Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

‘We’re not kids ,’ Andrea said. ‘And it’s not fair. The eighth and ninth years can be indoors.’

‘Only kids say something is unfair,’ I said. ‘Besides, the eighth and ninth years have a double slot, so they’re in class now.’

‘That’s what we want. Working indoors is better than being out in this weather,’ Andrea said and looked up at me. Her cheeks had reddened with the cold. Her eyes were narrow and beautiful.

I laughed.

‘So all of a sudden you want to work, do you? That’s a new tune,’ I said.

‘You just laugh at us,’ Vivian said. ‘You don’t have any respect for us.’

‘I treat you how you deserve to be treated,’ I said, eyeing the clock on the wall between the entrance to the main school building and the large wing where the swimming pool and gymnasium were. Four minutes left of the break.

I went to the other side to see how the fourth years were doing. No sooner had I rounded the corner than I saw Jo and Endre trudging along, heads bowed into the wind, feet stamping on the snow.

‘How’s the cave?’ I said.

‘It’s ruined!’ Jo said. ‘Reidar put his head through the roof. The whole blooming cave collapsed.’

His eyes were moist.

‘Don’t swear,’ I said.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘It can happen,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.’

‘But it was our cave! We built it! And now it’s ruined.’

‘Build one with them next time,’ I said. ‘Then they won’t ruin it.’

‘We don’t want to,’ he said. ‘Come on, Endre.’

They walked past me.

‘I can help you make a new one, if you want,’ I said. ‘In the next break.’

‘Can you?’

‘We can make a start at any rate. But the others might join in.’

‘Yes, but then you’re there,’ he said. ‘They won’t dare smash it up.’

It had been a stupid offer to make, I thought as I went back into the staffroom a few minutes later. Now I would have to dig in the snow with the tenth years for the rest of the breaks. On the other hand, Jo’s face had lit up, I remembered, and I closed the toilet door behind me, unzipped and began to pee. I aimed the jet at the porcelain so that the teachers who were still in the toilet wouldn’t hear the splashing sound. While I washed my hands I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The singular feeling that arose when you looked at your own eyes, which so purely and unambiguously expressed your inner state, of being both inside and outside, filled me to the hilt for a few intense seconds, but was forgotten the moment I left the room, in the same way that a towel on a hook or a bar of soap in the small hollow in the sink also were, all these trivialities that have no existence beyond the moment, but hang or lie undisturbed in dark empty rooms until the door is opened the next time and another person grasps the soap, dries their hands on the towel and examines their soul in the mirror.

I was in the sitting room eating when Nils Erik rang at the door. Snow from the drift beside the porch swirled in the air around him. The gusting wind hung like an invisible cupola above the village.

‘I’m eating,’ I said. ‘But I’ll soon have finished. Come in.’

‘But you won’t want to go swimming after eating,’ he said.

‘I’m eating fish,’ I said. ‘They’re used to swimming.’

‘That’s true,’ he said.

‘Do you want some? Fish roe and potatoes?’

He shook his head, untied his boots and came into the sitting room.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

I shrugged, swallowed and took a long drink of water.

‘How’s what going?’ I said.

‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Writing, for example.’

‘It’s going fine.’

‘Teaching?’

‘Fine.’

‘Sex life?’

‘Erm. . what shall I say? Not very well. What about you?’

‘Well, you saw yourself today,’ he said. ‘That’s about all there is.’

‘Right,’ I said, scraping up the last roe, butter and some crumbly potato with the knife, offloading it onto the fork and lifting it to my mouth. My lips became greasy with the fat.

‘And my prospects in that direction are not particularly rosy either,’ he continued. ‘All the girls over sixteen have moved out. All that’s left is school pupils and their mothers. The age ranges in between have been wiped out.’

‘Completely wiped out,’ I said, got up, put the cutlery on the plate, took them in one hand and the glass in the other and went to the kitchen. ‘But you make it sound as though they’ve been hunted to destruction or something.’

‘They have been! If they’d stayed here we could have hunted them. But where they are, there are others chasing after them.’

I put the plate and glass on the worktop and went into the bedroom to fetch my swimming gear.

‘Now I finally understand what’s meant by the term “happy hunting grounds”,’ I said. ‘I’ve never understood what was supposed to be so fantastic about it. Running around in the forest until eternity. But obviously it was meant in a figurative sense.’

‘I don’t know how fantastic it is,’ Nils Erik said in a loud voice so that I could hear him. ‘It’s a lot of work and there’s little to show for it at the end. At least for me. Much, much better to be in a relationship.’

I put my trunks and a towel into a plastic bag, considered whether I needed anything else, no, that should do it.

‘When was the last time you were in a relationship?’ I said.

‘Three years ago,’ he said and moved towards the door when he saw me emerge with the bag in my hand.

‘What about one of the other temporary teachers?’ I said. He was bending down and tying his laces, and straightened up a touch redder in the face.

‘If they fancy it, fine by me,’ he said.

We walked up the steep hill in silence, walking was as much as we could manage in the gale. Snow stung against the skin I hadn’t covered. When we closed the school door behind us it was like leaving the top deck of a large ship and going inside. Nils Erik switched on the light, we bounded down the stairs in long strides, sat on opposite sides of the dressing room and changed. Although the wind made the walls creak and the ventilation howl, it still seemed quiet indoors. Perhaps because of the lack of movement? All the rooms were empty, the pool was empty and smooth and still.

The smell of chlorine cast a spell over me. Childhood memories of when we used to go swimming every week in Stintahallen came flooding back: the conical bags of sweets we bought at the little shop, the taste of the boiled sweets shaped like nuts and bolts, green and black, liquorice and mint. The light displays around the pool, which were supposed to represent tropical waterfalls. The white bathing hat with the Norwegian flag on the side, the dark blue goggles.

I pulled on my trunks and went into the small swimming hall, the tiles were cold and rough on the soles of my feet, the snow eddied round in the light of the lamp outside, behind it the great black void.

The surface of the water was dark with a faint shimmer of blue from the bottom of the pool and as shiny as a mirror. Almost a shame to break it, I thought. I definitely wasn’t going to dive in. No, instead I would climb down the metal ladder and try to make as few ripples as possible. All in vain, for along came Nils Erik: he ran to the edge and threw himself into the water with a splash. Swam underwater to the far side, where he broke the surface with a snort and a toss of the head.

‘Wonderful!’ he shouted. ‘What’s up with you, you wimp?’

‘Me, nothing!’ I shouted back.

‘You’re getting into the water like some old dear!’