Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

‘What did you get?’ mum said. ‘Don’t throw it away!’

Grandad opened the stove door. Mum hurried over.

‘You can’t burn it,’ she said, and took the present from him.

Grandad looked hostile and bewildered at the same time.

‘Let me see,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a plaster cast of her hand,’ mum said.

The impression of a small hand in plaster, why would he want to burn that?

Kjartan laughed. ‘Johannes is superstitious,’ he said. ‘It means death, that does.’

‘Yes, it does,’ grandad said. ‘I don’t want to see it.’

‘We’ll put it here then,’ mum said, putting the plaster cast out of sight. ‘She made it at the nursery and sent it to you. You can’t throw it away, you know that.’

Grandad said nothing.

Was that a smile on grandma’s lips?

Yngve passed Kjartan a present from him. A bottle of wine.

‘Bull’s eye,’ Kjartan said. He was sitting on a chair at the back of the room with a glass of cognac in his hand, wearing a milder, more conciliatory expression on his face now.

‘Perhaps we could listen to our records on your stereo tomorrow, could we?’ I said.

‘Yes, help yourselves.’

Kjartan was sitting by the Christmas tree, which wasn’t quite straight, it was leaning towards him, and then while I was looking him in the eye I saw on the margins of my vision that it had started to move. He turned his head. His eyes lit up in panic. The next second the tree crashed down on top of him.

Grandad burst into laughter. Yngve and mum and I laughed too. Kjartan jumped up from his chair. Yngve and I straightened the tree, screwed it into position again and moved it against the wall.

‘Even the tree won’t leave me in peace,’ Kjartan said, running a hand through his hair, and then sat down again.

‘ Skål ,’ Yngve said. ‘And Happy Christmas!’

Over Christmas we took the express boat to Bergen and flew from there to Kjevik. Mefisto was ecstatic to see us when we arrived, almost clawing my trousers to pieces when I let him lie on my lap during supper.

It was good to be home and it was good to have Yngve there.

The next day he wanted to visit our grandparents on dad’s side, he hadn’t seen them since the summer, and I went with him.

Grandma beamed when she saw us standing on the doorstep. Grandad was in his office, she said as we were going upstairs, and Yngve immediately sat down in his chair. With him the atmosphere with grandma was not as humdrum as it was when I was there on my own; Yngve was much better at hitting the right tone in our family: he joked, made grandma laugh and had fun with her in a way that I would never be capable of, even if I practised for a hundred years.

Suddenly, completely out of the blue, she looked at Yngve and asked him if he had bought something nice with the money.

‘What money?’ he said.

I flushed scarlet.

‘The money we gave you,’ grandma said.

‘I haven’t been given any money,’ Yngve said.

‘I forgot to pass it on to you,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

Grandma stared at me as if she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You didn’t give it to him?’

‘I’m really sorry. I forgot.’

‘Did you spend it?’

‘Yes, but I only borrowed it. I was going to give him the money back in Sørbøvåg and then I forgot.’

She got up and went out.

Yngve sent me a quizzical look.

‘We were given a hundred kroner each,’ I said. ‘I simply forgot to give you yours. You’ll get it later.’

Grandma came in with a hundred-krone note in her hand and gave it to Yngve.

‘There we are,’ she said. ‘Now let’s forget all about it.’

Yngve did in fact get together with Kristin on New Year’s Eve. I saw it all. From the moment they met and she looked up at him with her head tilted and a smile. He had said something and seemed strangely shy. I laughed inwardly. He was in love! Afterwards they didn’t talk but they did cast occasional glances at each other.

Suddenly they were sitting opposite each other at a long wooden table. Yngve was talking to Trond; she was talking to one of her friends.

They sent each other furtive looks.

Still talking.

Then Yngve got up and was gone for a short while, sat back down, continued to chat to Trond. Picked up a slip of paper and a pen, wrote something.

And then he pushed the slip of paper over to Kristin!

She looked at him, looked at the piece of paper and read what he had written. Looked at him, pinched her thumb and first finger together several times, and he passed her the pen.

She wrote something, pushed the sheet across, he read it. Got up and went over to her, and then suddenly they were immersed in deep conversation, there were only the two of them in the room, and the next time I saw them they were kissing. He had managed it!

After that evening for him everything was about Kristin. He went to Bergen on 2 January and the house felt empty, but only for a day or two until I was used to it, and life continued as it had before with its minor developments in one direction or another, all the unforeseen events that fill our lives, some of which lead to a locked door or a deserted room while others might have consequences which only come to fruition many years later.

I started doing local radio with Espen. We broadcast one programme a week, it was live and the basic format was that we played records by our favourite bands and talked about them. I told everyone I knew they should listen, and many of them did, now and then, it was not uncommon for people at school or on the bus to comment on something we had said or some of the music we had chosen. Radio 1 was a small station, there were not many listeners on a normal weekday evening, and Nye Sørlandet was not a big newspaper, but between them they gave me a sense that I was on my way.

The radio programme meant that I had to stay in town after school, there was no point going home, turning round and going back, and I made it a habit to pop in to see grandma and grandad, they were a safer bet than dad for food, and I also avoided the uncertainty that a visit to dad entailed: would he ask me in or not, would it be too much for him or not?

After these long evenings in town, having dinner with my grandparents first, then meeting Espen at the radio station, planning the programme with him and then doing it, I would get on the bus and listen to music the whole weary way home, including the last kilometre, locked inside myself, hardly noticing the white world I was passing through until I removed my headset, opened the door, untied my boots, hung up my jacket and went into the kitchen to have a bite of supper.

Mum was on the first floor watching TV. When she heard me she switched it off and came down.

‘Did you hear it?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Was it embarrassing when we got the giggles or was it OK?’

‘No, it wasn’t embarrassing. Just funny. Karl Ove, grandma rang while you were out.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation, I’m afraid. She said. . well, she said you weren’t to go there any more. She said you’d never had anything to eat whenever you turned up, you were shabbily dressed and were always asking them for money.’

‘What?!’ I said.

‘Yes,’ mum said. ‘She said it was my job to look after you and not theirs. It was my responsibility. So now they don’t want you to go there.’

I started crying. I couldn’t help myself, the tears came with such force. I turned away from her, my face contorted into ugly grimaces, I covered it with my hands, and even though I didn’t want to, I sobbed.

I took a saucepan from the cupboard and filled it with water.

‘This has got nothing to do with you,’ mum said. ‘You have to understand that. This is about me. It’s me they want to hurt.’