Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

I put the pan on the stove, barely able to see through all the tears, raised my hand in front of my face again, bowed my head. Another loud sob rolled out.

She was wrong, I knew that, this was about me. I had been there, I had physically felt all the silences and all the unease I carried with me, and in a way I understood them.

But I said nothing. The convulsive twitches in my face let up, I took a few deep breaths, wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my jumper. Sat down on a chair. Mum didn’t move.

‘I’m so angry,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry before. You’re their grandchild. It’s difficult for you now. It’s their duty to support you. No matter what .’

‘It isn’t difficult,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You have hardly anyone around you. The few people you have cannot turn their backs on you.’

‘I’m absolutely fine,’ I said. ‘Don’t give it a second thought. I’ll manage fine without them.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ mum said. ‘But they’re turning their backs on their own grandchild! Can you imagine! No wonder your father struggles.’

‘You don’t think he’s behind this then?’ I said.

She looked at me. I had never seen her so furious before. Her eyes were blazing.

‘No, I truly don’t. Well, not unless he has changed totally in these last six months.’

‘He has,’ I said. ‘He’s a completely different person.’

She sat down.

‘And there’s one more thing,’ I said. ‘Which you don’t know. Yngve and I were given a hundred kroner each for Christmas. I was supposed to pass the money on to Yngve, but I spent it. Afterwards I forgot all about it. When we were there over Christmas it all came out.’

‘But, Karl Ove,’ mum said with a sigh, ‘even if you’d stolen the money that’s no reason for them to turn their backs on you. It’s not up to them to punish you.’

‘You’ve got to understand,’ I said. ‘It’s obvious they were angry. And what grandma said is right. I eat whenever I’m there and they give me money for the bus.’

‘You’ve done nothing wrong. Don’t even think it,’ she said.

But I did, of course. I lay awake for the first hours of the night as the cold took a grip on the countryside and caused the timber walls of the house and the ice in the river below to creak. Then, in the darkness, I was able to see the matter in a colder, clearer light. If they didn’t want to see me, well, then they wouldn’t see me. I hadn’t gone to visit them for my benefit, I lost nothing by staying away. And there was a sweetness in my decision never to see them again. Not even when they lay on their deathbeds would I go and see them. Indeed, even when they had died and were about to be buried, even then I wouldn’t go and see them. Unlike dad, who during my childhood years had boycotted them for periods, cut off all contact for a month or two, only to resume relations as though nothing had happened. No, I would stand firm. I would never see them again, I would never talk to them again.

If that was how they wanted it, that is how they would get it. I didn’t need grandma or grandad, they were the ones who needed me, and if they didn’t understand that, well, good luck to them.

One afternoon I caught the train alone to Drammen, where Simple Minds were playing at the same venue that U2 had played the year before. I loved their new record, the sound was so monumental and the songs so brilliant I played them again and again that autumn. It was perhaps a bit commercial and the tracks were perhaps not as strong as those on New Gold Dream , but I loved it nevertheless. Leaving the concert, I was, however, somewhat disappointed, not least with Jim Kerr, who had become quite flabby and actually stopped the gig when a fan ran onto the stage and pinched his red beret. He crouched down at the edge of the stage and said they wouldn’t play any more unless he got his hat back. I couldn’t believe my ears and from then on it didn’t matter how good the songs were, for me Simple Minds were a thing of the past.

I arrived back in Kristiansand by train in the middle of the night. There were no buses and it was too expensive to take a taxi home, so I had arranged with Unni that I would sleep in her flat. She had given me a key; all I had to do was let myself in. So half an hour after I had clambered off the train I inserted the key into the lock, warily opened the door and carefully stepped into the flat. It was a 1950s or 60s build, consisted of two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, and had a view of the town from the sitting room. I had been there two or three times before, for dinner with dad and her, and I liked it, it was an elegant flat. The pictures on the wall were nice, and even though I didn’t care much for the Sosialistisk Venstreparti-style ceramic cups and woven fabrics, it was her style, and that was indeed what I noticed about the room, the harmony.

She had made up a bed on the sofa with a sheet and a duvet, I found a book in the bookcase, Johan Bojer, The Last Viking , read a few pages, then switched off the light and fell asleep. Next morning I woke to the sound of her clattering around in the kitchen. I got dressed, she set the table in the sitting room and brought in a plate of bacon and eggs, some tea and hot rolls.

We sat chatting all morning. Mostly about me, but also about her, about her relationship with her son Fredrik, who was having difficulty accepting that our dad had come into her life, about her job as a teacher and life in Kristiansand before she met dad. I told her about Hanne and my plans to write after I had finished gymnas . I hadn’t said anything to anyone because I hadn’t formulated the thought before, not in so many words anyway. But now the words just poured out of my mouth. I want to write, I want to be a writer.

When I left it was too late to go to school, so I caught the bus home. The sun was cold and hung low in the sky, the ground was bare and damp. I was happy but not unreservedly so, because chatting with Unni, being open and honest with her, felt like betrayal. Whom I was betraying I wasn’t quite sure.

A couple of months later, at the beginning of April, mum went away for the weekend, to visit a friend in Oslo, and I was left alone at home.

When I returned from school I found a note in the kitchen.

Dear Karl Ove

Take care of yourself — and be good to the cat.

Love,

Mum

After frying some eggs and meatballs for dinner, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette, I sat down in the living room with a history book and started to read. The countryside had not yet emerged from the strange interlude between winter and spring when the fields are bare and wet, the sky is grey and the trees leafless, nothing in themselves, everything charged with what will be. Perhaps it has already started to happen, unseen in the darkness, for isn’t the air slowly warming up in the forest? Is there not scattered birdsong coming from the trees after these long months of silence, which had been broken only by the occasional hoarse screams of a crow or a magpie? Had spring not stolen in, like someone wanting to surprise their friends? Wasn’t it there, ready any day now to explode into a blaze of green, spewing out its leaves and insects everywhere?

That was the feeling I had, spring was in the offing. And perhaps that was why I was so restless. After reading for an hour or so I got up and walked around the house, opened the door for the cat, which headed straight for the food dish, I thought of Hanne and before I could change my mind I was standing by the telephone and dialling her number.

She was happy to hear from me.

‘Are you at home on a Friday evening?’ she said. ‘That’s not like you. What are you doing?’