Karl Knausgaard - Dancing in the Dark

No. If this was going to be any good I had to invest everything I had into it.

I continued writing.

Then there was someone at the door again.

I switched off the music and went to answer it.

It was three of the young fishermen. None of them was in the football team, two of them I had barely exchanged a word with, despite being at the same table three or four times. The third was Henning. He was a year older than me, had been to gymnas and set great store on showing himself to be different in minor details, like the pointed shoes he wore, his black Levi’s, the music he played on his car stereo, which had more in common with what I liked than anything anyone else here listened to.

‘Can we come in?’ he said.

‘Course,’ I said, and stepped aside. They hung up their jackets, with snow on the shoulders, kicked off their shoes, dark from the slush, went into the sitting room and sat down.

The wind had picked up. Down by the sea waves were hurling themselves at the shore like furious beasts. The wash that was always present had a darker undertone when there was a storm, a kind of boom or a muted rumble.

They each put a bottle of Absolut on the table.

‘I haven’t got any mixers, I’m afraid,’ I said.

‘We stick them in the freezer and drink it neat,’ Henning said. ‘That’s what the Russians do. That’s how it’s supposed to be drunk. If you add a bit of pepper, it tastes fantastic.’

‘OK,’ I said and went for some glasses. After they had filled theirs, and also mine, to the brim, I put on one of the two U2 mini LPs I had, which not many people had heard. Henning, who liked U2, actually asked me what the music was, and I was able to bask in the sun for a while.

The music evoked at once the atmosphere of my ninth class and the first class at gymnas . The enormous bare beautiful but also lonely space for music that I had loved, and now discovered that I still loved, as well as everything else around it, everything that had been going on in my life then, condensed into this unbelievably vibrant concentrated moment which only feelings can produce. A year relived in a second.

‘Just fantastic!’ I said.

‘ Skål ,’ said Kåre.

‘ Skål ,’ said Johnny.

‘ Skål ,’ said Henning.

‘ Skål ,’ I said, and drained my glass with a shiver. Turned up the music. With the darkness so dense outside and the lights so bright inside, it was as if you were being transported. In a shuttle of some kind. Way out into space.

And it was true too. We were hovering out in space. I had always known that, but it was only when I came here that I understood. Darkness did something to your perception of the world. The Northern Lights, this cold burning in the sky, as well. And the isolation.

I cursed myself for not having been able to keep my eyes off Andrea. Whatever I do I mustn’t encourage her feelings.

Mustn’t look at her again.

Or at least only in a teaching context.

I didn’t need it. Liking her had nothing to do with it, I liked lots of the others as well. Fourth years as much as seventh years. The exception was Vivian’s sister Liv, but for Christ’s sake she was sixteen, only two years younger than me, no one could object to my looking at her .

‘Did you get back today?’ I said, looking at Henning.

He nodded.

‘Did you catch anything?’

He shook his head.

‘Black sea.’

They didn’t leave until five. By then I had drunk almost a whole bottle of vodka. I had enough presence of mind to set the alarm clock, but when it rang at a quarter past eight I must have been dead to the world because it was still beeping in its devilish way when I was brought to by other sounds that had merged with it, namely, someone ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door.

I tumbled out of bed, threw some cold water over my face and opened up.

It was Richard.

‘You’re awake, are you?’ he said. ‘Come on then. Your class is waiting. It’s a quarter past nine.’

‘I’m ill,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to stay at home today.’

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Come on. Have a shower and get your clothes on. I’ll be waiting here.’

I looked at him. I was still drunk, my brain was in a corridor with glass walls. I saw Richard from far off although he was a metre from me.

‘What are you waiting for?’ he said.

‘I’m ill,’ I said.

‘You’ve got one chance,’ he said. ‘I suggest you take it.’

I met his eyes. Then I backed away and went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and stood under it for a few seconds. I was furious. I was an employee, a teacher, and if one of the others didn’t appear for work one day and said they were ill, Richard wouldn’t dream of going to get them. Not a hope. The fact that he was right — after all I wasn’t ill — was irrelevant. I was an adult, not a child, a teacher not a pupil; if I said I was ill, I was ill.

I turned off the shower, dried myself, rolled deodorant under my arms, got dressed in the bedroom, put on a coat, shoes and a scarf in the hall and opened the door again.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s go up then.’

He had humiliated me, but there was nothing I could do about it. Right and power were on his side.

I had always liked darkness. When I was small I was afraid of it if I was alone, but when I was with others I loved it and the change to the world it brought. Running around in the forest or between houses was different in the darkness, the world was enchanted, and we, we were breathless adventurers with blinking eyes and pounding hearts.

When I was older there was little I liked better than to stay up at night, the silence and the darkness had an allure, they carried a promise of something grand. And autumn was my favourite season, wandering along the road by the river in the dark and the rain, not much could beat that.

But this darkness was different. This darkness rendered everything lifeless. It was static, it was the same whether you were awake or asleep, and it became harder and harder to motivate yourself to get up in the morning. I succeeded, and five minutes later I was standing in front of my desk again, but what happened there was also rendered lifeless. It felt as though I was getting nothing back from what I was doing. However much effort I put in, nothing came back. Everything vanished, everything dissolved into the great darkness in which we lived. I might as well say this as that, do this as that, nothing made any difference.

At the same time I was depressed by being under constant observation, by everyone always knowing who I was, by never being allowed to have any peace. Especially at school, where Richard hovered over me like some damn bird of prey, ready to pounce on me the second I did something he didn’t like.

All the drinking reinforced my unease, and since nothing of what I did gave me anything back I became more and more worn down, it was as though I was being drained, I became emptier and emptier, and soon I would be walking around like a shadow, a ghost, as empty and dark as the sky and the sea around me.

I drank several times in midweek after the day Richard came to fetch me, but I always managed to stagger out of bed and get myself to school punctually. The next occasion he had reason to find fault with me was different. I had been to a party in Tromsø at the weekend, Jøgge was on leave and wanted to meet me, and on Sunday evening I missed the boat to Finnsnes, had to stay overnight in Tromsø, and then when I finally returned to the village it was too late in the morning for it to be worth going to school.

The next day Richard called me into his office. He said he had confidence in me, I was an important part of the school, but things had to function smoothly, things had to function smoothly every day, and if I didn’t turn up for work this created big problems for everyone. Also for the pupils. It was my responsibility, no one else’s, and this must not happen again under any circumstances.