Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (47 page)

At other weekends people came home from schools or universities across Norway, and just the fact that they had different faces was a liberation. I traipsed after one of them like a dog, her name was Tone, she was Frank’s sister and the daughter of the teacher who couldn’t stand me, but I didn’t care about that, I was drunk and had been watching her all evening.

Now she was about to leave, and I decided to follow her.

Snowflakes were whirling through the darkness. She walked fifty metres down the road with her head lowered, beneath the light of the street lamps. I wrapped my scarf around my mouth and set off. She went into her parents’ house, banged the snow off her boots, then closed the door behind her.

I stood outside for a few minutes. I thought she would be happy to see me because she had wanted to sleep with me all evening.

The kitchen window was dark, the living-room window too. But light streamed out from the narrow window at the end of the house.

I opened the door and went in. Didn’t bother to remove my shoes, glanced around the living room, it was dark and empty, walked down the hall towards the open door at the end.

She was standing in the bathroom cleaning her teeth in front of the mirror. Her mouth was full of foam.

‘Hi,’ I said.

She must have heard me, yet didn’t appear the slightest bit frightened when she turned towards me.

‘Get out,’ she said.

I sat down on a chair by the wall and stared intensely at her. First at her face, then at her breasts under the green jumper.

She shook her head.

‘You’re wasting your time. You haven’t got a hope with me,’ she said almost incomprehensibly as everyone does when cleaning their teeth and talking at the same time.

‘Do you want me to go?’ I said.

She nodded.

‘Fine,’ I said, got up and went out. The wind formed a wall in front of the door filled with small frozen-hard particles of snow. What a shame, I thought, looking up at the immense darkness above us. She is so classy. Yes, unbelievably classy! After wandering to and fro in the snow-blown road under the light from the street lamps, which with the snow and the darkness as background had a greenish glare and cast an underwater glow over the surroundings, I found my way back to the party, which was no longer a party but a table littered with glasses and bottles, empty cigarette packets and ashtrays in an otherwise empty room. All sense of time in me must have stopped – had I really been away that long? – and then my sense of space went too because the next thing I remember is waking up in my bed at home.

Actually
doing
things, not denying myself anything when I was drunk, in that intoxicating state of total freedom, had in the course of these months gradually begun to take its toll. At
gymnas
I was either hungover or not, there were no other consequences. If I felt any pangs of conscience at all, they were pinpricks, nothing a hearty breakfast and a walk to town couldn’t cure. Up here in the north, however, it was different. Perhaps the gulf between the person I usually was and the one I became when I drank was too great. Perhaps it was impossible for a man to have such a wide gulf inside himself. For what happened was that the person I usually was began to draw in the person I became when I was drinking, the two halves slowly but surely became sewn together, and the thread that joined them was shame.

Oh hell, did I do
that
? the cries resounded inside me the next day as I lay in the darkness. Oh no, shit, did I say
that
? And
that
? And
that
?

I lay there, rigid with fear, as though someone were throwing bucket after bucket of my own excrement over me.

Look what an idiot he is. Look what a bloody twat he is.

But I got up, started a new day and I always got through it.

The worst was probably the notion that others
saw
me, that I put on a show for them on these nights, and that the side of me I displayed then was reflected in the way they looked at me every day.

I pretended I was a young teacher who took the best possible care of their children, whom they watched on his way to and from the post office or the shop, while in reality I was a babbling idiot who sat drooling over all sorts of girls at night, who would cut off both his hands for one of them to take him home, but none wanted to, after all he was a babbling, drooling idiot.

At school too I occasionally felt like that, but not with the pupils, I had the situation fully under control there, nor with Nils Erik and Tor Einar, they of course knew what was what.

Yes, I had the situation under control, yet that didn’t prevent me from feeling the pain and torment there too, opposite my pupils, sitting at my desk in the minutes before the new week started in earnest, with the disgraceful behaviour of the weekend still fresh in my mind.

They had taken off their padded jackets, and were sitting there in their Icelandic sweaters, their skin still red from the cold, squirming restlessly on their chairs, wanting to go home and back to bed while the presence of the others drew them in the opposite direction, for they were exchanging glances, whispering little comments, sniggering, breathing, living.

