Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 (51 page)

The door at the end of the building kept opening and shutting as pupils trickled in. Every time it did I automatically looked up and across. To the right of the door was the part of the block my class used. Nils Erik was teaching them, he sat behind the desk staring into the air while waiting for them to quieten down.

In came Reidar and Andrea. They were brother and sister, they walked to school together, arrived late together, what was so touching about that?

Reidar set off at a run across the floor, must have remembered they weren’t allowed to run, then stopped with a jolt and looked at me, and walked quickly to his place. From the other side Andrea watched us. I met her stare. She immediately turned her head to the side, to where the seventh class was, and she joined them a moment later.

This little interlude ought to have been perfectly natural, but it wasn’t, there was a woodenness about Andrea’s movements, as though she was forcing herself to perform them.

‘Hi, Karl Ove,’ Reidar said with a smile. He used my name as a kind of buffer, to make a reprimand for lateness harder because of the friendly interaction. He was a crafty little devil.

‘Hi, Reidar,’ I said. ‘Sit down. You’ve held up the whole lesson now.’

Andrea was in love with me.

Of course.

That explained her behaviour. All the looks, all the evasiveness, all the blushes.

A warm feeling spread through me. I got up and went to the board.

‘What does it mean to have a profession?’ I said. ‘What is a profession?’

Poor little girl.

‘A job,’ Reidar said.

‘Put your hand up if you know,’ I said.

He put up his hand. Fortunately some others did too. I pointed to Lovisa.

‘It means having a job,’ she said.

‘That’s what I said!’ Reidar said.

‘Could you give me some examples of professions, Lovisa?’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Fisherman.’

‘Good,’ I said and wrote it up. ‘Any more?’

‘Working in the fish hall?’

‘Yes! Any more professions? Hands up!’

Suggestions poured in. Bus driver, lorry driver, truck driver, shop assistant, ship’s captain, cleaner, policeman, fireman. It was typical that ‘teacher’ never occurred to them, even though one was standing right in front of them. For them it wasn’t a proper job. Chatting to children day in, day out.

‘What about me?’ I said at length. ‘Haven’t I got a profession?’

‘You’re a teacher! Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!’ they called out.

‘And if you’re ill?’

‘Nurse! Doctor! Ambulance driver!’

When the board was full I asked them to write down the job they would like to have, say why, describe what it involved and draw a picture. While they were doing that I walked around monitoring, chatting with them on an individual basis and standing by the window with my hands on my hips staring into the darkness. The thought that she was in love with me was touching, both warming and sad.

I went up to the desk, we began to go through what they had written and we covered a little more than half before the bell rang. In the following lesson we continued where we had left off, changed to reading from the textbook, they answered the questions in it, and then in the last twenty minutes I read an excerpt from
One Thousand and One Nights
. When I took out the book and started reading they left their chairs and sat in a semicircle on the carpet in front of me, they always did that, it must have been what they were used to from the first or the second class, and I liked it, I felt as if I was giving them something warm and secure. Or rather that they turned a normal situation into something warm and secure. Blank-eyed, they sat listening to the oriental tales, somehow turned in on themselves, as though they were sitting before the fount of their soul, in the midst of the desert of their minds, and saw all the camels, all the silk, all the flying carpets, all the spirits and robbers, mosques and bazaars, all the burning love and sudden death, the billowing mirages across the empty blue sky of consciousness. To them it made no difference that a world more different from theirs, from where they sat on the edge of the world in complete darkness and freezing temperatures, could hardly be imagined; the story took place in their minds, where everything was possible, where everything was permitted.

In the lesson afterwards I had the fifth, sixth and seventh years for Norwegian.

‘OK, let’s get cracking,’ I said as I entered. ‘Sit down and take out your books!’

‘Are you in a bad mood today?’ Hildegunn said.

‘Don’t you try any red herrings,’ I said. ‘Come on, books out. We’re going to do a bit of group work today. By which I mean you’re going to work in pairs. Hildegunn and Andrea, put your desks together. Jørn and Live. Kai Roald and Vivian. Come on. Do you always have to dilly-dally?’

