Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

He shrugged, suddenly uninterested.

‘Kristin will be at my place tonight, by the way.’

‘Where shall I sleep then?’

‘In the bathroom.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yes. It’s no problem, is it?’

‘No, of course not. I was thinking of you two.’

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. I’ve warned her. Anyway, I stayed at her place last night.’

It was fine too, though it felt a little strange lying on the mattress in the bathroom listening to Yngve and Kristin giggling and laughing and chatting in subdued voices in the bed.

As I walked down the pedestrian street next morning I was excited. I had got up extra early to be there before her, I thought that would give me an edge. She arrived, smiled her little smile and went into her stand. I stayed where I was, sold loads of cassettes and when I finally did go over to her it was to ask for a glass of water.

I was given one.

‘Thanks for the other night,’ I said.

‘Thank you ,’ she said.

‘I was thinking of going out tonight. Would you like to come?’

She shook her head.

‘Tomorrow night then?’

She shook her head again. ‘You’re not my type,’ she said with a smile. ‘We could meet though.’

‘When?’

She shrugged and smiled again.

I went back to my table and the days passed. She attended to her business in her stand, I attended to mine, once in a while our glances met and we smiled.

That was all.

I bought a felt pen and some cardboard from a bookshop and hung a sign on the tree beside the table. ORGINAL CASSETTES, I wrote, then the price and the names of some Top Twenty artists. It wasn’t long before a man in his mid-forties stopped and said it was ‘original’, not ‘orginal’. I was good at writing, my spelling was perfect, so I said no, you’re wrong, that’s how it’s spelt. There’s not another ‘i’ in ‘orginal’. I stuck to my guns, he stuck to his and in the end he walked away shaking his head.

The money was rolling in. People were crazy about my cassettes, buying four or five at a time, so when evening came and I went out with Yngve I didn’t stint myself. I drank as I had never drunk before. If I ran out of cash all I had to do was sell some more cassettes the next day. Once a week Rune dropped by in his red car with fresh stock. And now and then someone I knew from the old days happened by. Dag Lothar, for example, who had a summer job in a bank and was the same as always. Geir Prestbakmo, who was at vocational college and rode around on a brand new moped, he was his old self as well. And then John, the class tough guy, who just loafed around, as he put it.

Yngve and I went to the other side of Tromøya one day, to the place where dad had always taken us swimming. Yngve parked the car by the rifle range, we walked down through a dense prickly thicket, I relished the incomparable smell of heather, pine needles and saltwater, the massive grey ridge that had been there for so many million years, and then the sight of the sea below. The air was thick with insects. I stamped my foot down hard at every step, the area was full of adders, at least it had been when I was growing up.

Once dad and I had encountered one only a few hundred metres from where I was walking now, it was spring, the snake had been stretched out on a stone slab in the sun. I must have been about ten. Dad went mad, started throwing stones at it, I watched as they seemed to sink into the snake’s body as they struck, the adder tried to get away, it was hit time and time again until it lay still beneath a pile of stones. But as we were about to walk on, out it wriggled again. Dad went closer, continuing to throw stones at it, he wanted me to do the same, I was on the point of throwing up, the snake was still now, dad ventured closer and crushed its head with the big rock he was holding in his hand.

I turned. Yngve was behind me. We walked along the spine of sea-smoothed rocks and found a warm spot by the water’s edge. I went down to examine the great sinkhole in the rock, which wasn’t so big any more, dived into the foaming water, swam out to the long island maybe a hundred metres away and then back again. Lay down to dry in the sun, ate biscuits and oranges, smoked and drank coffee. Yngve suggested going with him to Kristin’s place afterwards, so that would save him having to take me to the town centre. Is that all right? I said, of course, he said, they’re incredibly open and kind. Anyway, the rest of the family’s on holiday, so she’s the only one there.

A few hours later he pulled up outside their house. We watched a video and ate pizza. Yngve had been there a lot over the last six months, he liked her parents, her brother and sister, and they liked him. He was like a son in the house, I could see.

Her sister’s name was Cecilie and she was one year younger than me, I saw some photos of her and was impressed. Her brother was much younger than them, he was still at primary school.

I stayed the night and slept in Cecilie’s bed. We decided to go out together the following night, Kristin would bring along some girlfriends, but first we would eat in a restaurant, just us three.

I drank two bottles of white wine with the food, and when we went to the discotheque I had three more.

And who should I meet there but the girl from the ice cream stand!

The four of us took a taxi to Tromøya. I sat in the front seat. We had stood wrapped around each other snogging while we waited for it to come, and, still dazed by that, I stretched my arms back towards her. She took my hands and caressed them. Her hands were very rough, I noticed.

‘Oh, Karl Ove,’ Yngve said from behind me.

They laughed.

Furious, I retracted my arms.

‘How much have you had to drink, actually?’ Yngve said.

‘Five,’ I said.

‘Five bottles of wine?’ Yngve said. ‘Are you kidding?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘No wonder you’re behaving so weirdly. If it had been me I would have been lying in the street snoring.’

‘True,’ I said.

The taxi stopped, I paid, we went into the house.

The same thing happened there, with the sole exception that this time she was absolutely naked. But no, she didn’t want to. Alabaster skin, full-bosomed and beautiful, she lay there saying no, no, no.

When I awoke next morning she was gone.

Still drunk, I went upstairs and into the kitchen, where Yngve and Kristin were having breakfast.

‘She caught the bus a while ago,’ Kristin said. ‘She said to say hello and thank you for yesterday.’

For a change, the sky was overcast. I decided to give this day a miss, lie on the sofa and read until Yngve went in to do his evening shift. The next day she wasn’t there. There was a girl in her twenties at the hatch. I asked her where Sigrid was, she said she had finished, yesterday had been her last day. Did she have any idea where she was? No, she didn’t.

I went to Kristin’s a couple more times, and on the last evening the family had returned from their holiday. I said hello, they were as nice as Yngve had said they were, we rented a video of Apocalypse Now, Kristin sat leaning against Yngve while I sat beside Cecilie, we exchanged occasional glances and smiled, we were so clearly the little brother and sister on the floor below our two siblings, who, if they had decided to get married, would not have surprised anyone.

There are was a tension in the air, I felt it all evening, but what kind of tension was it?

We were a bit shy with each other, was that what it was?

I saw how Cecilie sometimes tried to wrest the initiative, as though wanting to make it clear that she was not only on an equal footing with her sister but also very distinct from her.

I liked to see that. Her will, how that led the way and she followed.