaming about. Then, when I remembered where I was and what I was doing, the pressure in the pit of my stomach returned. I got up and went into the bathroom telling myself there was nothing to be nervous about, the class was small, the pupils children, but it didn’t help, it felt as if I had to walk out onto a stage without any lines to deliver. I tried to recapture the wonderful mood I had been in previously, when I had been enjoying marking the presentations and the new sensation the role of teacher gave me, seeing pupils, planning what could be done to help them, but as I stood there, surrounded by steam, drying myself, all of that was gone, for I was not a teacher, I wasn’t even an adult, I was just a ridiculous teenager who knew nothing about anything.

‘Oh, hell !’ I shouted. Wiped the condensation from the mirror with the towel and studied my face in the few seconds it took before the glass was covered with moisture again.

I looked damned good, I did.

That was something after all.

I’d had the long hair at the back of my neck cut just before I left. Now my hair stood in a thick, maybe three-centimetre-high carpet across my skull, layered down to my temples and neck. From my left ear hung a cross.

I smiled.

My teeth were white and even. There was a glint in my eyes that I liked to see, until the incredible indignity of the situation, a person smiling and what was tantamount to winking at himself in the mirror, made my stomach constrict again.

For Christ’s sake.

I put on my Dream of the Blue Turtles T-shirt, my black Levi’s, a pair of white tube socks, stood in front of the mirror wearing alternately the thin green military jacket and the blue denim jacket, choosing in the end the former, tried on the beret, it didn’t go, and two minutes later trotted bare-headed up to the school with a white Ali coffee bag full of books and materials hanging from my hand.

The third and fourth years, who had been put together in one class for all their lessons, numbered twelve pupils: five girls and seven boys. It seemed like more, they were always roaming around, running and shouting, and would never sit still. Once they had finally sat down on their chairs, there were legs twisting and turning here, arms twisting and turning there, their minds, like agitated dogs, were forever on the move.

They hadn’t had me before, they had only heard about me and seen me from a distance, so when I loomed up in their part of the school all eyes were fixed on me.

I smiled and put my bag down on the teacher’s desk.

‘What have you got in there?’ one of them said. ‘What’s in your bag?’

I looked at him. White puppy-dog skin, brown eyes, extremely short hair.

‘What’s your name?’ I said.

‘Reidar,’ he said.

‘My name’s Karl Ove,’ I said. ‘And there’s one thing you may as well learn right from the start. You have to put up your hand before you say anything.’

Reidar put up his hand.

A smart-arse.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘What have you got in your bag, Karl Ove?’

‘It’s a secret,’ I said. ‘But you’ll soon find out. First of all, though, I have to know what your names are.’

The boy behind Reidar, a little squirt with fair hair and hard — for his age — pale blue eyes put up his hand.

‘What’s your name?’ I said.

‘Stig,’ he said. ‘Are you strict?’

‘Strict? No!’ I said.

‘My mum says you’re too young to be a teacher!’ he said, looking around for a reaction.

They laughed, all of them.

‘I’m older than you at any rate!’ I said. ‘So I think everything will be fine.’

‘Why have you got a cross in your ear?’ Reidar said. ‘Are you a Christian?’

‘What did I just say about putting up your hand?’

‘Whoops!’ He laughed and put up his hand.

‘No, I’m not a Christian,’ I said. ‘I’m an atheist.’

‘What’s that?’ Reidar said.

‘Your hand? Where is it?’

‘Oh!’

‘An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God,’ I said. ‘But now you have to tell me your names. Let’s start at the end there.’

One after one they called out their names.

Vibeke

Kenneth

Susanne

Stig

Reidar

Lovisa

Melanie

Steve

Endre

Stein-Inge

Helene

Jo

I connected with some of them at once and would remember them easily from now on — the girl who was so unbelievably pretty and doll-like in everything from her facial features to her body and her dress, the boy with the round face, the little squirt who seemed angry, the boy with the big head and the warm eyes, the loudmouth, the blonde-haired girl with pigtails who gave the impression of being so rational and sensible — others were more nebulous and revealed too little for me to get a handle on them.

‘So you’re the third and fourth years!’ I said. ‘What’s the name of the place where you live?’

‘Håfjord, isn’t it!’ Reidar said.

I said nothing, just looked at them. Then two or three of them realised what I was getting at and put up their hands. I nominated the little doll-like creature.

‘Lovisa?’ I said.

‘Håfjord,’ she said.

‘What’s the name of the county Håfjord is in?’

‘Troms.’

‘And the country?’

Now everyone had a hand in the air. I nominated the fatty.

‘Norway,’ he said.

‘And the continent?’

‘Europe,’ he said.

‘Good!’ I said and he smiled.

‘But what’s the name of the planet we’re on? Does anyone know? Yes, Reidar?’

‘The world?’

‘Yes, it is. But there’s another name?’

I turned and wrote the whole address on the board: HÅFJORD, TROMS, NORWAY, EUROPE, EARTH. Turned back to them.

‘And where is the earth?’

‘In the cosmos,’ said Stein-Inge.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s in the solar system, in a galaxy called. .?’

On the board I wrote, THE MILKY WAY.

‘Have you heard of that?’

‘Yes!’ several of them shouted.

‘For us this galaxy is enormous. But in comparison with the rest of the cosmos it’s teeny weeny.’

I observed them.

‘What do you think is outside the cosmos then?’

They stared at me with mouths agape.

‘Have you never thought about that? Endre?’

Endre shook his head.

‘Is there anything outside then?’

‘Well, no one knows,’ I said. ‘But there can’t just be nothing, can there? There has to be something, don’t you think?’