Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

It would look absolutely idiotic.

I had to ring her.

Before I had time to change my mind, I went into the room where the telephone was and dialled her number.

She answered.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to apologise for the last time I called. I didn’t mean to behave as I did.’

‘You’ve got nothing to apologise for.’

‘Yes, I have. But there’s something else. To cut a long story short, I sent you a letter today.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t mean what I wrote. I don’t know why I wrote it. Anyway, it’s rubbish. So now I’m wondering if you could do me a favour. Don’t read it. Just throw it away.’

She laughed.

‘Now you’ve really whetted my appetite! Not read it? Do you really imagine I could do that? What did you write?’

‘I can’t say. That’s the whole point!’

She laughed again.

‘You’re strange,’ she said. ‘But why did you write whatever it was you wrote if you didn’t mean it?’

‘I don’t know. I was in a funny mood. But, Hanne, please promise me you won’t read it. Throw it away and pretend it doesn’t exist. Actually it doesn’t really exist anyway, because I don’t mean any of what I wrote.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said. ‘But it is addressed to me. It’s me who decides what to do with it, right?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m just asking you to be extra nice to me.’

‘Is there anything that’s not nice in the letter? Yes, there must be of course.’

‘Now you know at any rate,’ I said. ‘But if you’d like me to go down on my knees and beg, I will. I’m doing it now. I’m on my knees now. Please throw the letter away!’

She laughed.

‘Up on your feet, boy!’ she said.

‘What are you wearing?’ I said.

Seconds passed before she answered.

‘A T-shirt and jogging pants. I didn’t know you would ring. What are you wearing?’

‘Me? A black shirt, black trousers and black socks.’

‘I don’t know why I asked,’ she said and laughed. ‘I’m going to give you such a brightly coloured bobble hat for Christmas that you’ll be embarrassed to walk down the street wearing it, but you’ll have to because I gave it to you. When you see me anyway.’

‘That’s pure evil,’ I said.

‘Yes, you don’t have a monopoly on it,’ she said.

‘What do you mean by that? Surely I’m not evil just because I don’t believe in God?’

‘I’m just teasing you. No, you’re not evil at all. But now they’re calling me. I think they’ve cooked something they want me to taste.’

‘So you’ll throw the letter away?’

She laughed.

‘Bye!’

‘Hanne!’

But by then she had rung off.

The meeting with Steinar Vindsland was brief and was basically him showing me how to write the reviews, there were special forms they used at the newspaper, some boxes at the top had to be filled out in a special way and I was given a stack of them. Then he said I should choose three new releases a week from a record shop with whom they had an arrangement. I could keep the records, that was my fee, OK? Of course, I said. You deliver the reviews to me, he said, and I’ll fix the rest.

He winked and shook my hand. Then he turned and started to read some papers on the desk, and I went into the street, still with the tension from the meeting in my body. It was only half past three and I went to see if dad was at home. I stopped outside the door and rang, nothing happened, I stepped to the side and looked through the window, the house looked empty and I was about to head for the bus stop when his car, a light green Ascona, appeared.

He pulled in by the kerb.

Even before he got out of the car I could see he was the way he used to be. Rigid, severe, controlled. He undid his seat belt, grabbed a bag beside him and placed a foot on the tarmac. He didn’t look at me as he crossed the road.

‘Waiting for me, were you,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d pop by.’

‘You should ring in advance, you know,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I was in the vicinity, so I. .’ I shrugged.

‘There’s nothing happening here,’ he said. ‘So you may as well catch the bus home.’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘Ring next time, OK?’

‘All right,’ I said.

He turned his back on me and inserted the key in the lock. I started to trudge towards the bus. It was right what he had said: I may as well go. I hadn’t visited him for my sake but for his, and if it wasn’t convenient I wasn’t bothered. Quite the contrary.

He rang at half past ten in the evening. He sounded drunk.

‘Hi, Dad here,’ he said. ‘You haven’t gone to bed?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I like sitting up late.’

‘You dropped by at an inconvenient moment, I’m afraid. But it’s very nice of you to come and visit us. It isn’t that. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Don’t give me yes, of course . It’s important we understand each other.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know it’s important.’

‘I’m sitting here making a few calls to hear how people are, you know. And I’m relaxing with a. .’

Then he used an Østland expression, pjall , an alcoholic drink, which he had recently started to say. Another was slakk , off colour. He had it from Unni. I’m feeling a bit slakk , he had said once, and I had looked at him because it was as though it wasn’t him who had used the word but someone else.

‘We’re having people round for dinner tomorrow evening, a few colleagues, well, you met them up in Sannes, and it would be nice if you had time.’

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ I said. ‘What time?’

‘Six, half past, we thought.’

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘Yes, but we don’t have to ring off already. Or do you want to?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I believe you do. You don’t want to talk to your old dad.’

‘I do.’

There was a brief pause. He took a swig.

‘I heard you visited grandma and grandad,’ he then said.

‘Yes.’

‘Did they say anything about Unni and me?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘At any rate nothing special.’

‘Now you have to be more precise than that. They said something, but it was nothing special?’

‘They said you’d been there the day before, and then they said they’d met Unni and she was nice.’

‘Oh, so that was what they said, was it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you thought about where you want to spend Christmas? Here with us or with your mother?’

‘No, haven’t given it any thought. It’s not for a while yet.’

‘Yes, that’s true. But we have to make plans, you know. We were wondering whether to go south to the sun or celebrate it here. If you come we’ll stay here. But we have to know soon.’

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ I said. ‘Might have a word with Yngve.’

‘You can come on your own, you know.’

‘Yes, I could. Can we wait and see? I haven’t given it any thought at all.’

‘By all means,’ he said. ‘You need time to think. But you’d probably prefer to be with mum, wouldn’t you?’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Well, see you tomorrow then.’

He rang off and I went into the kitchen and boiled some water.

‘Do you want some tea?’ I shouted to mum, who was sitting in the living room, her legs tucked up underneath her, the cat on her lap and knitting while listening to classical music on the radio.

It was almost pitch black outside.

‘Yes, please!’ she replied.

When I went in five minutes later, with a cup in each hand, she put her knitting on the arm of the sofa and the cat down beside her. Mefisto placed his paws in front of him, extended his claws and stretched. Mum swung her legs down onto the floor and rubbed her hands a couple of times, which she often did after she had been sitting still for any length of time.