Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

She was standing in the bathroom cleaning her teeth in front of the mirror. Her mouth was full of foam.

‘Hi,’ I said.

She must have heard me, yet didn’t appear the slightest bit frightened when she turned towards me.

‘Get out,’ she said.

I sat down on a chair by the wall and stared intensely at her. First at her face, then at her breasts under the green jumper.

She shook her head.

‘You’re wasting your time. You haven’t got a hope with me,’ she said almost incomprehensibly as everyone does when cleaning their teeth and talking at the same time.

‘Do you want me to go?’ I said.

She nodded.

‘Fine,’ I said, got up and went out. The wind formed a wall in front of the door filled with small frozen-hard particles of snow. What a shame, I thought, looking up at the immense darkness above us. She is so classy. Yes, unbelievably classy! After wandering to and fro in the snow-blown road under the light from the street lamps, which with the snow and the darkness as background had a greenish glare and cast an underwater glow over the surroundings, I found my way back to the party, which was no longer a party but a table littered with glasses and bottles, empty cigarette packets and ashtrays in an otherwise empty room. All sense of time in me must have stopped — had I really been away that long? — and then my sense of space went too because the next thing I remember is waking up in my bed at home.

Actually doing things, not denying myself anything when I was drunk, in that intoxicating state of total freedom, had in the course of these months gradually begun to take its toll. At gymnas I was either hungover or not, there were no other consequences. If I felt any pangs of conscience at all, they were pinpricks, nothing a hearty breakfast and a walk to town couldn’t cure. Up here in the north, however, it was different. Perhaps the gulf between the person I usually was and the one I became when I drank was too great. Perhaps it was impossible for a man to have such a wide gulf inside himself. For what happened was that the person I usually was began to draw in the person I became when I was drinking, the two halves slowly but surely became sewn together, and the thread that joined them was shame.

Oh hell, did I do that ? the cries resounded inside me the next day as I lay in the darkness. Oh no, shit, did I say that ? And that ? And that ?

I lay there, rigid with fear, as though someone were throwing bucket after bucket of my own excrement over me.

Look what an idiot he is. Look what a bloody twat he is.

But I got up, started a new day and I always got through it.

The worst was probably the notion that others saw me, that I put on a show for them on these nights, and that the side of me I displayed then was reflected in the way they looked at me every day.

I pretended I was a young teacher who took the best possible care of their children, whom they watched on his way to and from the post office or the shop, while in reality I was a babbling idiot who sat drooling over all sorts of girls at night, who would cut off both his hands for one of them to take him home, but none wanted to, after all he was a babbling, drooling idiot.

At school too I occasionally felt like that, but not with the pupils, I had the situation fully under control there, nor with Nils Erik and Tor Einar, they of course knew what was what.

Yes, I had the situation under control, yet that didn’t prevent me from feeling the pain and torment there too, opposite my pupils, sitting at my desk in the minutes before the new week started in earnest, with the disgraceful behaviour of the weekend still fresh in my mind.

They had taken off their padded jackets, and were sitting there in their Icelandic sweaters, their skin still red from the cold, squirming restlessly on their chairs, wanting to go home and back to bed while the presence of the others drew them in the opposite direction, for they were exchanging glances, whispering little comments, sniggering, breathing, living.

The light glared from the ceiling, and against the deep darkness that always hovered above us the windows reflected back the other end of the whole classroom. There sat Kai Roald, there sat Vivian, there sat Hildegunn, there sat Live, there sat Andrea. Light blue jeans, white boots, a white jumper with a high neck. And there was I, behind the desk, in a black shirt, black jeans, trembling inside with exhaustion. Even the slightest little transgression seemed monstruous to me, all I wanted and needed was security.

I opened the book at the chapter we were going to read. The room was full of the buzz of voices from other classes. My own pupils were sleepy, not interested.

‘Right, take your books out! There’s a limit to sleepiness!’

Andrea smiled as she bent forward and took the book from her satchel. It was bound in matt brown paper and covered with the names of pop stars and film stars in felt-tip pen. Kai Roald groaned, but when I met his eyes he smiled. Hildegunn already had her book ready of course. Live turned to the window. I looked in the same direction. A figure was on its way up the hill, though more like a ghost, for it was impossible to distinguish a body from the shadowy contours coming towards us, enveloped in swirling snow.

‘Live! Get out your book!’

‘OK, OK. What subject have we got now?’

‘Are you serious? Don’t you know?’

‘No-oo!’

‘Six months you’ve been here for the first lesson on Monday morning. We always have the same subject. And that is. .?’

Her eyes stared at me nervously.

‘You don’t remember?’ I said.

Neither did I. Panic rose in me like water in a blocked toilet.

She shook her head.

‘Does anyone know?’

Everyone looked at me. Did they understand?

No.

There. Kai Roald opened his mouth. ‘Christianity,’ he said.

‘Oh yes, Christianity!’ she said. ‘Of course. I knew that. I just went all blank for a moment.’

‘You’re always all blank,’ Kai Roald said.

She looked daggers at him.

‘And you aren’t?’ I said.

He chuckled. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘I’ve gone blank too for the moment,’ I said. ‘But it’s no good. We have to get through the syllabus. And we can only do that by working hard.’

‘That’s what you always say,’ Vivian said.

‘But it’s true. Do you think I stand here talking about Martin Luther for my sake? I know enough about him. But you don’t know anything. You’re a bunch of ignoramuses. But on the other hand all thirteen-year-olds are, so it’s not your fault. By the way is there anyone who knows what an ignoramus is?’

Complete silence.

‘Has it got something to do with ignorant?’ Andrea said. A faint blush rose up her cheeks as she watched her hand doodling on her book.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘To ignore is to fail to notice or to show no interest. An ignorant person is someone who shows no interest in anything. And if you aren’t interested in anything you don’t know anything about it either.’

‘Then I’m ignorant,’ Kai Roald said.

‘No, you’re not. You know lots of things.’

‘Such as what?’

‘You know a lot about cars, don’t you? More than me anyway! And you know a lot about fishing. I know nothing about that.’

‘Why haven’t you got your driving licence, by the way? You’re eighteen after all,’ Vivian said.

I shrugged. ‘I can manage fine without.’

‘But you have to get a lift whenever you want to go anywhere!’ Vivian said.

‘I get around, don’t I?’ I said. ‘But that’s enough now. Let’s get on with our work.’

I stood up.

‘What do you know about Martin Luther?’