Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not as far as I know.’

‘I was thinking of inviting some of the temps home. Making a pizza and drinking some beer. Are you up for it?’

‘Course.’

She got up.

‘Time to wend my way home. Sleep tight, you writer wuss.’

‘If you’re not careful I’ll start calling you names,’ I said.

‘I’m a woman, you know. That’s not done. For you I’m Frøken or Hege. And you’re overwatering your flowers. You’re drowning them.’

‘Is that what’s wrong? I thought it was imperative they shouldn’t get too dry.’

‘No, it’s almost always the opposite. Poor flowers. They’ve ended up with a murderer. The worst kind, in fact, one who doesn’t know he’s a murderer.’

‘Well, actually I am sorry when they die,’ I said.

‘What about fish?’ she said.

‘What about them?’

‘Are you sorry when they die too?’

‘Yes, I am. I hate it when they’re brought up from the sea, wriggling and squirming, and I have to kill them.’

She laughed.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard that said here before. I can’t imagine it. It must be the very first time.’

‘There’s one fisherman who’s been seasick all his life,’ I said. ‘That’s almost the same.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘But now I do have to go.’

I followed her into the hall.

‘OK, Frøken , I wish you goodnight,’ I said. I stood waiting in silence while she put on her outdoor gear. Smiled when she had finished. Only her nose was protruding from between her scarf and hat. She said bye and went out into the darkness.

The next morning I had the third and fourth years for the first two lessons. I got up ten minutes before the bell was due to ring, threw on my clothes and dashed up the hill under a sky that was as black and wild as it had been when Hege left ten hours earlier.

When the children ambled across the floor in their stockinged feet, wearing their jumpers, with their hair rumpled after removing their woollen hats, eyes narrow, I saw them as they were, tiny and vulnerable. It was barely comprehensible that I could on occasion get so irritated and angry with some of them. But there was something in them that rose and sank during the day, a vortex of shouting and screaming, pestering and fighting, games and excitement, which meant that I no longer saw them as small people but as whatever was coursing through their veins.

Sitting on his chair, Jo put his hand in the air.

‘What is it, Jo?’ I said.

He smiled. ‘What are we going to do in the first lesson?’

‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ I said.

‘Are you going to read to us at the end of the second lesson, as you usually do?’

‘All things come to he who waits. Have you heard that saying?’

He nodded.

‘Well, there you have it.’

The door at the end of the building kept opening and shutting as pupils trickled in. Every time it did I automatically looked up and across. To the right of the door was the part of the block my class used. Nils Erik was teaching them, he sat behind the desk staring into the air while waiting for them to quieten down.

In came Reidar and Andrea. They were brother and sister, they walked to school together, arrived late together, what was so touching about that?

Reidar set off at a run across the floor, must have remembered they weren’t allowed to run, then stopped with a jolt and looked at me, and walked quickly to his place. From the other side Andrea watched us. I met her stare. She immediately turned her head to the side, to where the seventh class was, and she joined them a moment later.

This little interlude ought to have been perfectly natural, but it wasn’t, there was a woodenness about Andrea’s movements, as though she was forcing herself to perform them.

‘Hi, Karl Ove,’ Reidar said with a smile. He used my name as a kind of buffer, to make a reprimand for lateness harder because of the friendly interaction. He was a crafty little devil.

‘Hi, Reidar,’ I said. ‘Sit down. You’ve held up the whole lesson now.’

Andrea was in love with me.

Of course.

That explained her behaviour. All the looks, all the evasiveness, all the blushes.

A warm feeling spread through me. I got up and went to the board.

‘What does it mean to have a profession?’ I said. ‘What is a profession?’

Poor little girl.

‘A job,’ Reidar said.

‘Put your hand up if you know,’ I said.

He put up his hand. Fortunately some others did too. I pointed to Lovisa.

‘It means having a job,’ she said.

‘That’s what I said!’ Reidar said.

‘Could you give me some examples of professions, Lovisa?’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Fisherman.’

‘Good,’ I said and wrote it up. ‘Any more?’

‘Working in the fish hall?’

‘Yes! Any more professions? Hands up!’

Suggestions poured in. Bus driver, lorry driver, truck driver, shop assistant, ship’s captain, cleaner, policeman, fireman. It was typical that ‘teacher’ never occurred to them, even though one was standing right in front of them. For them it wasn’t a proper job. Chatting to children day in, day out.

‘What about me?’ I said at length. ‘Haven’t I got a profession?’

‘You’re a teacher! Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!’ they called out.

‘And if you’re ill?’

‘Nurse! Doctor! Ambulance driver!’

When the board was full I asked them to write down the job they would like to have, say why, describe what it involved and draw a picture. While they were doing that I walked around monitoring, chatting with them on an individual basis and standing by the window with my hands on my hips staring into the darkness. The thought that she was in love with me was touching, both warming and sad.

I went up to the desk, we began to go through what they had written and we covered a little more than half before the bell rang. In the following lesson we continued where we had left off, changed to reading from the textbook, they answered the questions in it, and then in the last twenty minutes I read an excerpt from One Thousand and One Nights . When I took out the book and started reading they left their chairs and sat in a semicircle on the carpet in front of me, they always did that, it must have been what they were used to from the first or the second class, and I liked it, I felt as if I was giving them something warm and secure. Or rather that they turned a normal situation into something warm and secure. Blank-eyed, they sat listening to the oriental tales, somehow turned in on themselves, as though they were sitting before the fount of their soul, in the midst of the desert of their minds, and saw all the camels, all the silk, all the flying carpets, all the spirits and robbers, mosques and bazaars, all the burning love and sudden death, the billowing mirages across the empty blue sky of consciousness. To them it made no difference that a world more different from theirs, from where they sat on the edge of the world in complete darkness and freezing temperatures, could hardly be imagined; the story took place in their minds, where everything was possible, where everything was permitted.

In the lesson afterwards I had the fifth, sixth and seventh years for Norwegian.

‘OK, let’s get cracking,’ I said as I entered. ‘Sit down and take out your books!’

‘Are you in a bad mood today?’ Hildegunn said.

‘Don’t you try any red herrings,’ I said. ‘Come on, books out. We’re going to do a bit of group work today. By which I mean you’re going to work in pairs. Hildegunn and Andrea, put your desks together. Jørn and Live. Kai Roald and Vivian. Come on. Do you always have to dilly-dally?’