Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

‘About what it means?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘No, I can’t talk to Kjartan. He’s always so angry. Or maybe not angry but grumpy. Or peculiar.’

‘Yes, he is, but he’s not dangerous, if that’s what you were thinking.’

‘No, no,’ I said.

There was a silence.

I racked my brain for something else to say because it was late and I knew the silence would make mum wonder about going to bed, and I didn’t want that, I wanted to continue talking. On the other hand, I had a review to write, and the longer I sat here doing nothing, the later into the night I would have to work.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘It’s late again now.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Are you going to stay up and work?’

I nodded.

‘Don’t stay up too long.’

‘It’ll take the time it takes,’ I said.

‘I suppose it will,’ she said, getting up. ‘Goodnight then.’

‘Goodnight.’

As she walked through the living room the cat stood next to the sofa and stretched. Stared up at me.

‘Oh no, Mefisto,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’ve got to work, you know.’

With the record I was reviewing playing on the turntable I sat writing draft after draft, scrunched up the rejects and threw them into the growing heap on the floor. It was a little after two before I was happy, scrolled the paper out of the typewriter, pushed back my chair and read through what I had written for the final time.

Tuxedomoon

Holy Wars (Cramboy)

reviewed by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Tuxedomoon hail from San Francisco, but are now based in Brussels. The band is scheduled to play in Norway this winter; they will be playing Den Norske Opera in Oslo on 1 December.

Blaine Reininger, Tuxedomoon’s front man, has left the band to pursue a very promising solo career and Holy Wars is their first LP without Reininger. It never scales the dizzy heights of Desires , but is not a bad LP for all that.

The members of Tuxedomoon are classically trained and have grown up with rock music. The result is impossible to classify, but avant-garde rock, futurism and modernism are handy cues.

The band explores uncharted territory and discovers new musical paths. Holy Wars is a beautiful, atmospheric album, although at times I do find it rather inaccessible. It embraces diffuse moods of the past mixed with the future, synthesiser instruments mixed with acoustic. One of the songs on the LP is a medieval poem translated from the French. In my opinion, this track, ‘St John’, is the strongest offering with an infectious organ intro and an equally infectious melody. Along with ‘In a Manner of Speaking’ it displays the band’s lighter side. Other tracks I would pick out for special mention are ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ and the instrumental ‘The Waltz’.

Before I went to bed I wrote a note for mum to say I had worked till late and she shouldn’t wake me. Usually she got up an hour before me, had breakfast, drank coffee and smoked a cigarette while listening to the radio. Then she woke me and on the days when our timetables coincided gave me a lift to school. Her school was only a kilometre further down the road. We wouldn’t say much during the half-hour the journey took, and it often struck me how different the lull in conversation was from the one I endured with dad, when the silence burned like a fever inside me. With mum the silence was painless.

This morning I woke up half an hour late for the bus, saw that I’d had a nocturnal emission, took off my sticky underpants and walked naked to the wardrobes room, where to my horror I discovered that there were no clean underpants.

Why hadn’t she washed them? She’d had the whole bloody weekend to do it!

As I entered the bathroom I saw the laundry rack in the middle of the floor covered in clothes, but they were wet. I realised she had washed them the previous evening but had forgotten to hang them up, so she had done it at top speed in the morning.

Oh, how absent-minded she was!

This meant I had a choice between finding a pair of dirty underpants in the laundry basket or wearing wet ones off the rack.

I hummed and hawed. It was quite cold out and it would be no fun walking the kilometre down to the bus wearing wet underpants.

On the other hand, you never knew how close you might be to people in the course of the day. Not that I imagined I smelled, but if I suspected I did it would make me behave in an even stiffer and more unnatural manner than usual.

What if Merethe, in my class, who could be very flirty, what if she decided today of all days to clap her light blue eyes on me and perhaps come so close that she could stroke me fleetingly on the shoulder or even the chest with one of her exquisite hands?

No, it would have to be the wet ones then.

I showered, had breakfast, saw that I wouldn’t make the next bus without rushing, so I decided I might as well catch the one after.

Outside, the sky was blue, the sun hung low and in the shadow beneath the trees along the river bank the frozen mist drifted across the tranquil water.

When the bus pulled up at the stop by the school the third lesson was drawing to a close, and since there was no point going now I took the bus to town and went to Nye Sørlandet with the three reviews. Steinar was in his office.

‘Are you skiving off school?’ he said.

I nodded.

‘Tut tut,’ he said and smiled. ‘Have you got something for me?’

I produced the sheets of paper from my bag.

‘Just leave them there,’ he said, pointing to the table.

‘Aren’t you going to look at them?’

He usually skimmed through them before I left.

‘No. I trust you. You’ve done a good job so far. Why should it be any different today? See you!’

‘See you,’ I said and left. My insides were glowing at what he had said, and to celebrate I went to buy a couple of records, sat down in Geheb and ate a cardamom and custard bun and drank a Coke while carefully scrutinising the covers. Once I had finished, it was so late it would have been senseless to go to school so I wandered around the streets for a while, then caught an early bus home. I stopped by the post box down at the crossing; apart from the newspaper there were three letters in it. Two for mum, window envelopes: bills. And an airmail letter for me!

I recognised the writing on the envelope and saw from the postmark that it was from Israel. Waited until I was sitting at the desk in my room to open it. Opened it, took out the letter, stood up, put on a record and sat down again. Began to read.

Tel Aviv, 9/10/1985

Hi Karl Ove,

I arrived in Tel Aviv a month ago. It’s great but also hard. I’ve never done so much cleaning in the whole of my life as in the last four weeks. It’s thirty degrees here and I’m lying on the terrace writing this letter. I’ve been to the Mediterranean twice and some Israeli boys have taught me how to play frisbee and surf. But it’s impossible to trust the boys here if you’ve got blonde hair. They assume you’re on holiday and so, aha, they think, she’ll be easy. But I can’t forget you. And I don’t understand myself. But I think it’s because you were/are the boy I’ve loved most in all my life. So, Karl Ove, no matter how many girls have come into your life don’t forget me, and come to Denmark next year. And if you are nice and write back quickly this time you are très bien.

I’m your fan,

Lisbeth

I got up, went over to the window, opened it, placed my forearms on the frame and leaned out. The air was cold and crisp, the heat of the sun shining on me barely evident.

She meant it. She was serious.

I stood up, went outside with the letter, sat down on the bench under the window and read it through once again. Put it down beside me and lit a cigarette.