Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

They placed their desks together in the way I had explained. Apart from Kai Roald. He sat with his elbows on his desk and his cheeks in his hands.

‘You too, Kai Roald,’ I said. ‘Move your desk next to Vivian’s. You’ll be working together.’

He looked up at me and shook his head. Stared into space again.

‘There’s no choice,’ I said. ‘You have to. Come on now.’

‘I’m not doing it,’ he said.

I went over to him.

‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Come on now, move your desk over.’

‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘I’m not doing it.’

‘Why not?’ I said.

The others, who had finished their manoeuvres, sat watching us.

‘I don’t want to,’ he said.

‘Shall I do it for you?’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘Did you hear what I said? I’m not doing it.’

‘But you’ve GOT TO,’ I said.

He shook his head.

I grabbed the desk on both sides and lifted it. He pressed his forearms down on the top with all his might. I pulled harder, he grabbed it with his hands and held on, red-faced now. My heart was beating faster.

‘Now you do as I say!’ I said.

‘No!’ he said.

I snatched at the desk and took it from his grasp, carried it over to Vivian and put it down. He didn’t move from his chair.

‘I’m not budging,’ he said.

I held his arm, he wrenched it away.

‘Now you go and sit over there!’ I said in a loud voice. ‘Do you want me to carry you? Is that what you want?’

From the corner of my eye I sensed Hege watching us from the other side of the room.

He didn’t answer.

I went behind him and grabbed the seat of his chair, intending to lift it with him in it. He stood up, went behind his desk and grasped it with both hands, presumably to move it back.

‘Put the desk down!’ I said.

His face was scarlet, his eyes rigid and inaccessible. When he started moving the desk I seized it and tore it out of his hands.

‘You bloody horse prick!’ he shouted.

I put down the desk. Anger throbbed in my veins. My eyes were white with fury.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down, but it didn’t help, my entire body was shaking.

‘You can go home,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see you here any more today.’

‘What?’ he said.

‘Go,’ I said.

He suddenly fought back tears and looked down. ‘But I haven’t done anything,’ he said.

‘Go,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see you. Come on. Out. Out.’

He lifted his head, sent me a wild defiant glare, slowly turned and left.

‘Let’s make a start, shall we,’ I said with as much composure as I could muster. ‘Open the practice book at page forty-six.’

They did as I told them. Outside the windows Kai Roald walked past, swinging his arms, apparently unconcerned, staring ahead. I explained to them what they had to do. Glanced out of the window, he was walking beneath the light from the last lamp on the school premises, neck bent, head down. But I had behaved correctly, no one should be allowed to call a teacher a horse prick and go unpunished.

I sat down behind the desk. For the rest of the lesson I was completely out of myself, concerned only that the pupils should not notice anything.

In the staffroom Hege came over and asked what the kerfuffle had been about. I shrugged and said I’d had a difference of opinion with Kai Roald and he had called me a horse prick.

‘So I sent him home for the rest of the day. That’s not on.’

‘Things are different up here, you know,’ she said. ‘Swearing’s nowhere near as serious.’

‘It is for me,’ I said. ‘And I’m the form teacher.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said.

I went over and got a cup of coffee, sat down on my chair, leafed through a book. Then, in a flash, it came to me.

He didn’t want to sit next to Vivian because he was in love with her.

This sudden insight made me flush with embarrassment. Oh, what an idiot I had been! How stupid could you be? Sending a pupil home was serious, he would have to explain himself, and his parents wouldn’t believe it was the teacher’s fault. But it was.

I liked Kai Roald.

So he was in love, that was all!

But it was too late, I couldn’t undo anything now.

I went back into the staffroom, picked up the newspaper from the table, sat down and started reading. At the end of the small vestibule the door opened. It was Richard. He spotted me.

‘Karl Ove,’ he said, and beckoned. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

‘Certainly,’ I said, and got up.

‘Let’s go into my office, shall we,’ he said.

I followed him in silence. He closed the door behind us and turned to me.

‘Kai Roald’s mother has just rung,’ he said. ‘She said he’d been sent home. What happened?’

‘He refused to do what I asked him to do,’ I said. ‘We had a little altercation. He called me a horse prick, and so I told him to leave. That’s where I draw the line.’

Richard studied me for a while. Then he lowered himself onto the chair behind his broad desk.

‘Sending someone home is a serious measure,’ he said. ‘It’s the most severe punishment we have. A lot has to happen before we do that. But you know that. Kai Roald is a fine fellow. Do we agree on that?’

‘Yes, no question. But that isn’t what this is about.’

‘Hang on a moment. This is Northern Norway. It’s a bit rougher up here than down south. We don’t take swearing seriously, for example. Calling you what he called you isn’t good, but nor is it as grave a crime as you seem to believe. The boy’s got temperament. Surely he’s allowed to have that?’

‘I will not put up with being called a horse prick by a pupil. Regardless of where in the world it happens,’ I said.

‘No, no, of course not,’ he said. ‘I appreciate that. But there are always ways of resolving conflict. There has to be a bit of give and take. Sending a pupil home is absolutely the last resort. I have a feeling that your disagreement hadn’t really got that far. Am I right?’

I didn’t answer.

‘You haven’t been a teacher for long, Karl Ove,’ he said. ‘And even the most experienced of us make the wrong calls on a regular basis. But next time, if you can’t resolve a situation yourself, come and get me. Or bring the pupil to see me.’

In your dreams.

‘I’ll consider that if it happens again,’ I said.

‘It will happen again,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to sort this one out anyway. You’d better ring Kai Roald’s mother and explain why he was sent home.’

‘Isn’t it enough if I give him a message tomorrow?’ I said.

‘She rang here and was very worried. So I think it would be best if you spoke to her.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Then I will.’

He held out an open palm to indicate the grey telephone on his desk. ‘You can use this one.’

‘But the bell’s about to ring,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it in the next break.’

‘I’ll take your lesson for the first few minutes. Who have you got?’

‘Fifth, sixth and seventh years.’

He nodded, got up and stood beside his desk.

Was he going to stand there while I made the call? Was he going to listen to the conversation? Was he a total bloody control freak?

I looked up the number in the phone book, found it and glanced at Richard, who didn’t bat an eyelid.

What a sack of shit he was.

I dialled the number.

‘Hello,’ said a woman’s voice.

‘Oh, hello, this is Karl Ove Knausgaard, Kai Roald’s form teacher.’

‘Oh, hi,’ she said.

‘Kai Roald and I had a disagreement this morning. He refused to do what I asked him to do and then he called me. . well, he swore at me to my face. So I sent him home.’