Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (4 page)

‘They do,’ I said.

‘Shall we go?’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thet was thet, as Fleksnes used to say. No more Kristiansand!’

They hugged me in turn. That was something I had started doing in the second class: whenever we met we hugged.

Then I slung my kitbag over my back, grabbed my case and followed Line onto the train. They waved a few times, the train set off and they strolled down to the car park.

It was unbelievable that was only two days ago.

I put down the book and, while rolling another cigarette and taking a swig of lukewarm coffee, read the three sentences I had written.

Down the hill the shop was less busy. I went for an apple from the kitchen and sat down at the typewriter again. In the course of the next hour I wrote three pages. About two boys on an estate, and it was good as far as I could judge. Perhaps three more pages and it would be finished. And that wasn’t bad, finishing a short story on the first whole day up here. At that rate I could have a collection ready by Christmas!

As I was rinsing the dregs from the coffee pot I saw a car coming up the road from the shop. It stopped outside the caretaker’s house and two men, who looked to be in their mid-twenties, got out. Both were well built, one was tall, the other smaller and rounder. I held the pot under the tap until it was full and put it on the hotplate. The two men were walking up the hill. I stepped to the side so that they couldn’t see me through the window.

Their footsteps stopped outside the porch.

Were they coming to see me?

One of them said something to the other. The ring of the doorbell pierced the silence of the flat.

I wiped my hands on my thighs, went into the hall and opened the door.

The smaller of the two stretched out a hand. His face was square, his chin curved and jutting, his mouth small, his eyes were alert. He had a black moustache and stubble on his jaw. A heavy gold chain around his neck.

‘I’m Remi,’ he said.

Embarrassed, I shook his hand.

‘Karl Ove Knausgaard,’ I said.

’Frank,’ the tall guy said, reaching out a hand, which was enormous. His face was as round as the other man’s was square. Round and fleshy. His lips were thick, the skin was delicate, pink almost. Hair blond and thinning. He looked like an oversized child. His eyes were kind, also like a child’s.

‘Can we come in?’ the one called Remi said. ‘We heard you were on your own up here and thought you might like some company. I suppose you don’t know anyone in the village yet.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That was kind of you. Do come in!’

I took a step back.
Kind! Do come in!
Where the hell did that come from? Was I fifty?

They stopped in the sitting room and looked around. Remi nodded a few times.

‘Harrison lived here last year,’ he said.

I looked at him.

‘The previous temporary teacher,’ he said. ‘We often sat here. He was a great guy.’

‘A good guy,’ Frank said.

‘
No
wasn’t a word in his vocabulary,’ Remi said.

‘He’s already deeply missed,’ Frank said. ‘Can we sit down?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? I’ve got some on the go.’

‘Coffee? Yes, please.’

They took off their jackets, laid them across the arm of the sofa and sat down. Their bodies were like barrels. The upper arms of the one called Frank were as wide as my thighs. Even with my back to them, in front of the worktop, I could feel their presence, it filled the whole flat and made me feel weak and girly.

That was kind of you. Would you like a cup of coffee?

For Christ’s sake, I didn’t have any cups! Only the one I had brought with me.

I opened the cupboards above the worktop. Empty, of course. Then I opened the lower ones. And there, next to the downpipe from the sink, was a glass. I rinsed it, sprinkled some coffee in the jug, banged it on the tabletop a few times, carried it into the sitting room and looked around for something to put it on.

It had to be
The Garden of Eden
.

‘Well?’ Remi said. ‘What do you reckon, Karl Ove?’

I was uncomfortable at hearing my name used so familiarly by a man I had never seen before and felt my cheeks flush.

‘Don’t really know,’ I said.

‘We’re going to a party tonight,’ Frank said. ‘Over in Gryllefjord. Fancy coming along?’

‘There’s a place free in the car, and we know you won’t have had time to go to the Vinmonopol, so we’ve got some booze for you too. What do you think?’

‘Not sure,’ I said.

‘What? Would you rather mope around here in this empty flat?’

‘Let the man make his own mind up!’ Frank said.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘I’d planned to do some work,’ I said.

‘Work? What on?’ Remi said. But his eyes were already fixed on the typewriter. ‘Do you write?’

