Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

He must have been referring to Nils Erik and me.

As soon as I got some speed up my balance was fine.

But where was the loo?

I opened a door. It was a bedroom. Hege’s bedroom, I presumed, and closed the door as fast as possible. If there was one thing I didn’t like, it was seeing other people’s bedrooms.

‘The bathroom’s on the other side,’ a voice behind me said from the kitchen.

I turned.

A man with brown eyes, thick collar-length dark hair and a moustache which hung down on either side of his mouth looked at me. It had to be Vidar, Hege’s partner. There was something about the self-assured way he stood there that told me this.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Just don’t piss on the floor, that’s all.’

‘I’ll try not to,’ I said, going into the bathroom. I leaned against the wall while peeing. Smiled to myself. He had looked like a bass player from a 1970s band. Smokie or someone like them. And incredibly muscular.

What was she doing with such a macho?

I flushed the toilet and stood swaying in front of the mirror. Smiled at myself again.

When I emerged from the bathroom they had decided to leave. They were talking about a bus.

‘Do buses run at this time?’ I said.

Remi turned to me. ‘It’s our band bus.’

‘Is there a band here? Are you in it?’

‘Yes, I am. We call ourselves Autopilot. We play at dances in the community centres round here.’

I followed him down the stairs. This was getting better and better.

‘What instrument do you play then?’ I said, putting on my coat in the hall.

‘Drums,’ he said.

I put my arm round his shoulder.

‘Me too. Or I did. Two years ago.’

‘You don’t say,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said, retracting my arm, leaning forward and trying to put on one shoe. Bumped into someone. Vidar again.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Have you remembered your bottle?’

‘Oh, no, shit,’ I said.

‘It’s this one, isn’t it?’ he said, holding up a bottle of vodka.

‘Yes, that’s the one,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much! Thanks!’

He smiled but his eyes were cold and impassive. That was not my problem though. I put the bottle on the floor and concentrated on my shoes. When they were on I staggered out under the light night sky, down to the road, where the rest were waiting. The bus was parked in a drive a hundred metres away. One of them opened the door and got into the driver’s seat, we clambered aboard and moved towards the back of the big old vehicle. It was furnished with sofas and tables and a bar, all in plywood and plush, it seemed. We sat down, the engine started with a growl and it was out with the bottles and off down the road. As we jolted along following the bank of the fjord we had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

What an adventure.

I sang Pølsemaker, pølsemaker, hvor har du gjort av deg — Sausage maker, sausage maker, where have you gone, at the top of my voice while swinging my arms and trying to get the others to join in. The bus had conjured up memories of the old film in which Leif Juster was a bus driver, and Leif Juster had made me think of the film The Missing Sausage Maker .

An hour or so later the bus pulled up in front of the community centre, I jumped out and was swallowed up in the overcrowded room.

When I woke, at first I couldn’t remember a thing.

Everything was a complete blank.

I didn’t know who I was or where I was. All I knew was that I had woken up from something.

But the room was familiar, it was the bedroom in my flat.

How had I got here?

I sat up and could feel that I was still drunk.

What time was it?

What had happened?

I held my face in my hands. I had to have something to drink. Now. But I was too wiped out to go into the kitchen and slumped back on the bed.

I had been to the pre-party and on a bus. And had sung. Sung!

Oh no, oh no.

And I had put my hand on his shoulder. As if we were pals. But we weren’t. I wasn’t even a man. Only a stupid Sørlander who couldn’t even tie a knot. With arms as thin as drinking straws.

No, now I had to have something to drink.

I sat up. My body was as heavy as lead and totally uncooperative, but I forced my feet onto the floor, braced myself mentally and pushed myself onto my legs.

Oh God.

The yearning for my bed was so strong that I had to mobilise all the willpower I had not to go back. The few paces to the kitchen exhausted me, I had to hang over the worktop for a while before I could summon the energy to run the tap, fill a glass and drink. One more, and one more. And the distance to my bedroom seemed so immense that I stopped halfway and lay down on the sofa instead.

I hadn’t done anything stupid, had I?

I’d danced. Yes, I’d danced with all and sundry.

Hadn’t there been a woman in her sixties as well? Whom I had smiled at and danced with? And pressed myself against?

Yes, there had.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Oh bloody hell.

Then it was as though the pressure inside me was ratcheted up, although there was no particular place that hurt, everything was painful, and the pain grew and grew, it was unbearable, and then my stomach muscles went into a spasm. I swallowed, dragged myself to my feet and tried to hold it back as I stumbled towards the bathroom, the pressure mounting and mounting, that was all that existed, and then I snatched at the toilet seat, flung it up, knelt down, wrapped my arms around the bowl and spewed a cascade of yellow and green vomit into the water with such force that it splashed back into my face, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered any more, it was so wonderful to feel the relief, so fantastically wonderful.

I slumped to the floor.

Oh God, how good it was.

But then it came back. The muscles in my stomach writhed like snakes. Oh shit. I leaned over the bowl again, caught a glimpse of a pubic hair next to my forearm resting on the porcelain as the cramps tore through my empty stomach, and I opened my mouth and groaned ooooh, ooooooh, ooooooh, and nothing came out.

But then, without warning, a gob of yellow bile was expelled. It slid down the white porcelain, a sliver still hung from my mouth and I wiped it away, and I lay down on the bathroom floor. Was that the last? Was it over now?

Yes.

Suddenly everything was as serene as in church. I lay in a foetal position on the bathroom floor enjoying to the full the calm that had settled over my body.

What had I done with Irene?

Everything inside me tensed up.

Irene.

We had danced.

I had pressed myself against her, hard, rubbed my erect dick against her stomach.

And then?

Anything else?

It was as if this one scene was surrounded by darkness on all sides. I remembered it but nothing of what came before or after.

Anything bad?

I imagined her in a ditch, strangled with torn clothes.

No, no, what rubbish.

But the image returned. Irene in a ditch, strangled, her clothes torn.

How could the image be so clear? Her blue trousers, with those wonderfully full thighs beneath, a white blouse ripped open, part of a naked breast exposed, her eyes lifeless. The mud in the ditch, between the scattered blades of grass, yellow and green, the insane light, late in the night.

No, no, what rubbish.

How had I got home?

Hadn’t I been standing by the bus when the band stopped playing and the car park outside the community centre was packed with people laughing and screaming?

Yes.

And Irene was there!

We were kissing!

Me with a bottle of booze in one hand, drinking straight from it. She grabbed my lapel, she was the type of girl who grabbed lapels, and then she looked up at me, and then she said. .?