‘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.
I leaned over her desk.
‘I can’t do this one,’ she said.
She pointed to a sum with her pencil. Her eyes darted to and fro behind her glasses. I explained it to her, she sighed and groaned, which was her way of playing down her ignorance in front of friends.
‘Are you with me?’ I said.
‘Yes, I am,’ she said and waved me away.
‘Teacher.’ Vivian giggled. ‘Teacher, I can’t do this one, teacher!’
When I leaned over her it was as if she was completely at sea. Her face was blank and expressionless, her eyes were blank and expressionless. The receptivity I sensed in her was a little eerie.
‘Why have you got stuck on this one?’ I said. ‘You’ve cracked fifteen of them in exactly the same way before!’
She rolled her shoulders.
‘Have another go,’ I said. ‘Look at the other sums. If you can’t do it I’ll come and help. OK?’
‘OK, teacher,’ she said, glancing round with a giggle.
As I straightened up I looked straight into Andrea’s eyes.
There was a longing in them, and my cheeks burned.
‘Everything OK?’ I said.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I need some help.’
My heart beat faster as I stopped beside her. Oh, it was ridiculous, but the awareness that she might be in love with me made it suddenly impossible to behave normally.
I leaned over and she seemed to shrink back. Her breathing changed. Her eyes were locked on to the book. I could smell the fragrance of her shampoo, I studiously avoided any form of contact, placed my finger on the first number she had written. She stroked her hair to the side, rested one elbow on the table. It was as if everything we did had become conscious: every detail became visible and it was no longer unthinking and natural but considered and artificial.
‘There’s the slip,’ I said. ‘Can you see it?’
She blushed, said yes in a soft voice, pointed to the next sum, what about this one, said yes again after a few seconds in a soft low voice, and her breathing, hers, was tremulous.
I stood up and walked on, surveyed the whole class and the whole teaching area, but I had not been left unmoved, the tiny moment lived on, and to release myself from it I collected all the books on the desk, piled them high with a bang and addressed the whole class. The moment had to be destroyed by a new, a greater moment. And I had to make the class a place for everyone, a unit, a class that would learn.
‘It looks as if some of you are having the same problem,’ I said. ‘Let’s go through it on the board. Fifth and sixth years close your ears.’
Once it was done the lesson proceeded as before. Even before I realised that Andrea had feelings for me I had been careful to keep my distance from the pupils. I never put my arm around them, indeed I never touched them at all, and if the conversation or jokes went too far, into vaguely sexual areas, I always stopped them. The other teachers didn’t need to do this, for them distance was a fact of life which nothing could break. For me it was something I had to create.
~ ~ ~
In the afternoon I rang dad. His voice was sombre and cold and sober. He asked me how things were, I said fine but I was looking forward to the Christmas holidays.
‘Are you going to celebrate Christmas with your mother?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘We thought you would. Fredrik isn’t coming either. So we’re off down south again this year. You’ve got a sister here, Karl Ove. Don’t forget that.’
Did he really think I would fall for that? If I had said I wanted to celebrate Christmas with them they would have come up with a thousand and one excuses. He didn’t want me there. So why the impression that we were letting him down?