Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (49 page)

‘They have been! If they’d stayed here we could have hunted them. But where they are, there are others chasing after them.’

I put the plate and glass on the worktop and went into the bedroom to fetch my swimming gear.

‘Now I finally understand what’s meant by the term “happy hunting grounds”,’ I said. ‘I’ve never understood what was supposed to be so fantastic about it. Running around in the forest until eternity. But obviously it was meant in a figurative sense.’

‘I don’t know how fantastic it is,’ Nils Erik said in a loud voice so that I could hear him. ‘It’s a lot of work and there’s little to show for it at the end. At least for me. Much, much better to be in a relationship.’

I put my trunks and a towel into a plastic bag, considered whether I needed anything else, no, that should do it.

‘When was the last time you were in a relationship?’ I said.

‘Three years ago,’ he said and moved towards the door when he saw me emerge with the bag in my hand.

‘What about one of the other temporary teachers?’ I said. He was bending down and tying his laces, and straightened up a touch redder in the face.

‘If they fancy it, fine by me,’ he said.

We walked up the steep hill in silence, walking was as much as we could manage in the gale. Snow stung against the skin I hadn’t covered. When we closed the school door behind us it was like leaving the top deck of a large ship and going inside. Nils Erik switched on the light, we bounded down the stairs in long strides, sat on opposite sides of the dressing room and changed. Although the wind made the walls creak and the ventilation howl, it still seemed quiet indoors. Perhaps because of the lack of movement? All the rooms were empty, the pool was empty and smooth and still.

The smell of chlorine cast a spell over me. Childhood memories of when we used to go swimming every week in Stintahallen came flooding back: the conical bags of sweets we bought at the little shop, the taste of the boiled sweets shaped like nuts and bolts, green and black, liquorice and mint. The light displays around the pool, which were supposed to represent tropical waterfalls. The white bathing hat with the Norwegian flag on the side, the dark blue goggles.

I pulled on my trunks and went into the small swimming hall, the tiles were cold and rough on the soles of my feet, the snow eddied round in the light of the lamp outside, behind it the great black void.

The surface of the water was dark with a faint shimmer of blue from the bottom of the pool and as shiny as a mirror. Almost a shame to break it, I thought. I definitely wasn’t going to dive in. No, instead I would climb down the metal ladder and try to make as few ripples as possible. All in vain, for along came Nils Erik: he ran to the edge and threw himself into the water with a splash. Swam underwater to the far side, where he broke the surface with a snort and a toss of the head.

‘Wonderful!’ he shouted. ‘What’s up with you, you wimp?’

‘Me, nothing!’ I shouted back.

‘You’re getting into the water like some old dear!’

Suddenly I remembered how I had once tricked Dag Lothar. I had got into the pool a few minutes before him, turned my bathing cap inside out so that it was all white, pulled it away from my head so that it was wrinkled and looked like the caps old ladies wore, and started to swim in a studiously slow style with my head as far out of the water as I could manage. This mimicking of an old lady swimming was so good that Dag Lothar didn’t see me, even though there were only four of us in the big pool. He glanced at me, categorised me wrongly and thus I didn’t exist. He called my name and when he received no answer went back into the changing room.

Chest first, I moved slowly out into the water, ducked my head beneath the surface and took a couple of powerful strokes that were almost enough for me to glide to the far edge. Nils Erik was ploughing along on the other side, doing front crawl. I swam as fast as I could for a few lengths, then stopped at the end by the window and gazed out into the snowstorm.

I turned, rested my elbows on the edge and watched the white foam spraying up around Nils Erik’s thrashing arms and legs, and was reminded of what Geir’s father had once said, that you should lie as if on cotton when you swim crawl, and behind Nils Erik I saw the open door to the empty rooms beyond.

Shit, I had forgotten. The sauna.

I dragged myself out of the water, went to the changing room and switched on the stove. When I went back I dived in and swam back and forth for perhaps half an hour until we decided to give up.

We sat on the top bench in the sauna. I poured water on the stones in the stove, a wave of hot steam met my skin and drifted further into the small cube-shaped room.

‘This is the biggest fringe benefit we get with the job,’ Nils Erik said, stroking the wet hair at the back of his head.

‘It’s also the only one,’ I said.

‘Free coffee,’ he said. ‘And newspapers. And cake at the farewell do.’

‘Hurrah,’ I said.

There was a pause. He moved down to a lower bench.

