Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

In fact, it was very much like me, but I had probably exaggerated my social life so much that she had integrated it into her perception of me.

‘I’m swotting for an exam. And I’m on my own here. Mum won’t be home until tomorrow. And so, well. . I was a bit bored. And I thought of you. What are you doing?’

‘Nothing special. I’m a bit bored too.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘I could pop by,’ she said.

‘Pop by?’

‘Yes, I’ve got my driving licence now, you know. Then we can drink tea and chat until the small hours.’

‘That sounds perfect. But can you do that?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be able to?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Come on then. See you.’

One and a half hours later she rounded the bend in the old green Beetle she borrowed from her sister. I shuffled into my shoes and went out to meet her. She looked completely out of place behind the wheel of a car, it struck me as she drove up the hill, driving required a set of movements and actions that I found irreconcilable with her somewhat gauche girlish charm. She performed every manoeuvre as it had to be done, it wasn’t that, but there was something extra which injected a stream of effervescent happiness into my blood. She parked outside the garage door and stepped out. She was wearing the black stretch pants I had once commented on, I had said they looked incredibly sexy on her. She smiled and gave me a hug. We went indoors, I made some tea and put on a record, we chatted for a while, she talked about what was happening at school and I told her what was going on at mine. Some anecdotes about mutual friends.

But we weren’t quite in synch.

We looked at each other and smiled.

‘I hadn’t imagined this when I woke up this morning,’ I said. ‘That you would be sitting here this evening.’

‘Nor me,’ she said.

A plane came in over the ridge behind our place, the whole house seemed to shake.

‘That was low,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said, getting up. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

I lit a cigarette, leaned back against the sofa and closed my eyes.

When she returned she stopped by the garden door and gazed out. I got to my feet, went over to her, stood behind her and gently placed my hands on her stomach. She put her hands on mine.

‘It’s so lovely here,’ she said.

The river flowed past, shiny and black, it had flooded the football field, only the two home-made goals were visible. The air over the valley had thickened with the dusk. Lights shone in the houses across the valley. Droplets of rain ran down the pane in front of us.

‘Yes, it is,’ I said, moving away from the window. She was in a relationship, she was a Christian, I was just a good friend.

She sat down in the wicker chair, swept the hair hanging over her forehead to one side and raised the cup of lukewarm tea to her mouth. Her lips were perhaps her finest feature, they formed a gentle curve and at the top seemed to crimp as though not wishing to adapt to the otherwise clean lines of her face. Unless it was her eyes, which I sometimes imagined were yellow, because there was something feline about her face, but of course they weren’t. They were grey-green.

‘It’s getting late,’ she said.

‘You don’t have to go yet, do you?’ I said.

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I don’t have anything special on tomorrow. Do you?’

‘No.’

‘When’s your mamma back?’

Your mamma . Only Hanne could say something like that, as though there were still a remnant of childhood in her that hadn’t been eroded yet.

I smiled.

‘My mamma? You make me feel like a ten-year-old.’

‘Your mother then!’ she said.

‘She won’t be back until tomorrow night. Why’s that?’

‘I was thinking I might sleep here. I don’t like driving in the dark much.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘What?’

‘Sleep here?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be able to?’

‘You’re in a relationship for starters.’

‘Not any more.’

‘What! Is that true? Why didn’t you say?’

‘I don’t tell you everything, young man,’ she said, laughing.

‘But I tell you everything.’

‘Yes, you certainly do. But my splitting up has got nothing to do with you.’

‘Of course it has! It’s got everything to do with me!’ I said.

She shook her head.

‘No?’ I said.

‘No,’ she said.

That was a no to me, there was no other way of interpreting it. However, I had given up on her ages ago. She no longer filled my every waking thought, it was several months since she had.

The chair creaked as she shifted position and drew her legs up underneath her.

I liked her. And I liked her being here, in the old house. That was enough, wasn’t it?

We sat there for an hour, until the darkness outside was complete and all you could see through the windows was the reflection of the living room.

‘It’s beginning to get late,’ I said. ‘Where would like to sleep?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘In your room?’

She smiled.

‘I don’t like sleeping alone in a house I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Especially not here. We’re almost in the middle of the forest!’

‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll get a mattress.’

I took the mattress off Yngve’s bed and laid it on the floor next to mine. Fetched a pillow, sheet, duvet and cover and put it on while she cleaned her teeth downstairs in the bathroom.

She came into the room wearing panties and a T-shirt.

My throat constricted.

Her breasts were so clearly outlined under the T-shirt that I didn’t know where to look.

‘There we are,’ she said. ‘I’m ready. Aren’t you going to clean your teeth?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said, holding her gaze. ‘I’ll do it now.’

When I returned she was sitting on the chair by the desk and looking at some pictures Yngve had sent me, which I had left lying around. They were dramatic, in black and white, some of them with me in exaggerated poses.

‘How good you look!’ she said, holding up one of the photos.

I snorted. ‘Shall we go to bed?’ I said.

A shudder went through me as she got up.

Her naked thighs.

Her small bare feet.

Her beautifully formed breasts beneath the thin T-shirt.

She lay down on the mattress on the floor, I lay next to her on the bed. She pulled the sheet up to her chin and smiled at me. I smiled back. We chatted a little, she sat up and pushed the mattress closer until it was right under me.

I thought about lying next to her. Lying close to her. Stroking her breasts, stroking her thighs, stroking her bottom.

But she was a Christian. And she was completely innocent, she didn’t know who she was or what effect she had on others, she could ask the strangest of questions and that side of her, which I loved, was also the reason I had to stay where I was.

‘Goodnight,’ I said.

‘Goodnight,’ she said.

We lay there, breathing, utterly still.

‘Are you asleep?’ she said at length.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Can you stroke my back a little? I just love it.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

She flipped the duvet to the side and bared her back. I gulped and ran the palm of my hand over her back, to and fro, to and fro.

I don’t know how long I was doing it for, a couple of minutes perhaps, but then I had to stop, otherwise I would have gone mad.

‘Can you sleep now?’ I said, withdrawing my hand.

‘Yes,’ she said, pulling her T-shirt back down. ‘Goodnight again.’

‘Goodnight,’ I said.

She left next morning, I read all day on the sofa, ate pizza and watched TV with mum in the evening. She sat with the cat on her lap and a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. I had eaten the best part of the pizza, then sat with my feet on the table and a glass of Coke in my hand watching Albert and Herbert , a Swedish series, it was totally meaningless, it must have been for mum too, but now we were sitting there it required an effort to move.