I flushed again.

‘A bit,’ I said with a shrug.

‘Ah, a writer!’ Remi said. ‘Not bad.’

He laughed.

‘I’ve never read a book in my life. Not even when I went to school. I always got out of it. Have you?’ he said, looking at Frank.

‘Yes, lots.
Cocktail
.’

They both burst into laughter.

‘Does that count?’ Remi said, looking at me. ‘You’re a writer. Does porn count as literature?’

I gave a strained smile.

‘Fiction is fiction, I suppose,’ I said.

There was a silence.

‘You’re from Kristiansand, I hear,’ Frank said.

I nodded.

‘Have you got a girl down there?’

I mulled that one over.

‘Yes and no,’ I said.

‘Yes and no? That sounds interesting!’ Remi said.

‘Sounds like something for you,’ Frank said with a glance at Remi.

‘For me? No. I’m more the either-or type.’

There was another silence as they took a mouthful of coffee.

‘Have you got any children?’ Remi said.

‘Children?’ I said. ‘Bloody hell. I’m only eighteen!’

At last a comment from the heart.

‘It’s happened before in the history of the world,’ Remi said.

‘Have you two got children then?’ I said.

‘Frank hasn’t. But I have. A son of nine. He lives with his mother.’

‘He’s from the “or” time,’ Frank said.

They laughed. Then they both looked at me.

‘Well, we shouldn’t bother him any more on his first day here,’ Remi said and got up. Frank got up too. They took their jackets and went into the hall.

‘Think about the party tonight,’ Remi said. ‘We’ll be at Hege’s if you change your mind.’

‘He doesn’t know where Hege lives,’ Frank said.

‘You walk up the top road. Then it’s the fourth house on the left. You’ll see it straight away. There’ll be cars outside.’

He stuck out a hand.

‘Hope you’ll come. Thanks for the coffee!’

After I had closed the door behind them I went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. Stretched out my arms and legs and closed my eyes.

A car came up the hill and stopped outside.

I opened my eyes. More visitors?

No. A door banged somewhere else in the house. It was my neighbours, whoever they were, coming home. After shopping in Finnsnes perhaps.

Oh, I was dying to ring someone I
knew
for a chat!

I couldn’t sleep, which I was also keen to do, to get away from all of this. Instead I went to the bathroom, undressed and had another shower. It was a way of tricking myself into believing something new was beginning. Not as good as sleeping, it was true, but better than nothing. Then, with wet hair and my shirt sticking to my back, I sat down and went on writing. I had the two ten-year-olds walking around in the forest. They were scared of meeting foxes and had cap guns in their hands to frighten them away if they showed up. Suddenly they heard a shot. They ran over to where the sound had come from and saw a rubbish dump in the middle of the forest. There were two men lying on the ground shooting at rats. Whereupon something seemed to flash through me, an arc of happiness and energy; now I couldn’t write fast enough, the text lagged slightly behind the narrative, it was a wonderful feeling, shiny and glittering.

The men shooting at the rats went on their way, the two boys pulled up two chairs and a table in the forest and sat there reading porn magazines. One of them, the one called Gabriel, stuck his dick in a glass bottle and suddenly felt a terrible stinging pain, he pulled it out and there was a beetle on the end. Gordon laughed so much he fell back into the heather. They forgot all about time, then Gabriel realised, but it was too late, his father was furious with him when he got home, punched him in the mouth, which began to bleed, and locked him in the tiny room with the hot water tank, where he had to stay all night.

When I had finished, it was getting on for eight, and seven closely written pages lay in a pile beside the typewriter.

So great was my sense of triumph that something inside me screamed out to tell someone. Anyone! Anyone!

But I was all alone.

I turned off the typewriter and buttered some slices of bread, which I ate standing in front of the kitchen window. A figure hurried past on the road under the greying though still blue sky. Two cars emerged from the tunnel, one right after the other. I had to go out. I couldn’t stay inside any longer.

Then there was a knock at the door.

I answered it. A woman of around thirty, dressed in only a T-shirt and slacks, stood outside. Her face had gentle features, her nose was big though not obtrusively so, her eyes were warm and brown. Her hair was dark blonde and tied in a knot at the back.