‘Have you had lots of other jobs?’ I said at length, leaning back against the wall. The heat was making my head heavy, as though it was slowly being filled with lead or something similar.

‘No. Just the health service. Oh, and the parks a couple of summers ago. And you?’

‘Gardening, floor factory, newspaper, nuthouse. And radio. But it wasn’t paid, so I suppose that doesn’t count.’

‘No,’ he said lethargically. I looked at him. He had closed his eyes and was leaning back with his elbows on the step where I was sitting. There was an energy and vivacity about his personality that seemed to conflict with something else, an old-man-ish quality that was hard to define because it didn’t manifest itself in anything specific, it was more an aura he had, I only noticed it in a negative way, when for example I was taken aback that he had heard of the Jesus and Mary Chain and liked them, because why indeed would he not have heard of them?

He sat up straight and turned to me.

‘Karl Ove,’ he said. ‘Just had a thought. You know Hilda’s cottage?’

‘Hilda’s cottage? What’s that?’

‘The yellow house on the bend. It used to belong to Hilda, Eva’s mother-in-law. She died a few years ago, and now the house is empty. I’ve had a chat with them, and they’d be happy to rent it out. After all, it’ll fall into disrepair faster if no one’s living there. So they don’t want much rent. Five hundred a month, that’s all.’

‘And?’ I said.

‘Living in a whole house on my own is no good. I wondered perhaps if we could rent it? We’d save loads of money on accommodation, and food would be cheaper if there were two of us. What do you reckon?’

‘Ye-es,’ I said. ‘Why not?’

‘We can have a room each and share the rest.’

‘But everyone will think we’re a couple of gay boys,’ I said. ‘Two young teachers have found each other, they’ll say.’

He laughed. ‘And here we are in the sauna all alone . . .’

‘So the rumours have already started?’

‘No, are you out of your mind? You’ve shown an unequivocal interest in the opposite sex up here. No one is in any doubt about your preferences. Well, are you in or out?’

‘Yes. I mean no. I have to write and for that I need to be alone.’

‘There’s a room next to the sitting room. You can have that. It’s perfect.’

‘OK, why not then,’ I said.

After we had got dressed and were on our way upstairs I asked him about something that had been occupying my mind for a long time but which my nakedness had prevented me from articulating.

‘I’ve got a little problem in the area we touched on the other day,’ I said.

‘What was that?’ he said.

‘About sex,’ I said.

‘Come on. Out with it!’ he said.

‘It’s not easy to talk about,’ I said. ‘But the thing is . . . well, I come too quickly. Put bluntly. That’s the long and short of it.’

‘Ah, a classic,’ he said. ‘And?’

‘No, there’s nothing else. I was just wondering if you had any tips. When it happens it doesn’t feel great, but I’m sure you understand.’

‘How quickly are we talking about here? A minute? Three minutes? Five?’

‘Erm, it varies,’ I said, inserting the key into the lock of the large glass door and pushing it open. My skin was so hot after the sauna that the cold wind didn’t bite, I watched it sweep between the buildings but barely noticed it. ‘Maybe three or four?’

‘That’s not bad, you know, Karl Ove,’ he said, winding his scarf around his neck, pulling his hat well down over his ears. ‘Four minutes, that’s a pretty long time.’

‘How do you get on in this area?’

‘Me? The opposite. I can hump away till eternity and nothing happens. In fact, that’s a problem too. I can be at it for half an hour without getting near an orgasm. Sometimes I just have to give up.’

We set off down the road.

‘And when you beat the meat?’ he said. ‘Is it the same?’

My cheeks went red, but he couldn’t see that in the dark. He wasn’t expecting a lie, so I was on safe ground.

‘About the same,’ I said.

‘Mhm,’ he said. ‘I’ve got problems there too. Well, you may have realised that today. I can keep at it for ever.’

‘Do you think it’s physiological?’ I said. ‘Or is it a mental thing? I wish I could swap. The opposite problem would be a thousand times better.’

‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Probably physiological. I’ve always been like this anyway. Ever since the first time. So I don’t know anything else. But I’ve heard it’s supposed to help if you pinch the tip. Hard. Or pull at the scrotum. Then just keep pumping.’

‘I’ll try that next time,’ I said and smiled into the darkness.

‘Yes, should an opportunity ever present itself,’ he said.

‘At Christmas, for example? All the young women from the district will be back then.’

‘Do you reckon they’ll be coming back here to get laid? I don’t think so. I think they’re getting it where they are now and they come back here for some R & R ready to go again in January.’

‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ I said, and came to a halt, we had reached the road to my flat. ‘If everything goes through with the house when do we move in?’

‘We have to give notice first and so on. After Christmas? If we shorten our holiday by two days we can do it then.’

‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘See you!’

I raised my hand and waved, opened the door and went in. Ate eight slices of bread and drank half a litre of milk, lay down on the sofa and read the first pages of a new book I had bought:
The Big Adventure
by Jan Kjærstad. I had read
Mirrors
and
Homo Falsus
by him before and had just borrowed
The Earth Turns Quietly
from the library in Finnsnes. But this one was new, it had just been published, and the first thing I did when I held it in my hand was to smell the fresh paper. Then I flicked backwards and forwards. Every chapter started with a big O. Some of the chapters were set in several columns – one column looked like notes and popped up here and there alongside another, which was the main story. Some chapters were letters. Some were printed in bold type, some in italics, some in normal font. Something called Hazar and something called Enigma cropped up at regular intervals. And definitions of k – that had to stand for
kjærlighet
, love.

I started reading the first page.

She was very young. Neck as fresh as dew. They stood a metre apart, in their own worlds. He had felt the tension, even with his back to her, he turned and stole a glance. An enormous kick. Made a few feints with his leg. She noticed, smiled. Sparks between kohl and mascara. She thrust her right shoulder in his direction, twice, a different beat, bit her lower lip, lowered her gaze. The percussion and bass set off a funky groove in his sensory receptors. Contrary to nature to stand still. He took a few steps on the carpet, towards her, away from her, inviting, teasing. She mimicked his steps, same rhythm, tiger wrinkles by her nose. Black curly hair, neckerchief wound around her forehead, brazen make-up. What was she listening to? Cramps? Split Beavers? ViViVox? Kimono jacket with leaf pattern, baggy silk trousers, sandals with toe strap. Breath-taking. And around her: the covers’ flickering kaleidoscope of figures, forms and fancy calligraphy.

I read it over and over again. The style was so alien, and yet so cool with the short incomplete sentences, all the alliteration and the sprinkling of English words. And the foreign words. Kimono – that was Japanese. Tiger wrinkles – that was Indian and animalistic. Kohl – that sounded German, was it? Within the space of a few lines a whole world was opened up to me. And it was a different world, it had something futuristic about it, which attracted me. But I couldn’t write like that, even if I wanted to, it would be impossible. When I read
Vinduet
, which Kjærstad edited, I knew as good as none of the names and the featured titles and only a few of the terms used.
About Burning The Aeneid
, one article was called, for some reason it rumbled around in my head, cropping up here, there and everywhere, although I had no idea what the Aeneid was. All this was postmodernism, Kjærstad was the greatest Norwegian postmodernist writer, and although I liked it, or the whole world that I suspected lay behind what stood in the text, I didn’t know what it was or where it actually existed. Toe strap,
tårem
in Norwegian, was there some echo there with
harem
and the Orient? Kjærstad’s books were full of the Orient, a
Thousand and One Nights
atmosphere, narratives within narratives, and I imagined part of what he was doing was drawing that world into ours, along with a host of other worlds. What it meant, I had no idea, but intuitively I liked it, in the same way that intuitively I disliked Milan Kundera. Kundera was also a postmodernist writer, but he completely lacked this embracing of other worlds, with him the world was always the same, it was Prague and Czechoslovakia and the Soviets who had either invaded or were on the point of doing so, and that was fine, but he kept withdrawing his characters from the plot, intervening and going on about something or other while the characters stood still, waiting as it were, by the window or wherever it was they happened to be until he had finished his explanation and they could move forward. Then you saw that the plot was only ‘a plot’ and that the characters were only ‘characters’, something he had invented, you knew they didn’t exist, and so why should you read about them? Kundera’s polar opposite was Hamsun, no one went as far into his characters’ world as he did, and that was what I preferred, at least in a comparison of these two, the physicality and the realism of
Hunger
, for example. There the world had weight, there even the thoughts were captured, while with Kundera the thoughts elevated themselves above the world and did as they liked with it. Another difference I had noticed was that European novels often had only one plot, everything followed one track as it were, while South American novels had a multiplicity of tracks and sidetracks, indeed, compared with European novels, they almost exploded with plots. One of my favourites was
A Hundred Years of Solitude
by García Márquez, but I also loved
Love in the Time of Cholera
. Kjærstad had a little of the same, but in a European way, and there was also something of Kundera in him. That was my opinion anyway.