Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4 by Karl Ove Knausgaard Page B

small paperknife. I walked over.
    ‘I need some help,’ I said.
    He turned to face me.
    ‘Just a moment,’ he said.
    I went back to the wall of stereo racks. Waved to Nils Erik, who was flicking through a stand full of records.
    ‘Which one would you buy?’ I said.
    ‘None of them,’ he said. ‘Racks are shit.’
    ‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘But this is probably all they’ve got. And I only want it for while I’m up here.’
    He looked at me.
    ‘Are you shitting money? Or is Knausgaard a family of shipowners? You never told me!’
    ‘You can get one on HP. Look, 3,499 kroner for that one. That’s only a few hundred a month.’
    The assistant straightened up and looked around for me. A thin man with a bit of a gut, metal-rimmed glasses and a comb-over.
    I pointed to the Hitachi rack.
    ‘I’d like that one,’ I said. ‘I can buy it on HP, can’t I?’
    ‘As long as you’ve got a job, you can,’ he said.
    ‘I’m working as a teacher in Håfjord,’ I said.
    ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll have to fill in a few forms, so if you come over to the counter with me . . .’
    While I stood writing he went to the storeroom and fetched the stereo system.
    ‘Is this such a good idea?’ Nils Erik said. ‘With HP you pay almost double in the end. And the monthly instalments are painful. Our salary isn’t
that
good, either.’
    I glared at him. ‘Are you my mum or what?’
    ‘OK, OK, it’s your business,’ he said and went back to the records.
    ‘Yes, it is.’
    At that moment the assistant returned from the storeroom with a large cardboard box in his arms. He handed it to me, I held it while he checked the papers and my ID, and when he was satisfied, I carried it to the car and placed it on the rear seat.
    The next and final item on the agenda was the supermarket. Each trundling a trolley in front of us, we walked around plucking goods that weren’t available in the village shop from the shelves. My first target was two packets of cigarettes. At the back of the shop, next to the fruit counter, while Nils Erik was over by the pasta, I put the packets in my jacket, one in each pocket, then went on filling the trolley with food as normal. I always stole cigarettes when I shopped in supermarkets, and it was completely foolproof, I had never been caught. Stealing was closely related to freedom for me, about not giving a shit, doing what you wanted, not what you were supposed to do. It was a rebellious, nonconformist act while, as it were, pushing my personality towards one of the places where I wanted it to be. I stole, I was someone who stole.
    It always went well, nevertheless I was nervous as I pushed my trolley towards the little island where the cashier sat. But there was nothing unusual about her expression and there were no men discreetly approaching from any direction, so I placed the items on the conveyor belt one by one with my sweaty hands, paid, packed them into a bag and walked, quickly but not conspicuously so, out of the shop, then I stopped, lit up and waited for Nils Erik, who arrived at my side a minute later carrying two bulging plastic bags.
    The first kilometres were driven in silence. I was still annoyed with him for his moralising tone in the shop where I had bought the stereo. I hated it when people interfered in what I was doing, regardless of whether it was my mother, my brother, my teacher or my best friend: I didn’t want to know. No one had any business telling me what to do.
    He cast intermittent glances at me as he drove. The countryside around us had levelled out. Low trees, heather, moss, brooks, shallow, completely black tracts of water and, in the distance, chains of tall rugged peaks. He had filled the tank just outside Finnsnes, there was still a smell of petrol in the car, it made me feel slightly nauseous.
    He glanced at me again.
    ‘Could you put some music on? There are some cassettes in the glove compartment.’
    I opened it and transferred the pile of cassettes to