‘Hi!’ she said. ‘I just had to say hello. We’re neighbours. I live upstairs. And we’re also colleagues. I’m a teacher too. My name’s Torill.’

She proffered her hand. Her fingers were thin, but her grasp was firm.

‘Karl Ove,’ I said.

‘Welcome to Håfjord,’ she said with a smile.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You arrived yesterday, I hear?’

‘Yes, by bus.’

‘Yes, well, we’ll have to talk another time. I just wanted to say that if there’s anything you need just ring the bell. I mean, sugar or coffee or bed linen or whatever it is you’re short of. A radio, for example. Have you got one? We’ve got at least one we don’t use.’

I nodded.

‘I’ve got a Walkman,’ I said. ‘But thanks anyway. It was very kind of you to pop down!’

Very kind
.

She smiled.

‘See you then,’ she said.

‘Yes, see you,’ I said.

I stood in the hall long after she had gone. What had happened actually?

Every meeting here was like a dagger to the soul.

No, I had to get out and walk.

I put on a coat, spent a few seconds in front of the mirror in the bathroom straightening my beret, locked the door behind me and started walking down the hill. Some way down you could see past the edge of the mountain and out to sea, the razor-sharp horizon against the sky. Two large very white clouds hung motionless, hovering on high. On the other side of the fjord a little fishing boat was chugging back towards the harbour. The fjord was called Fugleøyfjord. Bird Island fjord. And the island there was obviously Bird Island. OK, they, the first people who arrived here, must have thought: What shall we call this fjord? Fishfjord? No, that’s what we called the last one, didn’t we. What about Birdfjord then? Yes! Good idea!

I continued along the road past the fish-processing plant, which was deserted apart from the seagulls huddled on the roof, and on towards the bend which led to the higher part of the village. Beyond the last house the mountain soared straight up. There was no intermediate stage, which I was used to where I had grown up, those diffuse, hard-to-define places which were neither private property nor open nature. This was real nature, and not the low, gentle Sørland type of nature but wild, harsh, windswept Arctic nature, which confronted you as soon as you opened the door.

Were there a hundred houses here in total?

Way up here, beneath the mountains, by the sea.

I had the feeling I was walking on the edge of the world. That it wasn’t possible to go any further. One more step and I was gone.

But, my God, how fantastic it was to be able to live here.

Now and again I saw movements behind the windows in the houses I passed. The flickering lights of TV sets. All somehow submerged beneath the crash of the waves as they washed up on the shore below, or woven into it, for so even and regular was this roar that it seemed more like a quality of the air, as though the air could not only be colder or warmer but also louder or softer.

In front of me appeared the house where I assumed the girl they had called Hege lived, at any rate there were lots of cars in the drive, music was coming from an open veranda door, and behind the large 1970s-style windows I glimpsed a group of people sitting around a table. It was tempting to go over and knock on the door, they could hardly expect anything of me, after all I didn’t know anyone, a certain shyness would only be natural, so it would be OK just to sit there drinking without uttering a word until the alcohol kicked in and loosened everything in me, including my heart, which was now so small and constricted.

While I was thinking this I didn’t stop walking, I didn’t even slow down because if they saw me standing there wavering and then I set off for home again they would think they knew something about me.

Maybe I was longing for something to make my heart swell, but this wasn’t vital, and I was supposed to be doing my writing, I thought as I walked on, and then I was past the house and it was too late.

When I came to a halt by my front door I looked at my watch.

It had taken me fifteen minutes to walk around the whole village.

So it was within these fifteen minutes I was to live my whole life this coming year.

A shudder went through me. I walked into the hall and took off my coat. Even though I knew nothing was going to happen I locked the door and kept it locked all night.

Next day I didn’t go out, I sat writing and staring at the people who appeared and disappeared again on their way downhill. I paced to and fro in the flat pondering more and more what I was going to do when classes started on Tuesday, formulating one introductory sentence after another in my head while also trying to decide what strategy to adopt for dealing with the pupils. The first priority was to establish what their level was. Perhaps test them in all the subjects right from the beginning? And then plan everything after that? Tests? No, that was a bit harsh, a bit too authoritarian, a bit too schoolmarmy.