Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

What was this all about? Why did we live like this? Were we waiting for something? In which case, how did we manage to be so patient? For nothing ever happened! Nothing happened! It was always the same. Day in, day out! Wind and rain, sleet and snow, sun and storm, we did the same. We heard something on the grapevine, went there, came back, sat in his bedroom, heard something else, went by bus, bike, on foot, sat in someone’s bedroom. In the summer we went swimming. That was it.

What was it all about?

We were friends, there was no more than that.

And the waiting, that was life.

Jan Vidar jumped off the bus at Solsletta, guitar case in hand, I continued as the sole passenger to Boen, where I also jumped off and plodded home with my rucksack on my back and the bag of apples in my hand.

Mum had been waiting for me with dinner.

‘Hi,’ she said as I went in through the door. ‘I’ve just got home as well.’

‘Look,’ I said, holding out the bag. ‘Apples from grandma.’

‘Did you pop in?’

‘Yes, they send their love.’

‘Thanks,’ she said.

I lifted the lid off the pot. Tomato sauce and chunks of fish, probably pollock.

‘I had dinner there,’ I said.

‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘But I’m starving.’

She put the cat down on the floor, straightened up and took a plate.

‘And how did you get on at Nye Sørlandet , Karl Ove?’ I said.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I’d completely forgotten.’

I smiled. ‘I got the job! He just skim-read the reviews and I was home and dry.’

‘You worked hard on them,’ she said, placed some bits of pollock on the plate, lifted the lid of the second pan and spooned out a potato. It wobbled around as she lowered the spoon and rolled off when she turned it.

‘And they’re going to make a little article about it,’ I said. ‘It’ll run tomorrow.’

‘Run’ was a genuine journalistic expression.

‘Very nice, Karl Ove,’ she said.

‘Yes, but there’s a snag.’

She put the plate on the table, took cutlery from the drawer and sat down. I took a seat opposite her.

‘A snag?’ she said, tucking in.

‘He said I had to get hold of a typewriter. Writing by hand is taboo. They don’t accept it. So I’ll have to buy one.’

‘A new typewriter costs quite a bit of money.’

‘Come on. We must be able to afford one. It’s an investment. I’ll earn some money doing this. Surely you can understand that?’

She nodded as she chewed.

‘Perhaps there’s one there you can borrow?’ she said.

I snorted.

‘First day at work? And then you walk in and ask to borrow a typewriter?’

‘Well, perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea,’ she said.

The cat rubbed against my leg. I bent down and scratched his chest. He closed his eyes and began to purr. I picked him up, he stretched out on my lap with his paws on my knees.

‘How much will one cost, do you reckon?’ mum said.

‘No idea.’

‘When I get my salary next month it should be OK. But for now, I’m afraid I’m flat broke.’

‘But that’s too late, don’t you understand?’

She nodded.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ I said. ‘If there’s no money, there’s no money.’

‘That’s how it is, sadly,’ she said. ‘But you can ask your father as well, you know.’

I said nothing. It was true, I could. He had enough money. But would he give some to me?

If he wouldn’t, there would be an embarrassing situation. He would feel I was demanding something from him, and if he said no, or felt forced to say no, it would be me who had put him in this predicament. And by then it would be too late, he couldn’t suddenly say yes after saying no.

‘I’ll ask him,’ I said, caressing the cat behind the ear. He writhed in pleasure with his eyes closed.

‘There’s a letter for you, by the way,’ mum said. ‘I left it on the dresser in the hall.’

‘A letter?’

I put the cat down on the floor, I didn’t like to have to do that when he had been having such a good time, but the little twinge in my conscience was gone the very next second because I didn’t get letters that often.

My name on the envelope, written in a girl’s hand.

The postmark was almost unreadable.

But it was airmail, and the stamps were Danish.

‘I’m going to my room,’ I said. ‘Are you OK eating alone?’

‘Yes, of course!’ mum said from the kitchen.

In my bedroom I sat down on the chair by the desk, tore open the envelope, took out the letter and started reading.

Nyk M 20/8 85

Hi Karl Ove,

Hope you’re fine. I don’t know if you are because you haven’t written, although you promised you would. Why not? I wish you could see me running to our post box when I get up. Well, if you don’t want to write I won’t be annoyed, I love you too much for that, but I have to admit I will be upset if I never hear from you again. Are you coming to Denmark? And if so, when? It has been boring here since you left. During the day I’m with my friends. In the evening I go to the disco. But this will soon be over as I’m moving to Israel on 14 September. I’m really looking forward to that. I would just love to see you before I go.

Perhaps you think I’m stupid to make so much of the short time we had together? That’s probably because you’re the only boy I’ve ever fallen in love with. So, don’t disappoint me, write to me now.

A girl who loves you,

Lisbeth

I pushed the letter aside. My chest was riven with despair. I could have slept with her. She had been willing! She wrote that she was in love with me, that she loved me, of course she would have said yes.

She knew where we were heading and what I was thinking, of that I was sure.

Bloody Jøgge!

Those fucking dickheads!

A sudden inspiration made me pick up the envelope and look inside.

There was a photo.

I took it out. It was Lisbeth. She wasn’t smiling, she was looking into the camera with her head tilted. She was wearing a yellow sweatshirt with NIKE emblazoned across it in big red letters. Her fringe hung over her forehead on one side, covering one eye. A stray lock of hair hung down behind one ear on the other.

Her neck was bare. She had a nice long neck.

Her lips were also beautiful, full, almost disproportionately full compared with her narrow face.

Oh, she looked seriously displeased.

But I could remember what it was like to hold her. How she had laughed when she put her hand up my shirt, against my chest and I straightened up and took a deep breath.

‘You’re pumping yourself up!’ she said. ‘Relax. I like you as you are. You’re fantastic.’

And she was Danish.

I put the picture and the letter back in the envelope, tucked it into the diary that I kept in the drawer and got to my feet.

Mum was washing the dishes when I went to the kitchen.

‘Karl Ove,’ she said. ‘I’ve just had a thought. Dad had a typewriter once. It’s probably still around. I can’t imagine he would have taken it with him. Have a look up in the barn, in the cardboard boxes.’

‘He had a typewriter?’

‘Yes, he did. He used it to write letters for a few years.’

She rinsed a glass in cold water and placed it upside down on the grooves in the drainer.

‘During the first few years we were together he wrote poems as well.’

‘ Dad? ’

‘Yes, he was very taken by poetry. Obstfelder was his favourite. He liked Vilhelm Krag as well, I remember. The Romantics.’

‘ Dad? ’ I repeated.