Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

‘I think dad might be on the booze,’ I said, sitting on the wicker chair under the window. It creaked under my weight. I blew on the tea, took a sip and glanced at mum. Mefisto stood in front of me and a moment later jumped onto my lap.

‘Was that who you were talking to just now?’ mum said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Was he drunk?’

‘Mm, a bit. And he was pretty drunk when I was there for dinner the last time.’

‘How do you feel about that?’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Feels a bit strange maybe. When I went to the party they had here that was the first time I’d seen him drunk. Now it’s happened twice in a very short space of time.’

‘That’s perhaps not so strange,’ mum said. ‘There have been such big changes in his life.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s true. But he’s becoming very hard work. He keeps asking me if he did things wrong when we were growing up, then he goes all sentimental and talks about the time he massaged my leg when I was very small.’

Mum laughed.

It was such a rare occurrence. I looked at her and smiled.

‘Is that what he says?’ she said. ‘He might have massaged you once. But he did feel a lot of tenderness for you. He did.’

‘But not later?’

‘Yes, of course. Of course he did, Karl Ove.’

She looked at me. I lifted Mefisto and stood up.

‘Anything you want to listen to?’ I said, kneeling in front of the small record collection I had stacked against the wall. Mefisto walked slowly, the way he did when he was offended, into the kitchen.

‘No, play whatever you want,’ mum said.

I switched off the radio and put on Sade, which was the only I record I possessed that there was the remotest chance she would like.

‘Did you like it?’ I said after the music had filled the room for a few minutes.

‘Yes, it was very nice,’ she said, putting her cup down on the table beside the sofa and resuming her knitting.

After school next day I went to Platebørsen, spoke to the assistant, said I had an arrangement with Steinar Vindsland at Nye Sørlandet to pick up three records, he nodded, I spent half an hour choosing the ones I would write about, the trick was to choose someone I already knew, preferably someone who had been reviewed elsewhere, so that I had a pattern to follow.

I also bought one with my own money, which mum had given me that morning. To still my hunger I went to Geheb and bought a cardamom and custard bun, strolled up Markens gate munching, bun in one hand, records in the other, dropped the paper bag onto the street and was brushing my hands when a slightly plump but well-dressed elderly man shouted after me.

‘Hey, you!’ he yelled. ‘We don’t litter in this town! Pick it up!’

I turned, my heart pounding, and eyed him as coldly as I could. I was frightened, but I defied my fears and took a few steps towards him.

‘Pick it up yourself if it’s so important to you,’ I said.

Then, my legs trembling with fear and my chest quivering with emotion, I turned my back on him and continued up the street.

I half-expected him to come running after me, grab me and shake me, even punch me in the stomach, but nothing happened.

Nevertheless, I walked quickly for several blocks before daring to turn round.

No one there.

How had I dared!

To answer back like that!

Now I had given him something to think about. What the hell was he doing, ordering me about? Who gave him the right?

Wasn’t I a free person? No one was going to tell me what to do and what not to do. No one!

This bubbled inside me as I walked past the Hotel Caledonien. It was around four o’clock, I had two hours to kill, and I headed for the library, through the side streets so that there was no chance of bumping into him again. Once there, I sat down in the reading room, studied my records for a while before going to find a book from the shelves behind me. There was the first volume of Bjørneboe’s trilogy about the history of bestiality which Hilde from our class had talked about with such enthusiasm. All I had read by Bjørneboe, apart from the few pages of Ere the Cock Crows that I had managed yesterday, was The Sharks , which I had read when I was twelve as if it were Jack London. But now, perusing the first few pages of this trilogy, I realised that I hadn’t understood a thing. This was deep, and it was painful. The opening, with the föhn wind, was fantastic.

Did evil come from outside?

Like a wind dragging people along with it?

Or did it come from inside?

I gazed at the square outside the church, where there were already yellow and orange leaves on the ground. In the street behind, people were walking under umbrellas.

Could I become evil? Find myself borne along by a wind of inhumanity and torture someone?

Or was I evil?

Torture wasn’t so relevant really, not now, I thought, and continued to read. But this was a book you had barely glanced at before you raised your eyes again. The torture was extreme, the annihilation of the Jews extreme. But it was carried out by normal people! Why did they do it? Didn’t they know it was wrong? Yes, of course they did. Is this what they wanted, in their heart of hearts ? While they were walking around in their elegant little facade towns, making sure that everyone was doing what they should and believing that they were so bloody good, was evil what they really wanted if they got the chance? Without realising it themselves? Was it just something they carried within them, an evil without form, as it were, which emerged when the opportunity arose?

Oh, how stupid it was that they went around believing in a god and a heaven. It was so conceited! So unbelievably conceited! Why would God have selected them , people who were so preoccupied with ensuring everyone did the right thing all the time? Those petty-minded fools, why would God bother about them of all people?

I almost laughed out loud in the library, but managed at the last moment to stifle it to a giggle.

Looking around me, I saw that no one had noticed. Then, to disguise the fact that I had been looking around, I gazed out through the window again, with my head slightly tilted, so that it resembled an active decision, as if I was searching for something.

Wasn’t that Renate?

Yes, it was.

She was going into Peppes Pizza. And that was probably Mona with her, wasn’t it?

For one wild moment I considered going in after them. Bump into them as if by chance, ask if I could join them, sit down, turn on the charm, all casual, catch the bus home with them, it was Friday, they were popular, they were bound to be going to a party, we could have a few beers, I could accompany Renate home, she might hold my hand and ask if I wanted to come in, I would say yes and once inside I would pull off her T-shirt and trousers and spreadeagle her on the bed and fuck her senseless.

Ha ha.

Fuck her senseless, oh yes, Karl Ove.

I went weak at the knees even thinking about it. Yes, I could probably undress her, on a very, very good day I might be able to do that, but that was all I could do. That was where it stopped, then I went weak at the knees.

Renate was two years younger. And had a body that made everyone drool. Where I lived she was the body.

Once, on the bus, they had teased me. Not her, she had only been listening, but Mona. And she was three years younger!

‘You’re so good-looking, Karl Ove,’ she had said. ‘But you never say anything. Why don’t you say anything? What is it with your cheeks? They’re so red! Are you coming with us? We’re going to Renate’s. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Or are you a homo? Is that why you’re so quiet?’