They placed their desks together in the way I had explained. Apart from Kai Roald. He sat with his elbows on his desk and his cheeks in his hands.

‘You too, Kai Roald,’ I said. ‘Move your desk next to Vivian’s. You’ll be working together.’

He looked up at me and shook his head. Stared into space again.

‘There’s no choice,’ I said. ‘You have to. Come on now.’

‘I’m not doing it,’ he said.

I went over to him.

‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Come on now, move your desk over.’

‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘I’m not doing it.’

‘Why not?’ I said.

The others, who had finished their manoeuvres, sat watching us.

‘I don’t want to,’ he said.

‘Shall I do it for you?’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘Did you hear what I said? I’m not doing it.’

‘But you’ve GOT TO,’ I said.

He shook his head.

I grabbed the desk on both sides and lifted it. He pressed his forearms down on the top with all his might. I pulled harder, he grabbed it with his hands and held on, red-faced now. My heart was beating faster.

‘Now you do as I say!’ I said.

‘No!’ he said.

I snatched at the desk and took it from his grasp, carried it over to Vivian and put it down. He didn’t move from his chair.

‘I’m not budging,’ he said.

I held his arm, he wrenched it away.

‘Now you go and sit over there!’ I said in a loud voice. ‘Do you want me to carry you? Is that what you want?’

From the corner of my eye I sensed Hege watching us from the other side of the room.

He didn’t answer.

I went behind him and grabbed the seat of his chair, intending to lift it with him in it. He stood up, went behind his desk and grasped it with both hands, presumably to move it back.

‘Put the desk down!’ I said.

His face was scarlet, his eyes rigid and inaccessible. When he started moving the desk I seized it and tore it out of his hands.

‘You bloody horse prick!’ he shouted.

I put down the desk. Anger throbbed in my veins. My eyes were white with fury.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down, but it didn’t help, my entire body was shaking.

‘You can go home,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see you here any more today.’

‘What?’ he said.

‘Go,’ I said.

He suddenly fought back tears and looked down. ‘But I haven’t done anything,’ he said.

‘Go,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see you. Come on. Out. Out.’

He lifted his head, sent me a wild defiant glare, slowly turned and left.

‘Let’s make a start, shall we,’ I said with as much composure as I could muster. ‘Open the practice book at page forty-six.’

They did as I told them. Outside the windows Kai Roald walked past, swinging his arms, apparently unconcerned, staring ahead. I explained to them what they had to do. Glanced out of the window, he was walking beneath the light from the last lamp on the school premises, neck bent, head down. But I had behaved correctly, no one should be allowed to call a teacher a horse prick and go unpunished.

I sat down behind the desk. For the rest of the lesson I was completely out of myself, concerned only that the pupils should not notice anything.

In the staffroom Hege came over and asked what the kerfuffle had been about. I shrugged and said I’d had a difference of opinion with Kai Roald and he had called me a horse prick.

‘So I sent him home for the rest of the day. That’s not on.’

‘Things are different up here, you know,’ she said. ‘Swearing’s nowhere near as serious.’

‘It is for me,’ I said. ‘And I’m the form teacher.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said.

I went over and got a cup of coffee, sat down on my chair, leafed through a book. Then, in a flash, it came to me.

He didn’t want to sit next to Vivian because he was in love with her.

This sudden insight made me flush with embarrassment. Oh, what an idiot I had been! How stupid could you be? Sending a pupil home was serious, he would have to explain himself, and his parents wouldn’t believe it was the teacher’s fault. But it was.

I liked Kai Roald.

So he was in love, that was all!

But it was too late, I couldn’t undo anything now.

I went back into the staffroom, picked up the newspaper from the table, sat down and started reading. At the end of the small vestibule the door opened. It was Richard. He spotted me.

‘Karl Ove,’ he said, and beckoned. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

‘Certainly,’ I said, and got up.

‘Let’s go into my office, shall we,’ he said.

I followed him in silence. He closed the door behind us and turned to me.

‘Kai Roald’s mother has just rung,’ he said. ‘She said he’d been sent home. What happened?’

‘He refused to do what I asked him to do,’ I said. ‘We had a little altercation. He called me a horse prick, and so I told him to leave. That’s where I draw the line.’