The light glared from the ceiling, and against the deep darkness that always hovered above us the windows reflected back the other end of the whole classroom. There sat Kai Roald, there sat Vivian, there sat Hildegunn, there sat Live, there sat Andrea. Light blue jeans, white boots, a white jumper with a high neck. And there was I, behind the desk, in a black shirt, black jeans, trembling inside with exhaustion. Even the slightest little transgression seemed monstruous to me, all I wanted and needed was security.

I opened the book at the chapter we were going to read. The room was full of the buzz of voices from other classes. My own pupils were sleepy, not interested.

‘Right, take your books out! There’s a limit to sleepiness!’

Andrea smiled as she bent forward and took the book from her satchel. It was bound in matt brown paper and covered with the names of pop stars and film stars in felt-tip pen. Kai Roald groaned, but when I met his eyes he smiled. Hildegunn already had her book ready of course. Live turned to the window. I looked in the same direction. A figure was on its way up the hill, though more like a ghost, for it was impossible to distinguish a body from the shadowy contours coming towards us, enveloped in swirling snow.

‘Live! Get out your book!’

‘OK, OK. What subject have we got now?’

‘Are you serious? Don’t you know?’

‘No-oo!’

‘Six months you’ve been here for the first lesson on Monday morning. We always have the same subject. And that is . . .?’

Her eyes stared at me nervously.

‘You don’t remember?’ I said.

Neither did I. Panic rose in me like water in a blocked toilet.

She shook her head.

‘Does anyone know?’

Everyone looked at me. Did they understand?

No.

There. Kai Roald opened his mouth. ‘Christianity,’ he said.

‘Oh yes, Christianity!’ she said. ‘Of course. I knew that. I just went all blank for a moment.’

‘You’re always all blank,’ Kai Roald said.

She looked daggers at him.

‘And you aren’t?’ I said.

He chuckled. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘I’ve gone blank too for the moment,’ I said. ‘But it’s no good. We have to get through the syllabus. And we can only do that by working hard.’

‘That’s what you always say,’ Vivian said.

‘But it’s true. Do you think I stand here talking about Martin Luther for my sake? I know enough about him. But you don’t know anything. You’re a bunch of ignoramuses. But on the other hand all thirteen-year-olds are, so it’s not your fault. By the way is there anyone who knows what an ignoramus is?’

Complete silence.

‘Has it got something to do with ignorant?’ Andrea said. A faint blush rose up her cheeks as she watched her hand doodling on her book.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘To ignore is to fail to notice or to show no interest. An ignorant person is someone who shows no interest in anything. And if you aren’t interested in anything you don’t know anything about it either.’

‘Then I’m ignorant,’ Kai Roald said.

‘No, you’re not. You know lots of things.’

‘Such as what?’

‘You know a lot about cars, don’t you? More than me anyway! And you know a lot about fishing. I know nothing about that.’

‘Why haven’t you got your driving licence, by the way? You’re eighteen after all,’ Vivian said.

I shrugged. ‘I can manage fine without.’

‘But you have to get a lift whenever you want to go anywhere!’ Vivian said.

‘I get around, don’t I?’ I said. ‘But that’s enough now. Let’s get on with our work.’

I stood up.

‘What do you know about Martin Luther?’

‘Nothing,’ Hildegunn said.

‘Nothing?’ I said. ‘Absolutely nothing?’

‘Yes,’ said Live.

‘Was he Norwegian?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Hildegunn.

‘What nationality was he then?’

Hildegunn shrugged. ‘German, wasn’t he?’

‘Is he alive now?’

‘Of course not!’

‘When did he live? When your parents were small? 1960s?’ I said.

‘He lived in the olden days,’ Vivian said.

‘In the 1500s,’ Hildegunn said.

‘What did he do? Was he a plumber? Fisherman? Driver?’

‘No,’ Kai Roald said and giggled.

‘He was a priest,’ Andrea said in the casual way that was intended to show that this was one of many things she knew.

