Read Online Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 by Karl Ove Knausgaard - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Karl Ove Knausgaard
Tags: Biographical, Literary, Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Family Life, Genre Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction
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everything was great.
I didn’t have a class in the next slot, so after eating two rolls and putting the rest in the tiny staffroom fridge, I sat down at my workstation to plan the next few days’ teaching. The temporary teachers had been allocated a mentor, who would come to see us once a week so that we could discuss any problems or difficulties we had in our classes. We were also going on a course next week, in Finnsnes, with all the other temporary teachers in the district. For there were many of them; the locals who trained as teachers seldom moved back when the training was over. All sorts of measures had been implemented to remedy this, it was a big problem, of course. Where dad lived now there were huge tax incentives, and that was one of the reasons that he and Unni had moved north. They both worked at a
gymnas
or, to be more precise, at present only dad was working because Unni was expecting a child. The last time I saw them, a few weeks ago in the terraced house they had bought in Sørland, which was waiting for them after they had completed their contract in the north, her belly had been enormous.
That was where I had got the idea to come up here. We had been sitting on the veranda, dad bare-chested, as brown as a nut, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, me with a crucifix dangling from one ear and wearing sunglasses, when he had asked me what I was going to do in the autumn. His gaze was anywhere else but on me, also when he asked, his voice was tired and apathetic, a touch slurred from all the beers he had drunk since I arrived, and so I answered in a sort of lackadaisical way, although it hurt me. I shrugged and said I definitely wasn’t going to study or do military service. Work somewhere, I said. In a hospital or something.
He straightened up and stubbed out his cigarette in the large ashtray on the table between us. The air was heavy with pollen, everywhere there was the buzz of bees and wasps in the air. Why don’t you do some teaching, then? he said and slumped back in the chair, perhaps twenty kilos heavier now than the last time I had seen him. You can get a job in Northern Norway any day of the week, you know. As long as you’ve been to
gymnas
they’ll welcome you with open arms. Maybe, I said. I’ll think about it. You do that, he said. If you want another beer you know where the crate is. OK, why not, I said and went into the living room, which was pitch black after the bright light outside, and into the kitchen, where Unni was reading the paper. She smiled at me. She was wearing khaki shorts and a baggy grey top. I’m going to have another beer, I said. You do that, she said. It’s your summer holiday after all. True, I said. Is there an opener anywhere? Yes, there’s one on the table over there, she said. Are you hungry? Not particularly, I said. It’s so hot, isn’t it. But you’re going to stay the night, aren’t you? she asked. Yes, I said. So we can eat later, she said. I leaned back and took a long swig. I should be doing some work in the garden, she said. But it’s simply too hot. Yes, I said. And my stomach’s beginning to get in the way. Yes, I said. I can see. Don’t you want to go for a swim in the lake? Sounds like there are lots of people down there today. I shook my head. She smiled, I smiled, and then I went back out to dad. You got yourself one, I see, he said. Yes, I said and sat down again. In the old days he would have been working in the garden now. And if not he would have been keenly watching everything going on around him, even if it was only a car stopping and a young man leaning over to a window that was being wound down. But all that had gone. In his eyes was only indifference, apathy. However, the situation was not so black and white because when I observed him, and his eye caught mine, I could sense
he
was still there, the hardness, the coldness I had grown up with and still feared.
He swayed forward and put the empty bottle on the
I didn’t have a class in the next slot, so after eating two rolls and putting the rest in the tiny staffroom fridge, I sat down at my workstation to plan the next few days’ teaching. The temporary teachers had been allocated a mentor, who would come to see us once a week so that we could discuss any problems or difficulties we had in our classes. We were also going on a course next week, in Finnsnes, with all the other temporary teachers in the district. For there were many of them; the locals who trained as teachers seldom moved back when the training was over. All sorts of measures had been implemented to remedy this, it was a big problem, of course. Where dad lived now there were huge tax incentives, and that was one of the reasons that he and Unni had moved north. They both worked at a
gymnas
or, to be more precise, at present only dad was working because Unni was expecting a child. The last time I saw them, a few weeks ago in the terraced house they had bought in Sørland, which was waiting for them after they had completed their contract in the north, her belly had been enormous.
That was where I had got the idea to come up here. We had been sitting on the veranda, dad bare-chested, as brown as a nut, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, me with a crucifix dangling from one ear and wearing sunglasses, when he had asked me what I was going to do in the autumn. His gaze was anywhere else but on me, also when he asked, his voice was tired and apathetic, a touch slurred from all the beers he had drunk since I arrived, and so I answered in a sort of lackadaisical way, although it hurt me. I shrugged and said I definitely wasn’t going to study or do military service. Work somewhere, I said. In a hospital or something.
He straightened up and stubbed out his cigarette in the large ashtray on the table between us. The air was heavy with pollen, everywhere there was the buzz of bees and wasps in the air. Why don’t you do some teaching, then? he said and slumped back in the chair, perhaps twenty kilos heavier now than the last time I had seen him. You can get a job in Northern Norway any day of the week, you know. As long as you’ve been to
gymnas
they’ll welcome you with open arms. Maybe, I said. I’ll think about it. You do that, he said. If you want another beer you know where the crate is. OK, why not, I said and went into the living room, which was pitch black after the bright light outside, and into the kitchen, where Unni was reading the paper. She smiled at me. She was wearing khaki shorts and a baggy grey top. I’m going to have another beer, I said. You do that, she said. It’s your summer holiday after all. True, I said. Is there an opener anywhere? Yes, there’s one on the table over there, she said. Are you hungry? Not particularly, I said. It’s so hot, isn’t it. But you’re going to stay the night, aren’t you? she asked. Yes, I said. So we can eat later, she said. I leaned back and took a long swig. I should be doing some work in the garden, she said. But it’s simply too hot. Yes, I said. And my stomach’s beginning to get in the way. Yes, I said. I can see. Don’t you want to go for a swim in the lake? Sounds like there are lots of people down there today. I shook my head. She smiled, I smiled, and then I went back out to dad. You got yourself one, I see, he said. Yes, I said and sat down again. In the old days he would have been working in the garden now. And if not he would have been keenly watching everything going on around him, even if it was only a car stopping and a young man leaning over to a window that was being wound down. But all that had gone. In his eyes was only indifference, apathy. However, the situation was not so black and white because when I observed him, and his eye caught mine, I could sense
he
was still there, the hardness, the coldness I had grown up with and still feared.
He swayed forward and put the empty bottle on the
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