Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

When we returned everyone had gathered in our room. Some of the senior team had brought girlfriends with them on the trip, a couple were here, and I saw Bjørn talking to one of them, Amanda, who went out with Jøran. She was around twenty-five. Was Bjørn really trying it on with her? Here?

Yes, he was. As people began to withdraw he did too and I was left alone on my bed, I fell asleep fully clothed, only to be awoken an hour later by Bjørn shaking me.

‘Amanda’s coming,’ he said. ‘Could you go somewhere else? For half an hour?’

Befuddled by sleep, I got up.

‘OK,’ I said, went to the window and opened it.

‘You’re not going to go out there, are you? This is the fourth floor or have you forgotten?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fine.’

Beneath the window, all the way, ran a brick ledge almost the width of my feet. Two metres above it there was another. I stood on the lower one, gripped the upper one tightly and then shuffled along centimetre by centimetre. Bjørn watched me with his head out of the window.

‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘Come back.’

‘Now you’re with Amanda and I’m here. I’ll be back in half an hour.’

He eyed me for a moment. Then he closed the window. I looked down. There was a large fountain outside the entrance, around it an open square, on the margins a few parked cars. A high brick wall separated the hotel grounds from the road beyond. There was no one around, but that wasn’t so strange, it had to be three in the morning at least.

I slowly shuffled towards the window of the room adjoining ours. The curtains were drawn, there was nothing to see. I edged back, stopped by the window, leaned forward and peered in. They were lying on Bjørn’s bed and smooching, their legs intertwined, Bjørn’s hands were sliding up and down her thigh under her dress. I straightened up, took a few steps to the side, squinted down again. Still deserted. How long had I been there now? Ten minutes? I let go of the ledge with one hand, patted my jacket for cigarettes and my lighter, succeeded in knocking one out, sticking it in my mouth and lighting it without swaying once. When the cigarette was finished and lay like a small glowing eye on the tarmac far below I shuffled sideways and banged on the window. Bjørn jumped to his feet. Amanda sat up. Bjørn came over to the window, Amanda ran out of the door, Bjørn turned, ready to give chase, or so it seemed, but then he reconsidered and opened the window for me.

‘Five more minutes,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you have given me five more minutes?’

‘How was I supposed to know?’ I said. ‘From where I was standing it didn’t look like you were making much progress.’

‘Were you watching?’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I was just kidding. But now I want to sleep. You should too, if you ask me. You’ve got a tough day with Jøran ahead of you.’

Bjørn snorted. ‘He’s too conceited to believe she would want anyone else.’

‘He’s all right, I think,’ I said.

‘Yes, I do too,’ Bjørn said. ‘But Amanda’s more than all right.’

He laughed. I lay down on the bed and fell asleep in an instant, without having found the answer to the enigmatic and somewhat vexing question: why would Amanda want Bjørn? What had he done to deserve that?

On the last evening in Lucerne the bus stood with its engine idling outside the hotel after dinner. Everyone was going out on the town. The destination was a secret. It turned out, however, to be our casino. While the other juniors wandered around slack-jawed, Bjørn and I sat nonchalantly at a table in the striptease venue drinking white wine.

‘I got her number today,’ Bjørn said. ‘She said I should phone her when we were home.’

‘Why on earth would she do that?’ I said. ‘Has she finished with Jøran?’

Bjørn shook his head. ‘No. They’re together. But aren’t you happy for me?’

‘Yes, she’s nice.’

‘Nice? She’s great. Absolutely great. And she’s twenty-four!’

We finished our wine and went for a look round. I lost sight of Bjørn fairly soon and cruised around on my own. By the door to the big hall, on a sudden impulse, I looked in. What’s going on in here? I asked a small bald man with glasses. It’s a conference, he answered. Who for? I said. Biologists, he said. OK, I said. Interesting! He withdrew, I went in, people were gathered around the small tables, but far fewer than earlier in the week. On one of them lay a little green and white card. I went over and inspected it. It was a name tag. I pinned it to my lapel and walked towards the big door. It opened onto a conference hall, rows of seats in a wide gradually ascending semicircle around a speaker’s podium. A man was talking below. Stills were being shown on a screen behind him. The room was slightly over half full. I walked down past a few rows, entered one, people stood up just as in the cinema, and I sat down, crossed my legs and concentrated on the speaker. Now, I said to myself in a low voice. What do you reckon? How very interesting! After twenty minutes, during which I spent as much time looking at the other people in the audience as the speaker, whose grating microphone voice filled the whole auditorium and hung like a constant annoying thought in the background, I got up and went back to the disco. Most of the junior players were inside watching the striptease, it appeared. I went in too and when Jøgge spotted me he came rushing over.

‘Can I borrow some money?’

‘How much do you need? I’ve got some but not much.’

‘A thousand? Have you got that much?’

‘What are you going to do with a thousand kroner?’

‘Actually I need two thousand. That’s what champagne costs.’

‘Two thousand for champagne? Are you out of your mind?’

‘If you buy an expensive drink for one of the women you’re allowed to talk to them. And if you buy champagne you can go off with them.’

‘And that’s what you want to do?’

‘Too right. If only I had the money! Have you got it or not?’

He looked around.

‘Come on. Please. I need two thousand kroner. I’ve never slept with a woman. I’m eighteen years old and I’ve never had sex. You have. But I haven’t. And it costs two thousand kroner. Come on. Please, please.’

He went down on his knees in front of me. Held up his hands in supplication.

And, even worse, he was serious.

‘I want to sleep with a woman. That’s all I want. And I can do it here. I don’t give a shit if they’re prostitutes. They’re unbelievably beautiful, all of them. Come on. Show some mercy. Harald! Ekse! Bjørn! Karl Ove!’

‘I haven’t got that much,’ I said. ‘I may have enough for a little chat. .’

‘This is serious!’ Jøgge said, back on his feet. ‘This is my chance. There aren’t any places like this in Kristiansand.’

‘Sorry, Jøgge. Would have liked to help you,’ said Bjørn.

‘Same here,’ said Harald.

‘For Christ’s sake, come on,’ Jøgge said.

‘You’ll have to try the old-fashioned method,’ Bjørn said. ‘Chat someone up. The place is full of girls.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Jøgge said.

‘Come on. Let’s go in and see the action,’ Bjørn said, dragging Jøgge with him.

I had never experienced such an alcoholic high as the one I had that night. It was like a cool green river flowing through my veins. Everything was in my power. As we stood at the bar I noticed a girl on the dance floor, she might have been a year or two older than me, with blonde hair and a beautiful, yes, an unbelievably beautiful face. When her gaze met mine for a second time I didn’t hesitate, I trotted down the two steps to the dance floor. At that moment the music she had been dancing to changed and, along with three other girls, she walked over to a wall. I followed her. I stopped and said I had seen her dancing and she looked fantastic. You looked amazing, I said. She smiled and said thank you and looked at me with her head tilted. I asked her if she was American. Yes, she was. Did she live in the town here? No, she lived in Maine. They all came from Maine. Where was I from? A small barbaric country up north, I said. We are in fact the first generation to eat with a knife and fork. I turned and nodded to the other members of the team, who were watching me from the bar. I’m with them, I said. We’re football players on a training camp here. Do you want to dance?