‘You know
loads
,’ I said. ‘Martin Luther was a priest who lived in Germany in the sixteenth century. Now you find out ten things about Martin Luther and write them down. Then we’ll go through them at the end of the lesson.’

‘How will we find them out?’ Vivian asked.

‘Isn’t it your job to tell us actually?’ Hildegunn said. ‘Isn’t that what you get paid for?’

‘I get paid for teaching you,’ I said. ‘And there won’t always be a teacher in front of you telling you what you need to know. So what do you do? You have to learn where you can find things out. Don’t you? Look them up in a book. Find an encyclopedia. I don’t mind what you do as long as you find out ten things. Off you go!’

With sighs and groans and grimaces they got up and made for the school’s modest library, each armed with a pencil and a notebook. I sat down behind my desk and looked up at the clock on the wall. Half an hour left. Once this was over, there were five lessons left. And Monday was crossed off. Then there were Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday left.

This weekend I would definitely have to write. No trip to Finnsnes during the day, no party in the evening, just sit in front of the computer from the moment I got up to the moment I went to bed.

I had five short stories now, apart from the two stories based on dreams. All of them had the same protagonist, Gabriel, and the same cast of characters. The action took place in Tybakken. What was strange was how close the place was to me. Sitting in front of the typewriter was like opening a door to it. The scene rose inside me in its entirety and repressed everything around me. There was the road outside the house, there was the tall spruce with the stream running past, there was the slope down to Ubekilen, the stone wall, the rocky outcrop, the boathouse, the crooked rickety pontoon, the island with all the seagulls. If anyone rang my doorbell now, and they did all the time, fourth years, seventh years, the tall ninth year who for some reason gravitated towards me, some of the young fishermen, I would jump out of my skin. It didn’t feel as though my childhood surroundings were intruding on the present but vice versa: I was really back in my childhood, and it was the present that was intruding. If I was interrupted, a whole hour or more could pass before Tybakken would be in the ascendancy again.

That was what I longed for. When the trees were trees, not ‘trees’, cars not ‘cars’, when dad was dad, not ‘dad’.

I got up and took a few steps into the open-plan area so that I could see what they were doing. Everyone was sitting around the table in the library, apart from Andrea and Hildegunn, who were heading for their chairs.

‘Did you find anything?’ I said as they walked past.

‘Of course,’ Hildegunn said. ‘We’ve finished. What shall we do now?’

‘Sit down and wait.’

In the classroom beyond, separated from the library by a long stack of bookshelves, sat the third and fourth years bent over their desks, some with their hands in the air, while Torill went round helping them. In the other corner of the room sat the first years, on cushions, around Hege, she was reading from a book, they were staring ahead, their eyes dreamy, their faces sleepy. She caught my gaze, looked up without a pause in her reading and smiled at me. I rolled my eyes, turned to my classroom and met Andrea’s look. She had been sitting watching me. Now she looked down.

‘What did you find out then?’ I said.

‘Do you want to hear now?’ Hildegunn said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really. We’ll wait until the others have finished.’

‘Why did you ask then?’ said Andrea.

‘Reflex action,’ I said.

Across the carpet came Kai Roald and Vivian. After they had sat down I walked over to the library corner, where Live was still busy writing.

‘How’s it going?’ I said.

‘I’ve got five,’ she said. ‘No, six.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘That’ll do. You can write down the last four as we go through them.’

She picked up her bits and bobs with that serious expression she put on when somebody told her to do something. But she was unable to conceal her great inner insecurity, at least not from me. What her peers saw when they looked at her was not easy to say.

We spent the last twenty minutes of the lesson going through their points. I talked and expanded while they watched me with vacant eyes. What good Martin Luther would do them I had no idea. For them it was probably more about being here and writing in their notebooks with their pencils. Sitting on their seats and listening to someone talking about something.

The bell rang. They asked if they could stay indoors in the break, the weather was so bad, I said absolutely not, off you go, waited while they put on their jackets and hats, went into the staffroom, where everyone was busy with their own preoccupations, and sat down with a cup of coffee, which was already bitter after an hour in the machine.