Richard studied me for a while. Then he lowered himself onto the chair behind his broad desk.

‘Sending someone home is a serious measure,’ he said. ‘It’s the most severe punishment we have. A lot has to happen before we do that. But you know that. Kai Roald is a fine fellow. Do we agree on that?’

‘Yes, no question. But that isn’t what this is about.’

‘Hang on a moment. This is Northern Norway. It’s a bit rougher up here than down south. We don’t take swearing seriously, for example. Calling you what he called you isn’t good, but nor is it as grave a crime as you seem to believe. The boy’s got temperament. Surely he’s allowed to have that?’

‘I will not put up with being called a horse prick by a pupil. Regardless of where in the world it happens,’ I said.

‘No, no, of course not,’ he said. ‘I appreciate that. But there are always ways of resolving conflict. There has to be a bit of give and take. Sending a pupil home is absolutely the last resort. I have a feeling that your disagreement hadn’t really got that far. Am I right?’

I didn’t answer.

‘You haven’t been a teacher for long, Karl Ove,’ he said. ‘And even the most experienced of us make the wrong calls on a regular basis. But next time, if you can’t resolve a situation yourself, come and get me. Or bring the pupil to see me.’

In your dreams.

‘I’ll consider that if it happens again,’ I said.

‘It will happen again,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to sort this one out anyway. You’d better ring Kai Roald’s mother and explain why he was sent home.’

‘Isn’t it enough if I give him a message tomorrow?’ I said.

‘She rang here and was very worried. So I think it would be best if you spoke to her.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Then I will.’

He held out an open palm to indicate the grey telephone on his desk. ‘You can use this one.’

‘But the bell’s about to ring,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it in the next break.’

‘I’ll take your lesson for the first few minutes. Who have you got?’

‘Fifth, sixth and seventh years.’

He nodded, got up and stood beside his desk.

Was he going to stand there while I made the call? Was he going to listen to the conversation? Was he a total bloody control freak?

I looked up the number in the phone book, found it and glanced at Richard, who didn’t bat an eyelid.

What a sack of shit he was.

I dialled the number.

‘Hello,’ said a woman’s voice.

‘Oh, hello, this is Karl Ove Knausgaard, Kai Roald’s form teacher.’

‘Oh, hi,’ she said.

‘Kai Roald and I had a disagreement this morning. He refused to do what I asked him to do and then he called me . . . well, he swore at me to my face. So I sent him home.’

‘Perfectly correct,’ she said. ‘Kai Roald can sometimes be a bit unruly.’

‘Yes, he can,’ I said. ‘But he’s a fine lad. It wasn’t that serious and there won’t be any consequences for him. He had to be taught a lesson though. Tomorrow everything will be back to normal. Is that all right?’

‘Yes. Thank you for ringing.’

‘No problem. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

The moment I put down the phone the bell rang. Richard nodded to me, I left his office without a word and went straight to the teaching block, where I would have maths with the fifth, sixth and seventh years. This was my weakest subject, I had nothing to say about it, there was nothing there that I could develop or make interesting, they did their sums in their exercise books and every now and then we went through new material on the board. They knew this and perhaps tried even harder at the beginning of lessons to distract me.

‘Who were you ringing?’ Vivian said after they had sat down.

‘How do you know I rang anyone?’ I said.

‘We saw you through the window,’ Andrea said. ‘You used the head teacher’s phone.’

‘Did you ring Kai Roald’s parents?’ Hildegunn said.

‘Is he coming back today?’ Vivian said.

‘It’s none of your business who I ring, as you know,’ I said. ‘The fact is if you don’t quieten down soon I’ll phone
your
parents.’

‘But they’re at work,’ Vivian said.

‘Vivian!’ I said.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘That’s enough now. Come on, down to work! That means you too, Jørn.’

Andrea had stretched her legs out under the desk and was rubbing her feet against each other while reading through the passage in the book with a pencil in her hand. Live was looking around her as she always did when she was stuck and didn’t want to show it. I watched Jørn doing the mental calculations at breakneck speed with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Then I met Live’s gaze and she put her hand up.