Karl Knausgaard - My Struggle - Book Three

“Yes?” Frøken said.

“Can we knit while you read?” Anne Lisbet said.

“Yes, I don’t have a problem with that,” Frøken said.

Four of the girls leaned forward and took out some knitting from their satchels.

“Can we do our homework as well?” Geir Håkon said.

Someone giggled.

“Put your hand up like everyone else, Geir Håkon,” Frøken said. “But the answer is, of course, no.”

Geir Håkon smiled, blushing, not because he had been put in his place but because he had ventured to speak. He was always pink-faced when he spoke in class.

Frøken began to read. The first was not mine. But there were three left, I thought, stretching my legs out under the desk. I liked the first lessons, when it was dark outside and it was like we were sitting in a bright capsule, all of us with slightly messy hair and sleepy eyes and these soft-focus movements that the day seemed to sharpen until everyone was running around shouting over one another with wide-open eyes and flapping limbs.

The second essay wasn’t mine, either. Nor the third.

I peered up uneasily as she lifted the fourth book. That wasn’t mine, was it?

Oh. She wasn’t going to read it.

Something inside me slumped with disappointment. While something else soared. My essay was the best, I knew that, and she knew that. Yet she hadn’t read it the previous time, nor this. What was the point of writing well if that was what happened? The next time I would write as badly as I could.

Finally she put the wretched essay down.

I put up my hand.

“Why didn’t you read mine?” I said. “Wasn’t it any good?”

Her eyes narrowed for a second, then opened, and she smiled.

“I have received twenty-five essays. I can’t read all of them out. Surely you can understand that? Your essays are in fact among those I read out most often. This time it was someone else’s turn.”

She clapped her hands.

“And they were really fantastic this time. What imagination you have! I really enjoyed all of them.”

She nodded to Geir B, who jumped to his feet and went to the desk. He was the class monitor and had to hand out the essays. I scanned mine. About a mistake a page. At the end she had written: “Imaginative and elegant, Karl Ove, but perhaps the story finished a little abruptly? Very few mistakes, but you have to work on your writing more!”

We had to write about something in the future. I had written about a journey in space. That is, I had spent so much time describing the various training programs the astronauts went through that ten pages were already covered before the day of the launch, so after some deliberation I decided the trip would be cancelled at the last moment because of a fault and the astronauts would go home with their work left undone.

Somewhere in the essay I had written Hotel ’, and she had added an extra “l” in her red looped script. I put up my hand and she came over.

“ Hotell is spelled with one l . I know that. I saw it in a book, so I’m absolutely sure.”

She leaned over. Soap fragrance rose from her hands, and from her neck a faint scent of a summery perfume.

“Ah, well, in one way you’re right. ‘Hotel’ with one l is English. There are two l ’s in Norwegian.”

“Hotel Phønix has one l ,” I said. “And that’s in Norway. And on top of that, it’s in Arendal!”

“You’re right.”

“So it’s not a mistake after all?”

“No. Let’s say that. And it was a good essay, Karl Ove.”

She straightened up and went back to her desk. Her words were warming, even though they were only meant for my ears.

Outside, the rain and the wind continued. The trees beyond the school grounds swayed and creaked, and when we went into the gym at the end of the break, the wind was gusting against the external walls with such force that it sounded like waves hitting them. The ventilation grilles howled and wheezed as though the building were alive, a huge beast full of rooms, corridors, and shafts that had settled here beside the school, and in its despondency sang lonely laments. Or perhaps it was the sounds that were alive, I wondered, sitting on the bench in the changing room and undressing. They rose and fell, whirled around for a while, drifting here, drifting there, as if in the middle of a game. I stood up, naked, took my towel, and went into the shower, which was already hot with the steam. I found a place among the throng of pale, almost marble-white boys’ bodies, and was engulfed by the hot water that first hit the top of my head and then ran in steady streams down my face and chest, neck and back. My hair stuck to my forehead and I closed my eyes. That was when someone shouted.

“Tor’s got a hard-on! Tor’s got a hard-on!”

I opened my eyes and looked over at Sverre, the boy who had shouted. He was pointing across the narrow room to where Tor was standing, with his arms down by his sides, his dick in the air, and a smile on his face.

Tor had the biggest dick in the class, well, perhaps, in the whole school. It dangled between his legs like a classic pork sausage and it was no secret because he always wore tight trousers and he placed it at an angle, pointing upward, so that everyone could see. Yes, it was big. But now, in its erect state, it was enormous.

“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat,” Geir Håkon shouted.

Everyone looked at him, there was a sudden excitement in the atmosphere, and it was obvious something had to be done. Such an extraordinary circumstance could not be allowed to go to waste.

“Let’s take him to Fru Hensel!” Sverre shouted. “Come on, quick, before it’s too late!”

Fru Hensel was our gym teacher. She came from Germany, spoke broken Norwegian, was strict, neat, and prim, which was emphasized by her narrow glasses and her tightly pinned-up hair. She was meticulous yet distant, in sum what we called snooty. As a teacher she was a nightmare because she had a predilection for gym apparatus and hardly ever let us play soccer. When Sverre suggested taking Tor to her — she was tidying up in the gymnasium, still with her whistle around her neck, wearing her blue tunic and white tights — we all knew it was perfect.

“No,” Tor said. “Don’t do that!”

Sverre and Geir went over and grabbed him by the arms.

“Come on!” Sverre shouted. “We need a couple more of you!”

Dag Magne went over, and with Geir B, they grabbed Tor’s legs and lifted him. Tor protested and writhed as they carried him out of the shower, but rather halfheartedly. The rest of us followed. And it was quite a sight. Tor, stark naked with an enormous bone, carried by four boys, also naked, followed by a procession of more naked boys, through the changing room and into the large, cold gymnasium where Fru Hensel, who was around thirty years old, turned to us from the stage at the far end.

“What do you want?” she said.

Those carrying Tor ran over with him. Once in front of Fru Hensel, they straightened him up as though he were a statue to be examined, left him like that for five seconds or so, then laid him down, and charged back to the changing room.

Fru Hensel said nothing, other than No, no, boys, this really is not a good idea and she did nothing. There were no screams, no howls, no bulging eyes, and no gaping mouth, as perhaps we had hoped. Nevertheless, it had been a success. We had shown her Tor’s massive hard-on.

In the changing room afterward we discussed what would happen now. Few believed there would be any consequences, for the simple reason that it would be embarrassing for her to take the matter any further. We were wrong. It turned into a big affair, the headmaster came to the class, the four boys who had carried Tor were given detentions, and the rest of us a lecture we would never forget. The only person to come out of this with his honor intact was Tor, who now emerged as a victim — the headmaster, the class teacher, and Fru Hensel regarded the incident as a case of bullying — and a winner, for now everyone knew, also the girls, this sensational detail of his physique without his having to lift a finger.